It’s a green light and we ride on, finally reaching Pluto minutes later. The foster home is a jacked-up duplex with the face of a battered building—bricks missing, indecipherable and colorful graffiti. There are bars on the ground floor windows, not because we’re criminals or anything like that, but so no one busts in and steals from a bunch of kids who’ve already lost enough. We leave our bikes down at the bottom of the steps, racing up to the door and letting ourselves in. We go down the hall, not bothering to tiptoe across the tacky, chessboard-like tiled floor into the living room, and even though there’s a bulletin board with information about sex, getting tested for HIV, abortion and adoption clinics, and other sheets of that nature, this place still feels like a home and not some institution.
There’s the fireplace that doesn’t work but still looks dope. The warm orange paint covering the walls, which had me ready for fall this summer. The oak table we’d gather around to play Cards Against Humanity and Taboo on weeknights after dinner. The TV where I’d watch this reality show Hipster House with Tagoe, even though Aimee hated all those hipsters so much she wished I watched cartoon porn instead. The couch where we’d take turns napping since it’s more comfortable than our beds.
We go up to the second floor, where our bedroom is, this tight spot that wouldn’t really be all that comfortable for one person, let alone three, but we make it work. There’s a window we keep open on the nights Tagoe eats beans, even if it’s mad loud outside.
“I gotta say it,” Tagoe says, closing the door behind us. “You’ve come really far. Think about all you’ve done since coming here.”
“There’s so much more I could be doing.” I sit on my bed and throw my head back on my pillow. “It’s mad pressure to do all my living in one day.” Might not even be a full day. I’ll be lucky to get twelve hours.
“No one’s expecting you to cure cancer or save endangered pandas,” Malcolm says.
“Yo, Death-Cast is lucky they can’t predict when an animal is gonna die,” Tagoe says, and I suck my teeth and shake my head because he’s speaking up for pandas when his best friend is dying. “What, it’s true! You would be the most hated dude on the planet if you called up the last panda ever. Imagine the media, there’d be selfies and—”
“We get it,” I interrupt. I’m not a panda so the media doesn’t give a shit about me. “You guys gotta do me the biggest favor. Wake up Jenn Lori and Francis. Tell them I wanna have a funeral before heading out.” Francis never really took a liking to me, but I got a home out of this arrangement and that’s more than others get.
“You should stay here,” Malcolm says. He opens up the only closet. “Maybe we can beat this. You can be the exception! We can lock you in here.”
“I’ll suffocate or the shelf with your heavy-ass clothes will collapse on my head.” He should know better than to believe in exceptions and shit like that. I sit up. “I don’t have a lot of time, guys.” I shake a little, but I get it together. I can’t let them see me freaking.
Tagoe twitches. “You gonna be okay by yourself?”
It takes a few seconds before I get what he’s really asking me. “I’m not offing myself,” I say.
I’m not trying to die.
They leave me alone in the room with laundry I’ll never have to worry about washing and summer course work I’ll never have to finish—or start. Bunched up in the corner of my bed is Aimee’s blanket, this yellow thing with a pattern of colorful cranes, which I wrap around my shoulders. It belonged to Aimee as a kid, a relic from her mother’s childhood. We started dating when she was still here at Pluto, and we’d rest underneath the blanket together and use it for the occasional living room picnic. Those were mad chill times. She didn’t ask for the blanket back after we broke up, which I think was her way of keeping me around, even when she wanted distance. Like I still have a chance with her.
This room couldn’t be more different from the bedroom I grew up in—beige walls instead of green; two extra beds, and roommates; half the size; no weights or video game posters—but it still feels like home, and it showed me how people matter more than stuff. Malcolm learned that lesson after firefighters put out the flames that burned his house, parents, and favorite things.
We keep it simple here.
Behind my bed, I have pictures thumb-tacked to the wall, all printed out by Aimee from my Instagram: Althea Park, where I always go to think; my sweaty white T-shirt hanging from my bike’s handlebars, taken after my first marathon last summer; an abandoned stereo on Christopher Street, playing a song I’d never heard before and never heard again; Tagoe with a bloody nose from that time we tried creating a handshake for the Plutos and it all went wrong because of a stupid head-butt; two sneakers—one size eleven, the other size nine—from that time I bought new kicks but didn’t make sure they matched before leaving the store; me and Aimee, my eyes uneven, kind of like when I’m high, which I wasn’t （yet）， but it’s still a keeper because the streetlight threw a cool glow on her; footprints in the mud from when I chased Aimee around the park after a long week of rain; two shadows sitting beside each other, which Malcolm wanted no part of, but I took anyway; and tons more I gotta leave behind for my boys when I walk out of here.