Parallel

bowls, but my mom always reaches for this one. “Am I allowed to ask for details?” She tosses me a bag of mini carrots.
    “About my day? Sure.” I crunch on a carrot. “I arrived just in time to miss the entire parking lot drawing. Good news is, I don’t have to worry about exercise this year, because I’ll get plenty of it hiking to and from the annex lot.”
    “I’m sorry, sweetie.”
    “Eh, it’s okay,” I reply, reaching for another carrot.
    “How about the rest of your day?” Mom asks. “You’re happy with that schedule you worked so hard on?”
    I open my mouth to complain about my unwelcome astronomy class, and Josh pops into my head. Josh whose last name I don’t even know. Astronomy Boy. My stomach does a little flip-flop at the thought of him.
    “I had to change it,” I tell her. “Good-bye, History of Music. Hello, Principles of Astronomy.”
    My mom is clearly puzzled by my smile. “Is this a good thing?”
    “I dunno,” I admit. “The teacher seems cool, and . . .” I hesitate, knowing that if I mention Josh, he will become the topic du jour.
    “And . . . ?”
    My cell phone rings from inside my bag.
    “Tell Caitlin I said hello,” Mom says, sitting back down at the table.
    “I will.” I grab one last carrot, then hop off the counter. “Thanks for the snack.” I dig my phone out of my bag and answer it. “Hey.”
    “UGH. I literally JUST pulled out of the parking lot.”
    Bag and boots in hand, I wave to my mom and head up to my bedroom.
    “I’m sure they’d let you switch your spot for one in the annex,” I say, teasing, knowing Caitlin would rather sit in her car for an hour than walk the quarter mile to the annex lot, for two main reasons: She lives in four-inch heels, and she travels with about thirty pounds’ worth of science textbooks in her bag.
    “Very funny. So how was astronomy? What’d you think of Dr. Mann?”
    “The man used the words ‘kerfuffle’ and ‘tomfoolery’ with a straight face,” I reply. “What’s not to like?”
    “Did he say why he’s at Brookside?”
    “A kerfuffle with the Yale administration.”
    “Seriously?”
    “No. But it’s an awesome word, right?” I drop my bag and boots on my bedroom carpet and sprawl out on my stomach on my bed. “I think you were right about the pressure to resign. All he said was academia is not what it used to be, and that he wanted to spend some time with ‘unadulterated minds.’ He picked Atlanta because his daughter lives down here.”
    “I wish I were his daughter,” Caitlin says wistfully. “All that Nobel-worthy DNA.”
    “I’ll be sure to tell your dad that.” I roll over onto my back, propping myself up with the oversized Cheshire Cat pillow I’ve had since I was nine. He was supposed to go to Goodwill when I repainted my room last year, but he’s still here, big and pink and frayed around the mouth, holding court in the center of my blue-and-white-striped bed. “Hey, do you know where I can get some of those glow-in-the-dark stars?” I ask. “You know, the kind you can stick on your ceiling?”
    “One day of astronomy and already you want stars on your ceiling?”
    “This is me, embracing science. Go with it.”
    “Can your stargazing wait until Thursday?” Caitlin asks. “I’m going to Fernbank for this young scientists thing. I’ll get you some from the planetarium gift store.”
    “Thanks! It can be my birthday present.”
    “Nope. Already have that, wrapped and ready to be brought to dinner tomorrow night with your cake.” Caitlin’s been getting me the same mint chocolate chip ice cream cake from Baskin-Robbins every year since seventh grade, and each year, we devour the entire thing in one sitting. It’s a highly caloric rite of passage we refuse to abandon. The rest of the day is always pretty anticlimactic, since by the time my birthday rolls around, everyone else in my grade has already had theirs. Turning seventeen (or sixteen or fifteen) is much less exciting when everyone else has already done it. “Hey, I’m pulling into my driveway,” Caitlin says. “Talk later?”
    “Yup.” There’s a click, and she’s gone. Phone still pressed to my ear, I stare up at the ceiling, envisioning my future neon galaxy.
    That night, I have trouble falling asleep. At ten past midnight, I give up. Very careful not to wake my parents, I make my way through the kitchen to the door that opens onto our deck. Outside, it’s both colder and quieter than I