When we finish looking at the art, I tell Cynthia my mother can bring us both home. "I'm staying," she says. "You could come..."

She must mean runaways. "I can't. There's school tomorrow-"

Cynthia grabs my shoulders. She doesn't shake me, but she leans in close. "Okay, but tell your mother you'll take the subway." I don't know what sports Cynthia does, but she has a strong grip. "You need to be more independent, Makiko Lombardi. The scaredy cat in you has taken over."

"Shut up," I squeak.

But after arguing with my mother about it, I take the subway. On the way, I use my phone to write. I add to my fan fiction about Joel Susugi, a seventeen-year old actor who lives in New York City. In it, I've turned him into a demon slayer. I begin a chapter about him saving runaway girls in Tokyo. Next time, I might add a dirty blond haired girl with blue-green eyes and Herculean strength, but I won't call her Cynthia.

***

Cynthia and I exchange messages the next day. The initial news reports about the incident in Afghanistan got it wrong. I don't want to figure out my feelings in front of someone, and I can't make sense of them, so I don't say much.

"Okay," Cynthia says, "I get you. I hope we see each other again soon, okay?"

"Okay," I say. I'm icy, even though I want to be warm. It's like we didn't meet yesterday. It's like I'm watching an actress, and I can't influence how she portrays me. "Bye."

My mother and I did not discuss my father's death, and neither of us bring up his resurrection. I don't wish he stayed dead, but maybe that would make his indifference toward me easier to bear. Now he's out there ignoring me again, living his best life.

I don't need his attention. It's not that.

My mother hates him, but he could fight for me, fight to meet me once in awhile, especially when I was still a kid. I can't make her insist he know me, since I don't even know if he wants to. And I don't care like I used to. I'll be a grown up soon too, so I shouldn't care. Parents are stupid. All parents are stupid.

After talking to Cynthia, I go to my desk to focus on schoolwork for awhile.

"Did you hear what happened?" Sophia says. She leans in the doorway of my bedroom. My sister is ten years old and has dirty blond hair like Cynthia. Both of her biological parents are white Italians. She's holding a picture book biography under her pointy chin. It's about my biological father, Robert Pirone, the Pulitzer Prize winning photographer who is alive and well. Every so often Sophia gets it out of the school library. When she wants to be a provocateur.

"You mean now he's dead, now he's alive?"

Sophia nods.

"Add that to the book with a sticky note." I tear off a purple one for her. "He's like Jesus."

Sophia's face lights up, and she runs off without closing my door.

***

School before the holidays is busy, and Cynthia gives up on me and stops calling. I sneak a peek at her online photos sometimes. Three muscular guys often appear with her, and they look like close friends. I can't tell, but maybe I'd like one. They all dress well and have nice smiles. Cynthia doesn't look like she's after them. Sometimes they look smitten with her, but that could be me reading into it. A gaggle of guy admirers is my dream.

Then, one day in the middle of December, my mother hollers for me to come to the living room. Before she hands me the phone, she says it's Molly.

"Molly?"

"Boston Molly. Your babysitter when you were younger. She has a question for you."

I put the phone to my ear. "Hello."

"Hi Makiko, this is Molly. Your father wants your contact information. I told him what you said when you visited in June, but he insists. Should I tell him no way? He was a jerk as usual."

My mother stands as close to me as when she handed over the phone. She holds out her hand, ready to take it back. When Sophia's biological mother comes to Tokyo, my mother is excessively cheerful. When my biological father's name comes up, she is smolderingly silent or sarcastic, because he cheated on her. In our own house!

"Tell him no," I say, meeting my mother's eyes.

Afterwards, as I climb the stairs to go back to my room, I unclench my fists. Twice. Three times. Because I keep clenching them involuntarily. I'm not about to cry like I did with Cynthia. My mother doesn't cry, I remind myself, because it's a waste of time. We came to Tokyo with nothing and now look at us. We're thriving.

"I love you, Mom," I yell down the stairs.

A moment later, she replies. "I love you too, Makiko."

***

Break begins a week before Christmas, and I have lots to do at home with my family and grandparents. I fit a few school friends in, but I don't tell them about Cynthia. We only met that one time, and I want to keep things separate, for now, or forever. One reason is my crying. Another is their styles don't mix. I'm justifying myself, but that's okay. Cynthia and my friends live in separate worlds. They don't know about my fan fiction, and Cynthia does, and Cynthia's just different.

Maybe I'll be different when I'm with her, if we even become friends. When I think about her, I think of the runaways and the demon, and that draws its attention, like the demon floats on thermals far above, and I'm a tiny rabbit that it hunts, following my brain waves.

To hide, I stop thinking about Cynthia. I prefer to return my mind to before she told me about the runaways and the demon, when I believed a voice in my head was bad but all.

And when I start to see what it sees, I don't look. To hide, I tell myself none of it is real and busy my mind by talking to Sophia or my grandmother.

But a few days before New Year's, Cynthia and I agree to meet in Roppongi near the end of winter vacation. "I'll bring my buddies," she says. "They all need girlfriends."

"You don't have to. I just went crazy back in November. I'm not really looking for a boyfriend."

"Stop. They want to meet you."

"Why?"

"I told them about your crying-"

"Cynthia!"

"No, I'm joking, but if they meet you, they'll like you. You're likable, and boys are no big deal."

***

A couple days before Cynthia and I plan to meet, I'm in Sophia's room lying the wrong way in the chair at her desk, bothering her for a change. She's crisscross applesauce on the floor with a bowl in her lap, getting ready to create a bright green slime. A can of shaving cream and other materials are spread out on a newspaper in front of her.

Mr. Lombardi - Dad - comes into the room and kisses the tops of our heads. Then he hovers by Sophia's bureau and watches her. He's my father too now, and he's a good one, even though he's almost as old as most people's grandpa. When my mother married him, we went to Italy and celebrated with his family. We go back almost every summer, and I love my cousins there. Sophia smiles and laughs like they do. She's one hundred percent Italian.

Mr. Lombardi glances at me, not like we have to talk, not like I'm in trouble, but like he has something to say, a worry or concern. I sit up straight, suddenly fearful. He's sixty, but that's not so old, not dying old. "Is everything okay, Dad?" I say.

"Yes, but your father, Robert, showed up at your grandparents' house last night. He's staying at a hotel in Roppongi and wants to see you." Mr. Lombardi - Dad - probably wishes he asked to talk in my room, because there's no place for him to sit here, and he's aware of Sophia, even though she's focused on the slime as if she can't hear us. "Robert gave your grandparents his phone number."

Immediately, I think of my mother, because she would be so sad. She must be downstairs or in the bedroom, knowing Mr. Lombardi's doing this but unable to watch, unable to bear it.

Dad puts his hands behind his back. It's strange to see him uncomfortable. "You've said all along that you don't want to see him... but maybe you should. If you want." During a long pause, he purses his lips awkwardly. He shrugs very slightly. "Why don't you think about it?"

I don't want Mr. Lombardi and my mother to argue about this. They must be happy together. They must stay in love. For Sophia. Especially for Sophia. I'll be a grown up soon, but I like us together, this family. "I don't want to see him."

He nods slowly, staring at me like a priest. "Okay, I just wanted to be sure."

In this chapter, you meet Makiko's step sister Sophia and her step father Mr. Lombardi. Which one did you enjoy the most or the least?

What do you think of the chapter's title? If you have another idea, I'm interested in your suggestion.

Thanks again for reading! And if you're so inclined, thanks for voting!