Riley stirred from the fugue state he’d been in since they first got on the highway now that ft concrete and the hot sun had transitioned into small houses and shady trees. The pstic leather of the seat beneath him, covered in sweat from his arms and bare legs, groaned as he tried to stretch his sore muscles. Every bump in the road caused their shitty moving van to jostle like it wanted to eject the both of them.

  “Have a good nap?” his older brother asked from the driver’s seat. “Could you message Morgana and let her know we’re almost there?”

  Still shaking the cobwebs from his brain, Riley nodded and fished into his jeans pocket for his new phone. It was a parting gift from his father; no old photos, a few songs—mostly Papa Roach and Set It Off—and a My Hero Academia wallpaper. Riley didn’t even have a phone case yet. The only contacts he had were family members: his parents, Adam, and now Morgana. In every way, it was a nice piece of technology but a sobering reminder of everything he was leaving behind.

  It’s Riley. We’re almost at your house, he wrote, the first message he’d ever sent her.

  They turned into a neighborhood with a big sign naming it “Popr Downs,” though Adam was pretty confident the small trees lining the streets were oak. They passed a number of other duplexes as well as a community pool that was already open for the summer. Riley didn’t draw attention to it, but Adam saw anyway.

  “You could take up swimming this summer!” he suggested. “It’s great exercise, good for the heart and cheaper than a gym membership. Plus, you might meet some cool people. Take advantage of having access to a pool; I always regret not swimming more in college.”

  Riley shrugged, mumbling, “I should be studying for the fall.” He didn’t have a perfect GPA to coast off of, unlike some people.

  Adam slowed the truck, which squealed in protest, to read the house numbers. “I think this pce could be really good for you. College is an opportunity to forget the past and become the person you always wanted to be.”

  Riley ground his teeth and tried not to scowl; Adam was a great brother, but it was easy to give advice when you were the favorite son.

  “I’ll try.”

  Pulling into a driveway, Adam said, “I think this is the pce. Yeah, 213A. You ready to meet cousin Morgana? Again, technically? She’s eccentric, but you’re going to love her.”

  Morgana hadn’t responded to Riley’s text, but the little “read” notice was there pin to see. They stepped up to the covered porch and Adam knocked on the door. Moments dragged into minutes. Adam double-checked the house number before ringing the doorbell.

  “She can get a little absorbed in her work,” he admitted, taking out his own phone to message her.

  Riley still had plenty of time to study the brickwork of the house before the door unlocked and swung open. He nearly jumped; Morgana looked a lot more like his own mother than he’d expected. She had the family’s amber eyes and glossy brown hair. Compounding this illusion was the fact she must have been a solid two inches taller than him, making Riley feel a lot more like a child and a lot less like a man.

  “Adam!” she cried, grabbing him in a hug. “So good to see you! And Riley! I haven’t seen you since you were in grade school!”

  Riley nodded. She was dressed like she’d just gotten back from the office, with her hair in a bun and a clean white blouse. He would not have guessed she worked from home or with her hands at all. This whole situation was so weird.

  “I… Um, hello, it’s nice to meet you.” He couldn’t look her in the eye. “This is a nice house?”

  He could see her smile become just a little strained as the awkwardness of the situation dawned on her. Mostly to Adam, she suggested, “Well, we could unload things right away, or I could give you two a proper tour of the house. What do you think?”

  Given the choice, Riley would have preferred to skip the rest of this day entirely, but that not being an option, he shrugged.

  Adam decided, “Maybe you could show him around while I start bringing in some of the smaller boxes. That’ll give him a chance to fully wake up from the ride.”

  Morgana nodded, clearly relieved that at least one of them could interact like a normal person. “Let’s get started, then. Shouldn’t take long.”

  The duplex looked more like a show home than a pce someone lived. Everything was a little too carefully organized, the living room had no personal touch, and the bathroom was eerily spotless. Riley was half-convinced he’d been roped into a con job until Morgana led him to a shed in the tiny, undecorated backyard.

  “In here is my workspace,” she said, swinging the door open for him to see.

  It was cramped, but not as much as Riley would have expected from an alchemy workshop built into such a small space. Multiple small cauldrons were set up over a coal pit, a metal ventition shaft had been jammed through the ceiling, shelves on one side of the shed held ingredients in jars while shelves on the other were stuffed with books. A table had been inelegantly shoved into the middle and looked ready to colpse under the weight of papers and small cases. The sight and condition of the space was difficult to reconcile with the rest of clean, business-casual Morgana.

  Once they were back inside, standing in a kitchen that Riley swore had never been graced by human presence before, Morgana pced her hands on her hips and said, “It’s quite a nice home, if I do say so myself.”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Riley said. He wanted to compliment it, but all he could manage was, “I guess you just don’t have time to decorate because of how busy you are.”

  He saw Morgana flinch slightly, and heat rushed to his face.

  Before he could figure out how to apologize or if he needed to apologize, Morgana said, “Your room is down the hall, across from mine,” and gestured for him to follow.

  The final room she showed Riley was the first that didn’t feel like an Ikea set. It had clearly been a spare room emptied in a hurry, with a few scuffs on the wall and some cheap secondhand furniture; the bedside table had children’s stickers on it. Yet the floor was spotless, and there was no dust anywhere, so Morgana had definitely gone to an effort to make sure it was clean for him. A few cardboard boxes had already been brought in by Adam and pced delicately near an old wooden desk.

  “It’s going to be so much fun getting to know you,” Morgana said. “I have a way with people. You’re going to feel at home in no time.”

  Adam came down the hall with a box beled “school shit” and said, “I can believe that. She’s weirdly good at getting into people’s heads. Better at understanding them than I am, at least.”

  It didn’t take much longer to empty the small moving van. Without any furniture of his own, Riley’s packed boxes only took up a small section of the room; it wasn’t even difficult to walk around. Seeing so much of his teenage years reduced to a few nondescript packages was doing a number on Riley’s sense of self.

  Both Riley and Morgana followed Adam outside to see him off, Morgana menting, “Are you sure you can’t stay for dinner? I can easily make enough for three.”

  “Afraid not. Steph and I are taking Lucy to the zoo tomorrow, and I want to be back early to get some rest. As much rest as you can get with a two-year-old in the house, at least.” He turned to Riley. “You’ll do great in college, I promise. Don’t be afraid to try new things, and remember that nobody worth listening to is going to treat you too badly. Call me if you need anything. Oh! Don’t forget to message Dad and let him know we’ve finished moving you in.”

  Riley nodded, his chest tight. He didn’t want Adam to leave; he wanted to wrap his arms around his older brother and never let him go. But Morgana was standing right there, and her opinion of him was going to set the tone of their retionship. The st thing he needed was for her to treat him like a helpless child. So he choked down the knot in his throat and held out his hand for Adam to shake.

  Adam firmly shook Riley’s hand, then pulled him into a tight hug.

  “Take care of yourself,” he said.

  Riley should have unpacked right away, tackled the new living arrangements with vigor and excitement. Instead he sprawled out across the bed that was a little too small to simply waste away. No matter what he did, it was going to be a long, lonely summer.

  Morgana was… something. She didn’t look quite as much like his mother as he’d first imagined, but she held herself just as stiffly and was nearly as much a neat freak. His parents always described her like she was a single Hallmark movie away from uprooting her life and becoming a stay-at-home mother: driven, hard-working, too busy for men, into “alternative” hobbies. They were never mean about it—they praised her for being a strong independent woman—but they never invited her to Thanksgiving either.

  His phone vibrated; Adam had sent him a voice message.

  “Hey, Riley,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the rattle of the truck. “Just got on the highway; wanted to give you one st word of encouragement. I know things have been rough tely, and it’s tempting to let high school drama drag you down, but it’s in the past even if Mom and Dad don’t realize that yet. The best thing you can do for yourself is move on and not worry what anyone thinks of you. Take the first year of college easy, focus on finding yourself, and if that’s not good enough for Dad, I’ll be around to serve him some humble pie. Love you.”

  Riley sat the phone down. It was good brotherly advice, but their father hung like a shadow over this whole day. Of course Adam would intervene on Riley’s behalf. Of course Dad would listen to him. The same words obviously held more weight when they weren’t coming from Riley, the fuckup who nearly got expelled because a girl kept sending him mixed signals and then freaked out when he got upset about it.

  He opened up Reddit, eager to think of anything but his dad. He wasn’t the only one with girl problems, it seemed: Let’s stop pretending these girls are hot enough to be choosy; Laughed out of the gym by manly women; Too short for these bitches to take seriously. Even the titles made him furious at the injustice of it all. There were so many decent guys who got taken advantage of or ignored.

  This “healthy masculinity” bullshit is going to destroy the Western World, one title read. Riley knew that opening the post to read would ruin his mood, but it was that or unpack, and he was curious. OP seemed to know what he was talking about: so many guys were being maniputed into acting soft and effeminate just to make it easier for douchebags to get their pick of the women. There was simply no hope for normal guys anymore.

  Yeah, Riley definitely felt worse.

  QuillRabbit