Still Point by Katie Kacvinsky

at the moon and admired how it painted everything metallic; even the wet leaves hung like silver ornaments.
    â€œYeah, sorry. I’m not usually like that. I don’t know what came over me.”
    â€œYou don’t need to apologize,” she said. “I think you two are awesome together. You’re going to have super smart, super hot, superhero kids.”
    I laughed and stretched my feet across the aisle until they were nearly touching Becky’s sandals. My body felt loose, like someone had unglued all my tendons. “I think we’re a ways away from that.”
    â€œHow is it ever going to work between you two? Considering who your father is?”
    My mind snapped out of its daydream. “I try not to think about it.”
    Her eyes were steady on mine. “Maybe you should. You guys are obviously in love. But it seems masochistic to me, falling for the one guy you can never have.”
    â€œWe’ll figure it out,” I said, suddenly annoyed. It’s easy to think people have no business giving you advice when it isn’t the advice you want to hear. But she had a point. I laid my head against the train seat. My entire body was warm, my cheeks were pink, my skin was hot. Being with Justin was like taking a drug; it was a high my body crashed into with a scintillating rush. When I immersed myself in it, I could feel my whole body glow on the inside until it pushed out. I just wanted to focus on that. I didn’t want to think about the crash that always came later, because I was too addicted to the high.
    I took Justin’s advice—to stop thinking so much and to feel more. I wouldn’t let myself think tonight. I wouldn’t let myself doubt. I just wanted to soak in this perfect moment.
    Â 
    The next morning I walked downstairs and stalled when I heard my father’s voice in the kitchen, echoing down the hall. At first I thought he was home, and my chest deflated, but I realized he was just face-chatting my mom.
    â€œShe was with Becky,” I heard my mom say.
    I inched my way down the hall.
    â€œThis isn’t what we agreed to,” my dad argued.
    â€œWe never agreed on anything. I think Maddie
should
get out of the house. If you want to make rules, then you stay home to enforce them.”
    â€œI can’t be home right now, Jane.”
    â€œWell, I’m not playing cop in this house. If you want to tie Maddie down, then you come home and do it yourself. I’m just happy to have her home, Kevin. For whatever reason she came back, for however long, I’ll take what I can get. But I’m not forcing her to stay here. That
never
worked.”
    â€œI’ll be home in a few days,” my dad said. “We can talk about it then.”
    The call snapped off and the wall screen switched to a morning news program. My mom turned as I walked into the kitchen.
    â€œHi,” she said. I wasn’t sure whether I should thank her or apologize, but she took care of the silence by listing breakfast options.
    I sat down and we watched the news coverage in Portland and Washington, D.C., discussing interviews with politicians preparing for the national vote. Reporters talked about the vote as if it had already happened. No one even mentioned the words
oppose, disagree, argue
. We were ghosts.
    â€œI almost forgot to give you your books this year,” my mom said. Every year around my birthday, she handed down ten real, paper books to me. It had become our tradition. She got up and came back a minute later with a cloth bag. She took the books out one by one, carefully handling them as if they were rare artwork, and displayed them on the table.
    I looked at each one, running my hands over the colorful, smooth covers, as beautiful as pictures you could frame. There were two books of poetry. A mystery series. A memoir.
    â€œI love this one,” my mom said, and flipped over a book called
The Missing Piece.
“The message changes every