He reaches for my hand again, but I pull it away, which gets me a head shake in return when I peek at him. “Piper, come on. Tonight was supposed to be nice. Don’t ruin it with all this.”

“I didn’t realize I was ruining it,” I reply, pushing my plate away from me. The smell of the chili suddenly makes me feel nauseous.

“That came out wrong. I’m just not ready to be meeting your parents. If you want to come over after your thing with your family, or on Christmas Day, that’d be great.”

I’m starting to worry about the way he says come over. Like the shed is a permanent home. None of this is making me feel very confident about suggesting we stay at Ditra’s or get a place of our own, but I’m still hoping I can eventually talk him into that.

Sometimes, though, too much hope leads headfirst into the unexpected brick wall of reality.

I wait until we’re back at the shed to approach Blue with the idea of getting off the streets. Or out of the backyard, as the case currently is. He immediately lights up a cigarette and starts to pace around the tiny area, as if I just asked him to do something so outlandishly impossible that he can’t even comprehend it.

“You need to just chill,” he says between hand-shaking inhales.

“It was just a suggestion….” My voice sounds much calmer than I feel inside. “I just got a big year-end bonus from work. I was saving for an apartment before I even met you. What’s the big deal if you move in with me? I’m not asking you for anything else—”

He whips around to face me. “Aren’t you, though? Look around, Piper.” He swoops his arm around in a grand gesture. “Look what you’re sitting on. An air mattress and a down comforter. Look at the dog.” He points to Acorn in the corner. “Sleeping on a dog bed with ceramic dishes next to him. There’s a curtain on the goddamn window. I’m standing on a wool throw rug from Bed, Bath, and fucking Beyond. There’s a tiny cabinet of snacks over there with a plant on top of it. There’s a battery-powered space heater keeping us warm. What next?” he practically yells. “A mini fridge and a microwave?”

Okay. So maybe I slowly started to make this space a little more comfortable for us. But could anyone blame me? “I-I just wanted you to have some nice things. And Acorn loves all his new stuff. Look how happy he is.” The dog wagged his tail so hard when I bought him dishes and toys that his butt wiggled for almost an hour.

“I don’t want nice things. Or any things. Why can’t you understand that?”

I bow my head from his yelling and manic expression. “I don’t know. Why should we sit here and freeze and have nothing? I guess I don’t understand any of this.”

“No. You don’t. Stop trying to. Stop trying to fix me or change me or save me or whatever crazy needs you have in your head. Those are things you want, not me. I told you weeks ago. Take what you see or leave it. But don’t try to dress it up in curtains and blankets.”

“Okay. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want you to be sorry, Ladybug. I want you to just accept. I’m not going to live in an apartment with you and get a job and have a bank account and meet your family and build dreams together. It’s not happening.”

My heart jackknifes at his words. “But why?”

He stops pacing abruptly and stares at me with a look of sheer torment on his face. “I don’t know.”

When my sisters and I were young, my father would never allow us to “I don’t know” as an answer to anything. He told us it was unacceptable. Lazy. A ploy to hide the truth from others and, sometimes, from ourselves. My initial instinct is to tell Blue he has to know, but the remorseful tone of his voice tells me he truly, honestly, and genuinely doesn’t know. And the little voice in my gut tells me I should be very worried about that, but I ignore it because ignorance is the path to delusional happiness.

“So when I get my own apartment, are you and Acorn going to at least come over? Not move in, but come over at night and on weekends and hang out and watch TV with me and let me cook us dinner? Instead of us being here?”

“I don’t know,” he says again. “I guess. Maybe.”

My father would be having fits over these answers, and I’m on the verge of it myself, but I summon up all my inner strength and stop myself from throwing a sobbing tantrum or demanding real answers because I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have anything remotely resembling answers or reasons. Forcing both of us to face that fact doesn’t seem like a very good idea right now. Not when he’s back to pacing and biting the inside of his cheek and acting all twitchy.