“You sure you’re okay hanging out by yourself?” Mom asks.

The next Friday, I’m sitting on the couch downstairs with the TV muted. “You guys never have date night anymore. Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”

Mom picks some white cat fur off her navy-blue dress. She glances up the stairs. “Come on, Dan! If we don’t leave now, we’re not going to make our reservation.” She takes in a deep breath and lets it out slowly.

Dad comes down the stairs, wearing a new dress shirt. Until they lost almost all their clothes in the tornado, I didn’t realize how used to my parents wearing the same clothes over and over again I was. “You know to give us a call if anything comes up,” he says.

“You’re not supposed to answer your phone when you’re in a nice restaurant, remember?”

Dad gives me a jokey salute. “Yes, yes, Cap’n Maddie.” His dress shoes tap, tap, tap on the hardwood floor. I unmute the television, my sign that it’s time for them to go.

Miraculously, they take the hint. “Have fun, kiddo. Don’t blow up the microwave,” Dad says.

“Peg showed me where she keeps the fire extinguisher. I’m all set.”

One final wave from Dad, and then he closes the door behind him and Mom. I listen for the sound of the car starting up. Pulling back the front curtain, I peek out at them at the end of the long driveway.

Finally!

For the entire month we’ve been at the McLarens’ house, I haven’t had the place to myself for even one second. On the weekdays, me and Cammie and Avery are off at camps or at friends’ houses. And then, starting at five, the rest of the grown-ups slowly take over. My parents or Avery’s (sometimes Peg and Frank, too) crowd into the kitchen to make dinner, while Avery and Cammie and I duke it out in the living room for control of the big TV.

On the weekends, it’s even worse. Frank will be puttering around on his projects in the garage or watching something on the Syfy channel with Avery or making Lego castles with Cammie. And Peg is always out in the garden or baking lemon–poppy seed muffins or trying to get me to watch Lifetime movies with her. Mom’s never been that big on TV—she’s more of a book person—but Peg loves her TV shows, and it’s sort of nice to hang out with someone her age. I didn’t realize how much I’ve missed it since Grandma died.

Mom likes having all these extra eyes on Cammie, which, okay, I’ll admit works out pretty nice for me. But it also means I can never totally be by myself. Do the things I’d do if it were just me and Cammie, like when I used to babysit for him on the weekends or a school night.

With Kiersten’s family down on the Cape this weekend, it’s just me. I guess I could’ve texted Gabby to see if she wanted to do something, but we’ve never done things without Kiersten. And anyway, it’s sort of nice to have a little bit of time just for me.

Cammie is having a sleepover with Grammy in Rhode Island, Peg and Frank are out with friends on a boating trip, Avery’s parents are out for dinner like my parents, and Avery is at Gregg’s house.

Until Mom and Dad get back from dinner, it’s me and the kitties. Wherever they’re hiding. Really, it’s just me.

I turn the TV off and hook up my iPhone to the sound system. How loud does the volume get? Does it even matter? Are the cats going to meow in protest if I turn it up too loud?

I doubt it.

I keep twisting the volume knob. Ten, twenty, thirty. Probably thirty is loud enough.

I grab the TV remote to use like a microphone and sing along with Taylor Swift, dancing around the living room. I do a little running slide in my socks on the hardwood floors. Shwwoooooop. It’s harder to come to a stop than I thought, and I end up perilously close to the china cabinet with all of Peg’s precious collectibles.

Maybe I won’t be trying that again.

So what if I don’t have Taylor’s singing voice? Nobody’s around to tell me that I’m not matching her note for note.

My favorite song comes on next and I decide it’s not quite loud enough. I turn it up five more notches and hop up on the couch, flinging my hair from side to side as I sing along with Taylor about some boy who ruined everything.

I hear a thump behind me. Probably one of the cats jumping down from the counter. Stella is a twenty-pounder, the total opposite of the graceful, prissy cats they show on cat food commercials. She’s bigger than some dogs I’ve met.

“We…are never ever ever ever…getting back together!” I finish off the song with my eyes closed ’cause that’s the only way I can get close to hitting the right notes.

But when I open my eyes, I see something move at the edge of my vision. Something way bigger than a cat.

Avery stands in the doorway.

I jump off the couch and turn down the music. My heart’s beating so loud in my chest I can hear it, and not just because it’s Avery. Because my Taylor Swift show was practically an exercise routine.

“How long have you been there?”

“Um, a—”

“Never mind. Don’t answer that question.” I realize I’m still holding the TV remote in my hand. The same TV remote I was using as a microphone not even a minute ago. I hold it against my leg as if it might meld to it and disappear.

Nope. Still there.

“So, um, how was Gregg’s?” The second the question’s out of my mouth, I decide I can’t hold my pseudo microphone in my hand one second longer. I try to flip the remote behind me so it’ll land on the couch, all casual-like.

Instead, it clunks to the floor, batteries shooting out of it and rolling toward the coffee table.

That’s when I laugh. So hard I’m closing my eyes. Avery’s laughing, too. And somehow that helps more than I thought it would. Like we both needed to clear the air.

I walk over to pick up the batteries, still laughing a little. Avery collapses on the leather chair where Frank likes to sit and kicks off his sneakers.

I pop the batteries back into the TV remote, set it on the coffee table, and sit on the couch. “So, Gregg’s?”

Avery shrugs. “It was all right. I mean, it was no Taylor Swift dance party….”

“Ha-ha.”

He takes off his hat, wrapping his hands around it to curl the brim, and then sets it on the chair’s arm. And then he rubs at his eye. He’s not—no, I think he is. He’s crying.

Something is wrong. I’ve known Avery since we were little and I’ve never seen him cry. Not ever.

“Avery,” I say, unsure what to follow it up with. I reach my hand out for his arm. It’s supposed to be electric, but there’s no zap when I touch Avery’s skin. It’s just skin. No tougher or softer than mine. The same. “What’s going on?” I probably sound like my mom, but I don’t know what else to say.

He picks at his thumb. I haven’t seen his hand so closely all summer, but his thumb is raw and red, like he’s been picking at it for a while. It’s rough, like the hands of the construction workers at our new house.

“They don’t understand. None of my friends. They all think everything’s already gone back to normal. It’s not, you know?”

I nod.

“My parents think I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m not an idiot.”

Duh, I think. “What do you mean?”

“We might have to move,” he says. “Like, leave town.”

For a quick second, I get that feeling like when I looked at my house and saw only a pile of rubble. “For good?”

“Nobody wants to help us out. I mean, you know they haven’t started any work on the house because there’s no money, right?”

“Um…yeah.”

He sniffs. “The insurance company, they’re a bunch of jerks. They don’t want to own up to it. My parents’ insurance doesn’t cover tornadoes. And they don’t have enough money to fix the house if the insurance doesn’t come through.”

I swallow hard. “Where would you go?”

“Dad said we could rent, but it would have to be some place closer to where he works. Some suburb of Springfield.”

“You’d have to change schools?” I think about our new house. Sure, it’s not done yet, but it’ll be ready for the start of school, right? And it’ll be bigger. Maybe they could stay with us until they have enough money to fix their house.

Avery nods. “I’ve lived here my whole life, you know? I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to go somewhere new for seventh grade, start all over again where nobody knows me.” His voice trembles and part of me wants to hug him, but then I think that would be weird. I don’t know what he wants right now.

“Did you tell your friends?”

“I try to, but they don’t listen. They don’t get it, Maddie. We don’t really talk about serious stuff. It’s not like with you. You’re the only one who understands what I’m going through.”

You’re the only one who understands.

I’m stuck on what he just said and what it means, but I have to say something back. “With my friends, all we ever do is talk. But I haven’t really talked to them about the tornado. Or what it was like losing my house. And losing Hank.”

“At least, you’re getting a new house.”

“I know. I’m so lucky, I know that. I just wish…” Thinking about it makes my eyes start to tear up. Imagining a shiny new kitchen, but without Hank’s food bowl. The crumbs he always scattered on the kitchen floor. Mom kept trying and trying to find a mat that would catch his crumbs, but she just couldn’t. Hank went all out at mealtime.

“Are you guys—do you think you’ll get a new dog? I mean, not that you should or anything. I just wondered….”

I shrug. Dad hasn’t mentioned it since that day I got mad at him for taking that man’s phone number about the labradoodles.

“Too soon,” Avery says. “The other day, my mom thought she’d figured out a way to make the insurance people pay. A loophole, you know, but one in our favor. And she was so happy, but then, of course, it turned out to be not true at all.” Avery shakes his head. “Sometimes it feels sort of like I’m up to bat but the umpire’s got some weird idea of the strike zone and I’m going to get called out no matter what I do. You know?”

I think about how, for the most part, I’ve been okay with losing my house, but then, every now and then, it’ll just hurt—I’ll go to look for something from the past and remember it’s gone forever. Or think about Hank. And suddenly I’m not okay with everything that happened. Not at all. “I get what you mean.”

Avery goes quiet for a moment. “Hey, do you think that carnival will still come to town at the end of the summer?”

“I don’t know.”

“If it comes, we should go.”

“Okay,” I say almost before he’s finished. You’re the only one who understands.

“It might be my last time.”

I don’t know what to say to that. I can’t even imagine it being true.

My stomach growls and Avery looks at me like, Is that really your stomach?

“Do you want some mac and cheese?” I ask.

Avery stares at me. “You know how to cook?”

“No.” I laugh, heading toward the kitchen. “But I’m pretty good with the microwave.”

“You have enough?” He gets up to follow me.

“There’s plenty.”

Avery hops onto one of the barstools while I dig through the freezer drawer, looking for my frozen mac and cheese. It’s not like with you. I keep hearing what he said in my head, and it’s hard to concentrate. I almost pull out a hunk of frozen tuna instead of the mac and cheese.

I come across a container of Mom’s frozen veggie dogs. “Do you want a veggie dog, too?”

“Do I want to barf?”

Now, that’s more like the normal Avery.

I pry one veggie dog out of the package, heat up the skillet, and stab holes into the frozen mac and cheese with a fork.

“I didn’t realize you had to kill it first,” Avery says. “Isn’t mac and cheese already dead?”

I laugh. “If you don’t give it room to breathe while it’s heating up, it explodes all over the place. Trust me, I’ve made that mistake before. And aren’t you the scientist? Don’t you know about heat expanding things?” I place the tray in the microwave and set the timer.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

I serve the macaroni and cheese, plus my veggie dog, on two plates and sit down on one of the barstools next to Avery.

The second I do, he hops down from his stool. “What do you want to drink?” he asks.

“Just water.”

He pours two glasses of water from the spigot on the fridge and sits back down. I take a bite of the macaroni and cheese. “How’d I do?”

“You could probably be on Top Chef.”

“Ha-ha.” I swipe a sliver of veggie dog through my mound of ketchup.

As I’m chewing, it hits me. Two people eating a meal together. Am I on a date with Avery? Suddenly swallowing becomes a lot harder. I have to gulp some water to get my veggie dog down, and then I clear my throat a few times.

“You okay?” Avery asks. “It’s been a while since I Heimliched anyone.”

“You’ve Heimliched someone before?”

“Not a real person. Just the dummy. I shot a pea across the room.” He smiles at me and takes another bite of mac and cheese.

“When did you Heimlich a dummy?”

“It was in this babysitting class my mom made me take last summer. Gregg’s mom signed him up, too, so, well, let’s just say there were lots of peas being shot all over the room.”

That sounds like Gregg, all right. I dip a bite of mac and cheese in the ketchup.

“Do you know how to do the Heimlich?” Avery asks.

I shake my head, my mouth still full of food. After I swallow, I say, “I probably should learn, though. With the tornado, I realized I’m not that prepared for any disasters. Like, we have the lockdown drills at school, and we learned to stop, drop, and roll in kindergarten, but nobody ever told us what to do if there’s a tornado. Or what if someone is choking and I’m the only one there to help?”

“Totally,” Avery says. “I thought I was the only one who noticed. The tornado, it made me think about all the other things I’m not prepared for. That none of us are, right?”

I don’t know what to say to that, except that I get it. Somehow, not saying anything seems right, so I nod and finish the food on my plate.

When we’re done eating, Avery puts the dishes in the dishwasher, since I was the one who cooked dinner. Barely, but still. I wipe down the countertop, and soon he’s done.

“So, what else were you going to do tonight?” he asks.

I shrug.

“Please, no more Taylor Swift.”

My ears burn at the memory of Avery catching me dancing, but I grin. “The dance party is over,” I say. “Want to watch some TV?”

“Okay.”

I sit down on the couch instead of the chair I usually choose when we’re all watching TV and wait to see what Avery does. There are tons of seats to choose from, but if this has somehow turned into a date, then he’s supposed to sit on the couch, too. But does he know that?

He sits down on the couch but chooses the cushion furthest from me.

Well, at least he still chose the couch.

I turn on the TV and start flipping through the channels. “What do you want to watch?”

“I don’t care.”

There must be five million channels with the McLarens’ cable package. It’s so quiet even with the TV on that I can hear Avery breathing all the way from the other side of the couch.

“Okay, so I said I don’t care, but I actually would rather watch one thing than a little bit of everything,” Avery says, smiling.

I switch to NESN, which is showing the Red Sox game. Seems easy. Not really a date thing, but at least we both like it and I don’t have to choose channels anymore. “How about this?”

“Sure.”

Stella strolls onto the rug in front of us and flops over on her side with a thump. She rolls onto her back and bats at her face, like we’re supposed to think she’s cute or something. Avery claps his hands together when one of the Red Sox players scores a run. “Woo-hoo! Yeah, Mookie!” Stella scurries out of the living room real fast.

“You scared the cat,” I say.

“Stella peed on my bed the other day. Now we’re even.”

“Not the biggest fan of the cats, huh?”

“Are you kidding? I’m a dog person, all the way.”

Avery leans in toward the TV, elbows on his knees. “Come on, Bogaerts.” He’s so different now, so intense and focused, but happy, too. It’s like what happened earlier didn’t happen at all. The upset, lost, unsure Avery I saw was just pretend. This is the real one, the one I’ve known forever.

But I can’t forget what he said. Moving to some suburb of Springfield. Leaving our school.

This summer has been going by so fast. I used to think that was a good thing. We were getting closer and closer to moving into our new house. Closer and closer to starting seventh grade.

But maybe that means my time with Avery is going by fast, too.

Avery stands up and yelps as Dave O’Brien says, “That ball is outta here!”

Going, going, going, gone.