Page 11 of Never Not Friends

I go the other.

Not depressing at all.

“Bye, Em.” Vinny turns over his shoulder, gracing me with one last adorable smile.

Juliet turns too. “I’ll text you later.”

I lift my hand in a wave before heading toward my parents’ house. I’m halfway across the lawn when my mom stops me.

“Emma?” She straightens, brushing off her pants as if she’s been kneeling in the grass, pulling weeds. “Could you go to the pharmacy and grab your dad’s prescription? He forgot to pick it up on his way home from work.”

“Uh…” I’m about to say no, because I haven’t been home since school got out, and I’d like to eat dinner at some point before I have to go back out, but she gives me her pouty face. The power that expression wields is astonishing.

I smile. “Which pharmacy?”

Dad shakes his head. “I’ll get it tomorrow.”

“Ron, you’re out of medication.”

“One night won’t kill me.”

“You don’t have to go if you’re busy.” My mom turns to me. “I can go out.”

I pull my keys out from my purse. “I can go get it. It’s fine.”

Her face brightens. “Are you sure?”

“Of course.”

“Thank you, sweetheart.”

And honestly, I don’t mind.

They’re my parents. My dad needs his medicine. I have a car and no real life. Why wouldn’t I go and get it for them? I like making my parents happy.

That’s really how I ended up living above the garage in the first place.

After my last lease ended a year ago, Mom mentioned that the house had gotten painfully quiet and lonely since all my siblings had moved away. One lives in Colorado. One in Texas. The others might as well live out of state for how often my parents get to see them.

She looked at me one day and said, “It would be so nice to have one of my kids close. Maybe Dad and I wouldn’t be so lonely.”

Two weeks later, my mattress was being hauled up the stairs on the side of the garage.

What was I supposed to do? Let my parents wither away from loneliness in their retirement years? That’s just not the kind of person I am.

And on the plus side, if I ever choke alone in my apartment, there’s at least a chance someone will find my body before it starts to smell.

Win-win.

“Did you find out when the teacher of the year award assembly is?” my mom asks, forgetting that she just assigned me to an errand.

“Oh.” I shake my head, embarrassed. “It’s no big deal. You and Dad don’t have to come.”

“Emma, we wouldn’t miss it.”

“It’s not every day that your daughter gets the best teacher award,” my dad says proudly. “You’ve earned it.”

“Pretty much every teacher at our school has earned it, but⁠—”