Page 8 of The Incredible Ordinary

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck!

I breathe in deeply, hold it for a second, then exhale.

“A year. I’ll stay for a year.” I nod at Aiden. “You’ll finish your fellowship. Then he’s all yours.”

I cross my arms over my chest and wait. It seems like there needs to be more of a decision-making process. More weighing of pros and cons.

“Deal,” Aiden says.

I nod.

What the fuck have I gotten myself into?

MILÀN

I cometo a sudden halt in the kitchen when I see the calendar Aiden tacked on the wall a few weeks ago.

It’s one of those monthly family planners with slots for everybody to mark down their comings and goings.

Fuck knows I haven’t paid any attention to it until this very second. This is Aiden’s thing. Endless lists and research and plans and routines. The calendar catches my attention, though. It’s September. I’ve been here three months. In another life I’d be… doing anything else.

Instead, I’m in New York, playing reluctant babysitter to a thirteen-year-old with a shitty attitude. It’s a full-time job, and the only reason I even had the time to glance at the calendar is because Rory is at school.

Is supposed to be at school.

Fuck knows if he’s actually there right now. I hope, but I’ve also been hoping for the past few weeks, and the success rate is about fifty-fifty so far.

The one thing I’ve learned in the months we’ve been doing this is that everything with this kid is a battle. What to eat for breakfast. What to wear to school. When to go to school. How to go to school. Homework. Laundry. Curfew. Screen time. Junkfood. And a million other things. I swear to God, I can ask him how his day was, and he’ll take it as a battle call.

My life has transformed into one giant tension headache, which I have to handle mostly on my own. Aiden is neck deep in his fellowship, barely fitting sleep on his schedule, so for now, it’s up to me to shoulder the burden. I’m trying my best, but fuck me if my best just isn’t good enough.

Annoyed by my inadequacy, I pull the fridge door open and peer inside. It’s a shitty decision, because the fridge is almost empty, which is coincidentally when I remember that I was supposed to put in an order for groceries. I even have the list Aiden made me somewhere,andmy name is on the calendar under tasks, with the word food underlined three times.

For a while, I stare at the empty shelves, willing food to appear from thin air. No such luck.

I almost laugh.

Grocery run. Fuck my life.

For five fabulous seconds I daydream about dropping everything and taking off to Japan or Haiti or even fucking New Jersey. Just somewhere away fromhere.

I rub my hand over my face, sigh, and blow out a breath. Right. Groceries. I glance at my watch and try to calculate whether I have enough time before I have to go get Rory from school. It’ll be another battle since he’s too old for a chaperone, apparently, but the last time he was left to his own devices he went and graffitied somebody’s wall. I’m already preemptively tired, even if I still have two hours to go before that particular fight.

That’s when my phone rings.

The number on the screen ruins my whole afternoon.

St.Patrick’s Preparatory Academy looks just as pretentious as the name sounds. It’s a redbrick building on a quiet, tree-lined side street in Prospect Heights. Aiden chose this place for Rory, and I didn’t stick my nose into the process because school has always been Aiden’s thing and not at all mine. I dragged myself through high school while putting in as little effort as possible and never even bothered with college.

I’m sitting behind the principal’s door with a defiantly sulky Rory next to me. He hasn’t answered any of my questions in the ten minutes we’ve been here, choosing instead to pretend I don’t exist, so eventually I gave up. His hair is a mess, white uniform shirt untucked, the blazer God knows where, a streak of dirt on his forehead.

I have no idea what I’m supposed to do here, and Aiden didn’t deem it necessary to pick up his phone, so I’m on my own. The incompetence is staggering.

I’ve played in front of crowds of twenty thousand people and successfully ignored the fact that the matches are televised to an average of three million people, but sitting in the principal’s office of my newly acquired baby brother’s school makes my palms sweat.

On the row of chairs opposite from us sits another kid. His shoulders are hunched and he’s staring at his own fingers, not moving a single muscle. There’s a nasty bruise forming on his left cheekbone. Again, no idea what to do here. Address him? Make Rory apologize? Demand an apology from the kid with the black eye? Apologize myself?

Before I can come to any conclusions in this inner debate I’m having with myself, the door across the hallway from us opens,and a woman steps out. She’s somewhere in her midfifties, tall, and painfully put together in a skirt, cream blouse, and the same navy blazer with the school’s logo the kids are wearing. Or should be wearing, in Rory’s case.