Maybe I should explain how this works.

I landed alongside Keenan like an asteroid, or something like the fallen angels we kept hearing about in church. The former sounds more like it, though, because when we crashed, we left a giant crater in some old man's yard.

I may not remember all the events leading up to us even flying and landing, but I would remember if we hurt someone or something, and wouldn't you feel it if you landed on an animal? Especially if it was a cow?

Yeah. That's how I know Esther and Otis Williams are lying.

"And this thing—baby, I don't even know how to explain it." Esther pauses frequently, then speeds up when she gathers her words, which sometimes makes what she's saying incoherent. "It came down over there between the barn and the road." She points her manicured index toward where we landed, and the camera pans in that direction, videoing a crater the size of the Grand Canyon. "You can call me anything you want, but after seeing that, how can you not believe me?"

"I was at work at the James' house, trimming their trees, and as soon as I got home, I of course saw it, and she explained it all to me." Like his wife, he's a short and skinny, brown-skinned man with wrinkles and sun-produced moles on his face. His voice trembles when he speaks, making him sound like he's on the verge of tears. "I don't know what she saw, and I don't believe in no aliens, but there ain't no reason to believe it's one of them space rocks if it ain't where it's supposed to be."

I glance at Keenan, both of our mouths and eyebrows twitching as we fight back laughter. We're sitting between the box television and a set of sofas wrapped in saran wrap, which our parents are sitting in.

Keenan's mom shakes her head. She's wearing an olive-green turtleneck dress and off-white heels that match her pearl necklace, bracelet, and earrings.

"Y'all believe this foolishness," she asks my parents and her husband with a high-pitched tone for emphasis. They murmur in a mix of disbelief and uncertainty. She shakes her head again after running her red nails through the front of her tapered pixie cut.

"Well, I don't believe no damn aliens made that," Keenan's dad says, his voice brash like the Allstate man's. He and my dad chuckle. "I'll believe it when I see some, uh," he pauses to look at his son and asks, "What's them things called that look like rings, Keenan?"

"Crop circles?" Keenan meets his eye, and Mr. Harris smiles under his caterpillar mustache.

"That's my boy." The adults chuckle again, and Keenan glances at me with a pursed-lip smile. "Yeah, if they come back with crop circles, then I'll entertain the idea."

"You a trip, Wallace," my dad says with a smile while shaking his head.

Mr. Harris has his arm around his wife, but he glances at his wristwatch behind her. Night eventually crept up on us, and like the showoff that he is, Keenan did his homework before me.

"Well, I enjoyed sitting and catching up with you and yours." Mrs. Harris stands up along with her husband and son. His dad asks mine, "Are y'all coming to the game tomorrow?"

"Yeah," mine answers his brother, and he groans as he pushes himself up. He sits his thumbs in his jeans' belt loop, and then me and my mom stand to help walk them out. "Earl said he'll be bringing the cases."

"And I'll be bringing the pasta salad," his mom says while playfully side-eyeing mine. "No offense, Teresa, but you almost made my boys miss school last year."

"Girl, ain't nobody fooling with you." Mine dismissively waves her off in the same joking tone, then says, "But since we talkin' 'bout whose food makes you sick, I'll be sure to bring the chicken, 'cause last time you did, it was pink at the bone."

"Pink?" Her voice is incredulous, and with her hand on her chest in mock disbelief, she looks at her respective husband.

You'd think we're at a tennis match by the way me and Keenan's heads keep turning from one person to the other.

My dad and uncle's grins fade when my mom asks my dad, "Didn't you say it looked like it was still walking?"

"My name's Bennet," my dad quickly says the beginning of the phrase before opening the door.

"And that's why he's been married longer than anyone in our circle," Mr. Harris says before guiding his family onto the front porch. "But I'll see y'all tomorrow."

I stop smiling when I remember what me and Keenan planned for tomorrow.

"Wait, what about the skate rink?" I rush the question out before they walk down the steps, and they stop halfway. I dart my eyes from one person to the next before me and Keenan look at each other.

His eyebrows are drawn together, but they instantly relax when he remembers too. His mom asks, "Keenan, since when you learn how to skate?"

And her question makes her husband and brother-in-law laugh. They laugh at what I assume to be a memory of him trying and failing to skate. I assume that to be true because he doesn't look coordinated.

"Mom, please," he mumbles through his teeth, and if he were many shades lighter, I'm sure his face would be as red as Melissa's. I can't help but smirk. I always thought theater kids made for horrible actors, but he's not too bad.

"Leave the boy be, LaToya," his dad defends him, but by the way his mouth is twitching, I can tell he still finds it funny. Mr. Harris sets an arm around him and says, "If you wanna go, it's fine by me. I know you don't like football anyhow."

"And you can go with him too, Leila, so long as you both behave yourselves," mine tells me, and my smile returns, but Keenan looks far from happy. Regardless, we say our goodbyes, and they walk to their house next door.

The rest of the night consists of us getting ready for bed and my parents walking me to mine. I haven't spoken to these people much since landing here; I don't know if it's because I'm afraid to say something wrong or if it's because I feel like what I am—a stranger—but as she draws the heavy blanket over my chest, I feel a sort'a closeness that I don't remember having with my real mom.

"You get some sleep," she says, then plants a kiss on my forehead. When she straightens her posture on the side of my bed, I look behind her at my dad standing at the door. "I'll get you ready for tomorrow before we head out. I love you."

My stomach twists and churns. I feel like I killed their child and stole her identity.

"Okay." I lick my lips, then glance at my dad. I hesitate before forcing myself to say, "I love y'all too."

***

My oldest sister Michelle doesn't come around as much as my older sister Regina because she studies business at UCLA for her salon. It sounds fancier than it is, I'm sure, but I don't know her enough to say it. But today, she's visiting for the game between the Minnesota Vikings and Detroit Lions.

Standing beside me at the breakfast bar, Regina asks, "Ma, can I go to Janet's house?"

Our mom is standing at the stove, cooking eggs and bacon for everyone but me since I asked for spaghettiOs. I notice her shaking her head, but it isn't to signal no; it's like she's annoyed or she knows Regina isn't going there to see Janet if she went there at all.

"Is her momma there?" She turns at an angle to look at Regina, the wooden spatula tight in her right hand. I look at Regina as she heaves a sigh and says no. "Well, you know the answer to your question."

She returns her attention to the pans before her, and when her back is turned, Regina rolls her eyes and mouths what she said mockingly.

Her gaze drops onto me and my styrofoam bowl of spaghettiOs. She's wearing a face of black and silver smokey eyes with dark purple lipstick. "What," she mouths, but I don't say anything. I glance at her overplucked eyebrows and uneven eyeshadow, then I look at her as she walks away.

I turn to the side door when I hear it open, and walking in without knocking are Keenan and Aunt LaToya. They're lugging paper grocery bags, but unlike her, who's holding two, his arms are shaking from carrying one. He rushes to me and sets the bag in front of me on the breakfast bar, leaving our moms to talk about the food they have to cook.

"Hey," he mumbles with a huff.

"Hey," I say back, just as dry. He looks at my bowl, and I watch his mom set the bags on the counter before proceeding to unpack each one. She stores the cold foods in the fridge and the dry foods in the cabinets. I return my attention to him as he walks along the bar to sit beside me. "So, when can we leave?"

"Mom said in five minutes, but you know that really means, like, fifteen." I nod. The awkward tension seems to grow with each second. I feel like things are that way because of the situation on the news, and I wish we were alone so we could talk about it. He sets his elbows on the surface and rests his forehead in his palms, and I clear my throat, which gets his attention.

"Hey, um." My voice shakes as I struggle to speak in a whisper. "About yesterday," I trail off, hoping he understands me so I don't have to say it. He drops his arms and furrows his eyebrows, which tells me he doesn't. I glance at the women across from us, and when I see that they're still talking while my mom pours the scrambled eggs into a serving dish, I look at him. "The TV situation. Remember the cow that we killed?"

His eyes immediately light up, and he sucks in a nervous breath that leaves him visibly tense. He whips his head forward, but seeing them unaware of our conversation doesn't make him relax.

I roll my eyes upward at his dramatic behavior, and then he turns back to me and rhetorically asks, "How many times do I gotta remind you-?"

I interrupt him before he can lecture me for the thousandth time, telling him, "I know, Keenan, but you were acting like you didn't get what I was saying."

"I wasn't acting like nothing; I really didn't know," he argues. I shovel a spoonful of spaghettiOs into my mouth while blankly staring straight ahead.

I want to scream at him to stop treating me like I don't understand how sensitive the situation is that we're in. I speak low; I try speaking in code. Nothing is good enough; it's like he just wants me to shut up and accept how weird everything is, ignoring that I haven't time-traveled before.

"Just forget it," I say while chewing my food. I notice his face scrunch up out of the corner of my eye.

"Can you at least close your mouth while you eat?" I slam my fists on the counter, forgetting that it's not the same as a table, which would rattle instead of bruising my outer hands.

I seethe and clench my eyes shut to avoid cursing at him, but I've had it! I open my eyes and see LaToya looking at me with knitted brows, just like Keenan.

I swallow my food and say, "I'm sorry." I let out a forced chuckle, gesturing to Keenan with my head. "He keeps bugging me to finish eating so we can go skating."

He whips his head forward as my mom turns her head to look at us. I drop the spoon into the bowl, and I use that hand to grip the side of his exposed knee with my index and thumb, pinching his skin for a second to keep him from saying anything. I maintain my smile and look of innocence while his eyes and nostrils flare.

"Keenan, what's wrong with you? Didn't I say I'd drop you two off in a few minutes," LaToya asks, but clearly, she knows the answer. She shakes her head, then she turns to her sister-in-law. "These kids, I tell you."

The women chuckle and return to the breakfast on the stove, as well as their interrupted conversation.