Booktree.ngIt-Starts-with-Us-Colleen-Hoover

Chapter Twenty-Five
Atlas
“What time did you get home last night?” Josh asks. He’s shuffling into the
kitchen wearing two different socks: one of them a new one I bought him
and one of them mine. Theo and Josh were asleep when I got home, but I
still woke up three hours before they did. Brad just left with Theo about
twenty minutes ago.
“That’s none of your business.” I point at the table, where Josh’s
homework sits unfinished. He promised he would do it yesterday if I let
Theo spend the night, but I have a feeling the video games and manga and
anime got in the way. “You didn’t do your homework?”
Josh looks at the pile of papers and then back at me. “No.”
“Get to it.” I say that with confidence, but I have no idea how to do this.
I’ve never had to tell a kid to do homework before. I don’t even know how
to ground him if he doesn’t do his homework. I feel like I’m acting. I am.
I’m an imposter.
“I’m not avoiding it,” Josh says. “I just can’t do it.”
“Is it too hard? What is it, math?”
“No, I did the math. Math is easy. It’s this stupid shit I have to do for
computer class.”
“Stupid crap,” I say, correcting him. I think. Maybe “stupid crap” is just
as bad. I sit down next to Josh to see what it is he’s having trouble with. He
slides the assignment in front of me, and I look over it.
It’s a research assignment about ancestry. There are five things required
for the term, and one of them is a family tree that was due on Friday. The
other is a generational assignment using an ancestry website that’s due next
Friday.
“We’re supposed to find our relatives using some website. I don’t know
any of their names or even where to start,” he says. “Do you?”