Free The Great American Whatever by Tim Federle Page A

says, even though I’m seventeen this Sunday. “But I’ll leave that for you to discover.”
    Great. Now my stomach is a wooden roller coaster going off the rails. I don’t want to discover anything. I want to just write it exactly the way I’d like it to play out onscreen.
    â€œUnfortunately, our time today is up,” she says. “But when you have a chance, I really do need you to ask your mom to open the mail sometime soon. We’re now about three months behind on payment, and at some point—”
    â€œTotally clear,” I say. “I’ll mention it to her today. See? I’m making a note of it right now.”
    I jiggle my arm just enough in the camera’s frame so that it looks as if I’m writing something down on my desk. But I’m not. What I’m mainly doing is I’m thinking, Thank God Mom’s disability checks just get deposited straight to her bank account.
    â€œThank you,” my therapist says.
    Her buzzer goes off, and she winces. This makes me happy. I have entertained her.
    She likes me.
    â€œQuinn, I have to get that,” she says.
    â€œOf course.”
    I’m already opening another tab on my screen, anyway: this torrent site to rip a few movies to binge on tonight.
    â€œBut I wanted to say something,” she says.
    â€œUh-huh.”
    I consider downloading The Philadelphia Story . Maybe I could study Cary Grant and actually, you know, learn something about romance. I’ve never tried to woo a guy before. The closest I’ve come is that I once poured chocolate milk over Tommy “the Tank” Foster’s mashed potatoes, in third grade.
    LIFE HACK: Never pour chocolate milk over the mashed potatoes of anyone nicknamed “the Tank.”
    â€œQuinn, I’m logging off now, but—”
    â€œGreat, so, next Thursday.”
    â€œâ€”did you hear what I just said? A moment ago.”
    â€œOh.” Shit. Minimize screen. Click back to Skype. Blink. “Sorry.”
    â€œIt’s okay,” my therapist says. “But I said something important.”
    Jesus, maybe that school counselor of mine was right. Maybe multitasking is a dangerous myth.
    â€œOkay?” I say.
    â€œI said I’m proud of you.”
    It’s so quiet in my room that I think I can hear Mom snoring downstairs. Our vents really are connected. I knew it.
    â€œFor what?” I say. My therapist has never been proud of me.
    â€œI shouldn’t really say this,” she says, “but—this is our first session in which you didn’t mention your sister.”

CHAPTER TEN
    W hen I was ten years old, a new family moved in across the street. It caused a stir. Most people don’t move to Pittsburgh.
    Tiffany Devlin was my age, but I was immediately more interested in her substantially older brother. He was tall, and nice . At ten years old, nice wasn’t the first adjective I’d have used to describe grown-up men. Loud , maybe. Or sad . But not nice .
    Tiffany’s twenty-two-year-old brother, Ricky Devlin—Tiffany was a “wonderful surprise,” I remember her mom saying once to my mom—had helped his family move in, but he was only staying for the summer. “Just the summer.”
    â€œWhy?” I asked Ricky once, weeks later, when he was babysitting me and Tiffany and Annabeth. “Why would you move in with your parents?” This boggled my mind—willingly living with your mom and dad, once you don’t have to anymore.
    â€œWell, I’m a screenwriter,” he said.
    â€œDon’t movie people live in Hollywood?” Annabeth said, because Annabeth intuitively knew everything. Always.
    â€œThe ones who sell screenplays do,” Ricky said, and that answered that. Something about it wasn’t pathetic though. Ricky was golden, perfect.
    He stayed in the Devlins’ attic, and when it would get really hot, he’d put an oscillating fan in the