Silence, other than my pounding heart. I ring again. A barking dog, frantic. My heart speeds up.

Nothing else. Just a barking dog.

“Shoot,” I mumble. The barking dog tells me that someone lives here, but, duh. Most houses have people living in them. It’s still not clear if that someone is Turk Braverman, and I have no way of knowing.

I descend the steps and sit down on the second stair. I’ll wait a bit. Just wait and see if someone comes by. I take a moment to check out Aisha’s texts, feeling a little bad for the passive-aggressive thing I’m doing but also looking forward to her apology.

What the hell?

Did you just really walk away from me after I drove you to San Fran-fucking-cisco to deal with your thing? I get a couple hours to do my thing, and suddenly I’m the bad guy?

Gimme a break, Carson. Text me when you get a clue.

My stomach turns. Not the apology I was looking for. Am I actually wrong here? I don’t feel wrong. I feel very, very right. How can I be wrong? I put my phone away.

An hour later, I’m shivering. The sun is descending, and no one told me that San Francisco in July is cold. I am underdressed in shorts and a T-shirt, and the rest of my stuff is in Aisha’s car.

I look up hotels, because now I have some cash and can pay for a place overnight. There’s a guesthouse down the block, but they want $159 for a room with a shared bath. Then I see a place called Beck’s Motor Lodge, just a couple short blocks away. They’re asking $139 for a room with a king-sized bed.

That seems insane to me. Over a hundred bucks to sleep somewhere? I have just under two hundred total. But the more I surf, the more I realize that Beck’s is pretty much a bargain when it comes to San Francisco. And I’m not sleeping outside again.

When I’ve been sitting there for ninety minutes and my teeth are chattering from the cold, I decide to head off to Beck’s for the night, and I push myself to my feet.

Even upset, I feel more at home here in San Francisco than I did in Billings. Mostly it just looks like a really hilly New York. I pass a stringy-haired woman with a shopping cart who mutters curses as she trudges up the hill. Ahead of me, a middle-aged guy wearing dark sunglasses is balancing himself against a tree, apparently drunk or high off his skull. Except when I walk by I see he is not actually leaning against the tree. Rather, his arms are pointed at the tree as if he’s performing a magic spell on it. Welcome to Freakville, Carson. We’ve been waiting for you.

I finally get to Market Street and see the pink-and-blue sign for Beck’s Motor Lodge. It’s a bit of a rundown place, and the guy who checks me in seems particularly disinterested in my welfare. When I ask him if I can pay in cash, he looks at me like I’m an idiot and points to a sign that says CREDIT CARD REQUIRED.

I say, “I don’t have one. All I have is cash.”

He points at the sign again, and I hold back my urge to ask him if this is how he expected his life to turn out. Instead, I just say, as nicely as possible, “Is there anything you can do? I have no car, no place to stay. I don’t know anyone here. Please?”

He rolls his eyes and throws a form on the table. I say, “Thank you, thank you” as I fill out the paperwork. When I’m done, he tosses me a key.

The room is perfectly fine inside. A little musty, maybe, but there’s a big TV and a huge bed. I pull my phone out of my pants pocket and stare at it. No more texts. I feel a twinge in my chest. I’m sitting alone in a hotel room in San Francisco. Maybe this is my fault? Is there something wrong with me that I feel like Aisha is in the wrong? Part of me is like, No way. Absolutely not. And the other part is cringing as I think about what I said to my best friend about getting gay married. She was happy. She met a girl, and I acted like a jerk. Why is that my factory setting?

I swallow my pride and text her.

sorry.

i’m an asshole. but you knew that already.

i got jealous, ok? i have a place for us to stay. text me

and i’ll give you directions. sorry again.

I wait for her response. My heart pounds.

Fifteen minutes pass, and still nothing. Shit. I really fucked up.

I’m hungry, so I head out to find something to eat. Barracuda Sushi is the closest place. When I see how fancy it is, I order a teriyaki chicken plate to go.

On my own, I think as I jaywalk across the street. On my own. Better get used to it. Apparently I’m not so good at the keeping of friends.

I pass a liquor store, and I stop. So many colorful bottles. So many different kinds of beer too. Those are the most alluring to me.

I stare for a good minute, and I calculate how much cash I have left and how many beers I could buy. I fantasize about feeling nothing.

And then I think about my food getting cold.

I hustle across the street to my room and drink a soda with my dinner. And I feel a little proud because I’m not my father. At least not right now. I have a chance never to be him, or never to become what he became.

After I wolf down dinner, and Aisha still hasn’t texted back, I call my dad.

“So if I told you I was someplace that a seventeen-year-old probably shouldn’t be, would you react like a father or a friend?” I ask.

He laughs uncertainly. “Maybe a little of both? Where are you?”

“I’m alone in a hotel room in San Francisco,” I say.

He draws in a breath. “I thought you were coming home soon.”

“I am,” I say. “A couple days, three tops.”

“Are you drunk? High?”

Now it’s my turn to laugh. “What? No.”

“So you’re in a hotel room in San Francisco, where you aren’t high or drunk. Do you have a girl there?”

“No, and that’s the problem.”

He laughs again.

“Aisha is angry at me because I’m a dickwad. I thought she was being dickwad-ish, but she isn’t talking to me, so I’m guessing I am and I don’t even know it, which kinda sucks.”

He laughs some more. “Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

“Why does everyone keep saying that?” I say.

His laugh continues. It’s kind and soft. I want to memorize this feeling, this tingling in my legs that tells me I have a dad and we know each other.

“So you’re having an adventure, you’re crashing and burning, but you’re not high, drunk, or messing around with girls?”

“Yup.”

“What am I supposed to be upset about?” he asks.

“Dad,” I say, a little frustrated. “Is that what you’re supposed to say to your kid who is marooned in a hotel room in a strange city alone?”

“Hey. Baby steps, right?”

“Have you been drinking?”

“Nope,” he says.

“Good.”

“Easy for you to say. It sucks monkey cock, actually. I’m jonesing for a scotch and soda.”

“You gonna be okay?”

“Could you stay on the phone with me for a while? That would help,” he says, and I hear that unsureness in his voice again. So I do, and I tell him the story of what happened with Aisha, and he has no advice but does laugh at the funny parts, which is better than nothing, and actually calms me down a bit. He tells me that he and my mom are getting along real well, past fighting for the first time in so long he can’t even remember. She’s super pissed at me, he says. “Better get her something in San Francisco. Something good.”

“I’ll buy her a condo,” I say. “Tell her I’m okay and I’m coming back soon.” Then I ask him if he could imagine us being a family again, and he has to pause before he says anything.

“That would be real nice,” he says, his voice weak.