SP

After my dad lost his job, we were forced to leave the neighborhood I’d grown up in and move a few miles away to another part of Chicago’s South Side. Starting over halfway through junior year wasn’t easy, but I quickly became friends with Ian Gallagher after we were paired together in biology. Within a few months, he was my best friend. We walked home together after school, spent hours talking while he worked at the Kash and Grab, and somehow knew everything about each other—except I’d never met his family. Ian always came to my house, claiming his was “too chaotic.”