"妈爸！我到家了！(Mom, Dad! I'm back home!)" I say as I take my shoes off and set them to the side of the shoe rack.

Placing my backpack on the ground, I notice my parents walk toward me with a smile. "How was everything, Ashley?" My mom asks as she looks outside of the windows.

"It was alright. Did you get my text message?" I ask as I look at both of them.

My dad nods as he glances at his phone. "谁是内阁男生啊? (Who's that boy that you went out with?)" he asks with a grim look on his face.

My mother intervenes as she tells him, "就让他这样吧。不要这么严格吧. Ashley几百年没有出去了。(Let her be. Don't be so strict on her. Ashley hasn't gone out of the house in a million years.)"

"但是，我还是给爸爸讲吧. (But, I'll still tell Dad.)" I look at my father in the eyes as I walk up to him. "He's one of the people that I've been tutoring..." I trail off as I try to find the correct words to say next. "And he happens to be the captain of the boys' basketball team."

"Wait, what?!" my father asks in shock. "Didn't you say you didn't want to be affiliated with anything about basketball? What's with the change in mentality now?"

I close my eyes as I let out a long sigh. "Remember when I came back late two weeks ago because I told you that I had to squeeze in another tutoring session? That was him. William Campbell couldn't stop pestering me to tutor him and I ended up taking him in for only one session as Ms. Darian said that he wasn't as bad as I thought he was. After taking him in for one session, he basically bribed her with five-thousand dollars and said that he wanted me to tutor him till the end of the semester. So now, this is where we are," I explain as I purse my lips in frustration.

"但是，你已经说你不要这样啊。(But you already said you didn't want to be affiliated with anybody like him)," my father repeats as he rubs his face in frustration.

"I know. I know. But he was willing to give that much money and I feel guilty for him doing that. What's the worse that can happen toward the end of the semester? And you know that I like to help people."

My mom looks at me with worry. "We just don't want you to go into that same spiral again like last year. You're our daughter and we just want you to be happy," she points out.

I sigh. "Well, what can you do now? Will's about to have a precalc test on Monday and I'm confident that he'll pass it with no worries."

Both of my parents nod their heads in acknowledgment. "Just be careful, 宁宁 (nickname of Ashley's). If you don't want to tutor him anymore, then just say it. Your mental health is way more important than someone else's grade. This 'William' that you speak of, he can find somebody else to tutor him if he cares so much about his grade," my father presses.

"我知道了。你不用担心了. (I understand. You don't have to worry anymore)," I reassure as I walk towards the backyard. "I'm going to shoot some hoops.”

My dad sighs as he walks away from my mom and me towards the living room. I take one last glance at my mom before closing the screen door behind me. Closing my eyes, I breathe in the cold night air. All this “pretending to care about Will” is starting to really get on my nerves. I shift my eyes over to the basketball that’s wedged in between a chair and a plant pot.

Picking it up, I dribble it towards the basket and go for an underhand layup. The ball rolls around the rim but ends up going through the basket. I catch it in my hands and dribble it around to shoot at random places in the court.

I didn’t want to seem mean and not care about anything that Will said tonight. It’s just that I have to distance myself from him or else I will make the same mistake I did when I was in San Francisco. That is something I wish to forget but I can’t.

I shoot the ball and it bounces off of the side of the rim causing it to ricochet into the bushes. Will does seem like a nice person and he’s willing to be open with me about his own problems, which is something I don’t mind but I feel like he’s using me to escape his own reality.

I don’t want to be used. I’d rather be left alone in my own misery than be used because the feeling of being used is worse than drowning in my misery. Will chose his path when he wanted to play basketball and thus, he can have as much fame as he wants.

I just don’t want to deal with all his nonsense when he comes crying to me once more because he can’t handle the pressure anymore. He has to realize that he’s not the only one that has to handle this much pressure. I yank the basketball out of the bush and head straight back onto the concrete court.

But at the same time, I really want to know what he thinks of me. Although I was faking it the whole time, it doesn’t necessarily mean that my actual personality isn’t like that. I’m just pretending. That’s all.

However, the main problem is that if I keep faking it, then, later on, I wouldn’t even be able to tell if I am lying or not. I would just be lying to myself at the end. And I also have other problems to deal with if I stay with Will for too long, such as his ex who looks like she’s going to kill me the next time she lays her beady blue eyes on me.

No wonder she’s his ex. What was he thinking when he got together with her? It’s none of my business anyway. I also am going to have to deal with all the rumors spreading around me as he is popular and whatnot and I am not in the mood to deal with that.

Gossip can get super nasty when it comes to jealousy. Maybe I shouldn’t have lashed out at Bethany like that. I’m going to regret it when she wants revenge because she seems like the person who takes revenge 24/7. If that’s the case, then I have to be very careful.

But I am not going to lie: Will is a fun person to be around. As I think of this, I shoot the ball and it swishes into the basket. Even the basket agrees. I’m just trying to figure out why he wants to hang out with me. I mean, look at me: I barely have any friends, I’m a bookworm, I’m anti-social, and I tend to be very straightforward with people that seem to not want it. How is any of that attractive?

Maybe when I have the chance, I will ask him. But as of right now, I am going to have to steer clear of his ex and the rest of his friends.