By the time Brandon wished his parents had never met, he was staring at a chipped bowl of Hamburger Helper in a cramped California kitchen, wondering why every other kid in his eighth-grade class seemed to be living in a different country—the one with PS5s, new iPhones, and parents who didn’t smell faintly of hospital soap and overcooked pasta.

“Hamburger Helper. Again?” he muttered, poking the noodles like they’d personally offended him.

Across the table, his mom—still in scrubs from the county hospital—slid into her chair with a tired smile. “I’m sorry, sweetie. It’s what we can afford right now. When I was your age, there were days we didn’t even have food.”

He rolled his eyes. “What’s that got to do with me?”

“It means sometimes you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone,” she said softly. “Back then I would’ve been grateful for this.”

“Okay, inspirational poster. Whatever.” Brandon shoved a forkful into his mouth, mostly out of spite.

His dad stepped in from the hallway, untying his work boots. “Hey, champ.” He bent down to kiss Mom’s forehead, then reached to tap the thin braided bracelet on her wrist. “Still wearing that thing, huh?”

She smiled, fingers brushing the faded threads. “Your dad gave me this in the high school cafeteria. I’d just transferred. New girl with a bad haircut and no friends.”

Brandon groaned. “Oh my gosh, not this story again.”

“I didn’t know where to sit at lunch,” she continued anyway. “Then there was this cute boy named Joey who asked me to sit with him. Complimented my hair—”

“Which was probably a lie,” Dad said, grinning.

“And the rest is history,” she finished, eyes glowing in a way that made Brandon’s stomach twist. He didn’t want their “history.” He wanted a new phone.

“Can we talk about something that doesn’t make me want to puke?” he said. “Like… a new iPhone?”

Mom’s smile faded. “Brandon—”

“My phone’s a piece of junk. When can I get an upgrade?”

“You know our situation,” Dad said gently. “We’ll get you one as soon as we can.”

“But everyone else already has one,” Brandon shot back. “This is so dumb.”

“Watch your tone,” Mom warned.

“You two are so annoying. I wish you never even met,” he snapped, slamming his fork down so hard the plate rattled.

Silence. The kind that made the old fridge hum sound suddenly loud.

He stomped to his room, not waiting to see the look that passed between his parents—the hurt in it, the history.

Outside his bedroom window, the neighborhood looked like every other middle-class block in southern California: thin palm trees, sun-faded lawns, and a sky the color of old denim. Somewhere in one of those houses, he was sure a kid was unboxing an iPhone 15.

He didn’t expect the knock.

“Yo.” Neil, his neighbor and resident science nerd, popped his head in before Brandon could answer. “Are you even listening to me on text? I cracked it.”

“Cracked what? Fortnite? Your voice?” Brandon flopped onto the bed.

Neil held up something that used to be a flip phone and was now… not. Wires protruded from the sides, taped to a calculator, a broken smartwatch, and what looked suspiciously like Brandon’s old TV remote. “Time travel,” Neil said, eyes shining. “I made a time machine.”

Brandon stared. “Out of a prepaid phone and trash?”

“Recycled components,” Neil corrected. “All you do is type in how many years you want to go back, push the call button, and poof. You’re there. When you’re ready to come back, hit pound and call again.”

“Right,” Brandon said. “And I’m the President.”

“Look, I tested it with a cockroach,” Neil said. “He disappeared.”

“Or he crawled away,” Brandon deadpanned.

Neil shoved the contraption into his hands. “You’re always talking about how your life would be better if your parents hadn’t ended up together. Go back twenty-five years. Break them up before they even start.”

The words slid right into the part of Brandon that had been simmering since dinner. The part that hated the second-hand shoes, the slow phone, the way his mom’s eyes got shiny every time a bill came in the mail.

“Fine,” he said. “Let’s see this.”

He strapped the rubber-banded mess around his wrist. The phone screen flickered to life, numbers scrambling.

“Twenty-five years,” he muttered, thumb hovering. “Before they ever met.”

He hit CALL.

The world tilted.

The kitchen dissolved into pixels, and then there was nothing but a ringing sound, high and sharp, like the air itself was a dial tone. For a second, Brandon thought he’d pass out. Then his feet slammed into something solid.

Grass.

He stumbled, grabbing a metal pole to steady himself. A basketball hoop. Kids were shouting, a bell was ringing, and when he raised his head, he realized he was standing in the courtyard of a high school.

Same town. Same sun. Twenty-five years earlier.

Across the yard, a girl with a messy ponytail stood alone, clutching a lunch tray, eyes darting around the crowded tables. The braided bracelet flashed on her wrist like a glitch in the system.

Mom.

Brandon’s heart thudded painfully. She looked younger than he’d ever imagined, like she still believed in everything.

“Make a move already, Joey,” a boy’s voice said nearby.

Brandon turned. His dad—less tired, more hair—stood with a friend near the bleachers, staring at Mom like she was the only person in the world.

“She’s the new girl,” Joey’s friend said. “You better act fast before someone else does.”

Brandon’s fingers twitched. His entire future was right there in the space between them.

He walked toward them before he could think.

“Yo, what’s up?” Joey’s friend said, narrowing his eyes. “Do we know you?”

“I’m, um…” Brandon swallowed. “Future… transfer. Doesn’t matter. Look.” He jerked his chin toward a tall guy in a varsity jacket across the courtyard. “See that girl?” he lied. “She’s into Richie. Big time. You should go talk to someone else.”

Joey frowned. “I haven’t even talked to her yet.”

“Well, she’s… really not your type,” Brandon said. “Trust me.”

He didn’t trust himself to say anything else. Panic crawled up his throat. He was doing it. He was rewriting his own origin story.

By the time he found the courage to look again, Richie was crossing the courtyard, swagger turned up to ten. Brandon watched, sick, as Richie leaned over his mom’s table, said something, and made her laugh. Joey hesitated, then turned away.

It was done.

Brandon squeezed his eyes shut and slapped the pound key.

The world dissolved again.

When the room reassembled around him, Brandon’s first thought was that his bed felt different—softer, like it had swallowed him a little. His second was that his voice had dropped.

“Neil?” he croaked.

“Dude,” Neil said, somewhere in the distance. “Are you serious right now?”

Brandon sat up.

He was in the same room… but it wasn’t the same room. The posters on the walls were framed, not taped. The carpet was new. The beat-up dresser had turned into sleek black furniture with a giant flatscreen mounted above it. A PS5 logo glowed like a portal on the TV screen.

His hand flew to his pocket.

The phone he pulled out was heavy and smooth, the newest model, with three cameras gleaming like jewels. His wrist buzzed: a smartwatch. His shirt had a brand logo he’d only seen on influencers.

He stumbled to the mirror.

There he was. Same face, slightly older, sharper jawline, hair actually behaving itself. Only it wasn’t just him. It was a version of him with money.

“Neil,” he whispered. “It worked.”

Of course it did. Because the kitchen he walked into ten minutes later had marble counters. Because the car in the driveway was a luxury SUV with a bow still tied to the keys. Because a woman in a black blazer and a tight smile greeted him with, “There’s my birthday boy.”

She had his mom’s coloring but different everything: expensive highlights, cold eyes, a diamond ring that could blind you.

“Happy almost-sixteenth,” she said, air-kissing his cheek.

“Where’s Dad?” he asked automatically.

“‘Dad?’” A man’s voice—loud, amused—boomed from the living room. A guy in a designer polo leaned back on a couch the size of their old apartment. “That’s what you call Jeff Bezos.” He pointed at himself with a wink. “You, my man, can call me sir. Or ‘the guy who pays for all this.’”

Brandon’s stomach dropped.

Richie.

It took an entire day for the shine to crack. For the “cool” dad who bought him an Oculus and let him order whatever he wanted on food apps to turn into the guy screaming into his phone at some assistant. For the tension in the house to feel like static.

The night it shattered, Brandon was at the top of the stairs, controller in hand, when voices rose below.

“You promised you’d change,” his mom said. Her voice sounded like it had edges now.

“Oh, come on, Lib,” Richie said, bored. “Every successful man steps out once in a while. You knew what you were signing up for.”

“I married you because I loved you,” she snapped back. “Not so you could betray me over and over.”

“That prenup says different,” he said, standing. “You want out? Fine. But I’m keeping the house, the cars, everything.”

“I don’t care about your money.” Her voice broke. “I’m taking Brandon.”

He laughed, cold and sharp. “No. You’re not. Judges like winners, Libby. And I have every lawyer in this county on speed dial.”

Brandon stood frozen in the hallway, fingers digging into the banister. His mom’s shoulders shook. She’d never looked small to him before. Not like this.

“You can’t keep him from me,” she whispered.

“Watch me.” Richie poured himself another drink. “Everything in this life is mine, remember? Including the kid.”

Brandon backed away, heart pounding. The room he’d wanted, the things he’d fantasized about, all blurred into something ugly.

He thought of his real dad’s scuffed boots. His mom’s tired eyes over Hamburger Helper. The way they always, always showed up.

He ran.

The time-phone was still on his wrist. His fingers smashed the buttons, desperate now.

“Take me back,” he whispered. “Please.”

He pressed CALL.

The world folded in on itself.

When it spit him out again, he slumped against his old bedroom wall, breathing hard. The posters were crooked again. The carpet had the same mysterious stain. The PS5 was gone.

He didn’t care.

“Brandon?” his mom called from the kitchen. “Dinner!”

He stumbled out, throat tight.

They both looked up when he burst into the room. “We feel really bad about the phone thing,” his dad started. “We were thinking—”

“I don’t care,” Brandon blurted, voice cracking. “I don’t care about the phone or the shoes or the food or any of it.”

His parents stared.

“I’m just… I’m glad you’re my parents,” he said, words tumbling out faster now. “I’m sorry I said I wished you never met. I didn’t mean it.”

His mom’s hand flew to her mouth. His dad blinked hard, like he didn’t quite trust what he’d heard.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Mom said finally, wrapping him in a hug that smelled like laundry soap and hospital hallways. “We love you, too.”

He sank into it, holding on like he might fall through the floor if he let go.

Sometimes you don’t know what you have until it’s gone, he thought. And sometimes you’re lucky enough to get it back.

Across town, that same night, in a small apartment with a view of a freeway and a sliver of downtown lights, a girl named Nia held a stack of unopened letters from a woman she’d spent ten years hating.

Her aunt stood in the doorway. “She’s at the door again,” she said quietly. “Your mom.”

“She’s not my mom,” Nia muttered, eyes burning. “Tell her to leave.”

“I tried,” her aunt said. “She’s not budging this time.”

Nia threw the letters back into the shoebox under her bed. The parole board had released her mother that morning from a state prison somewhere out in the California desert. The local news had covered a “non-violent offender reunited with her family.” Nia had changed the channel.

Family, she thought bitterly, slipping on her sneakers. Funny word.

She’d been five when the police lights painted the inside of their old car red and blue. Five when officers pulled her mom out from behind the wheel. Five when someone she’d never met told her that Mommy “had to go away for a while.”

After that, it was just Dad. Dad and his pills. Dad and the nights he didn’t wake up on the couch, or at all.

The memory came, whether she wanted it or not: paramedics leaning over her father. Voices calm and professional. Someone gently steering her into the kitchen and putting a cartoon on the tiny TV while the world ended in the next room.

Her “mom” had done that. If she hadn’t been dealing substances, if she hadn’t been driving that day, if she hadn’t left Nia with a man who was crumbling… none of it would’ve happened. That’s what Nia told herself, anyway. The only way the story made sense.

She snatched her backpack from the corner. “I’m going to Carly’s,” she muttered.

“Nia,” her aunt said gently. “Maybe just listen to her for five minutes—”

“I don’t want five minutes.” Nia yanked the door open.

Her mother was there. Not in orange anymore. Just jeans, a faded hoodie, and a face that looked older but somehow still like the woman in Nia’s earliest memories—the one who danced with her in the tiny kitchen, balancing a toddler on her hip.

“Nia,” she breathed. “You’re so beautiful.”

“I told you not to come here,” Nia said, voice icy. “I don’t want to see you.”

“Please,” her mother said. “Did you read my letters? I explained everything.”

“I don’t want your explanations.” The words came out louder than she meant them to. “You ruined my life. You don’t get to show up now and ask for forgiveness like it’s that easy.”

Her mom flinched. “Sweetie, I—”

“Stop calling me that,” Nia snapped. “Just stop trying to be in my life. It’s never going to happen.”

She stormed past her, down the stairs, out into the warm California night, heart hammering. On the sidewalk she almost ran right into Carly, who jumped back.

“Hey!” Carly said. “I was just coming to get you. I brought snacks. Also, your English teacher assigned like five chapters of Gatsby and I refuse to suffer alone.”

Nia tried to laugh and failed. “Heard that book is about rich people being depressing.”

“It’s about forgiveness,” Carly said. “Kind of.”

“Then Gatsby’s dumb,” Nia muttered. “Some people don’t deserve forgiveness.”

Later, curled up on Carly’s bed with highlighters and open books, Nia found herself ranting. The words poured out faster than she could stop them: the traffic stop, the prison sentence, the revolving door of foster homes, the night her father’s “bad habit” finally caught up with him.

“And it’s all her fault,” Nia finished, throat raw. “If she hadn’t been… doing what she was doing, if she hadn’t been there that day, everything would be different.”

Carly was quiet for a moment. “I’m so sorry that happened to you,” she said. “But… did you ever think maybe your dad made choices, too?”

“You don’t get it,” Nia said. “You have perfect parents.”

Carly snorted. “My dad eats cereal for dinner and forgets to pay the Wi-Fi bill. Trust me, he’s not perfect. Look… you don’t have to forgive your mom. You really don’t. But I think if you didn’t care, she wouldn’t make you this angry.”

“I don’t want her in my future,” Nia insisted. “I don’t even want her in my past. I wish—”

She stopped herself. Wishes were dangerous. Ask Brandon.

That night, sleep wouldn’t come. The letters under her bed felt louder than her thoughts. At three in the morning, she gave up. Flicked on her desk lamp. Pulled the shoebox out.

The first envelope was soft at the corners, like it had been reread a hundred times—just not by her.

Dear Nia, it began. After all these years, I’ve accepted you may not write back…

Her mother’s handwriting was messier than she remembered. But the story it told was frighteningly clear.

A boyfriend who always had some new side hustle that wasn’t exactly legal. A car that never quite worked. Rent that was always late. And, woven through all of it, a little girl with pigtails who made everything feel worth fighting for.

The day of the arrest, her mom wrote, she’d switched places with Nia’s dad when the police siren flashed behind them. He’d been drinking; she hadn’t. She’d believed him when he told her there was nothing in the car. When the officers found otherwise, he’d gone quiet, letting the charges slide onto her like rain off a windshield.

She’d taken the plea deal to avoid a longer sentence. From the back of the police car, she’d watched Nia through the foggy window, face pressed against the glass of the cruiser ahead. Screaming for a mother no one would let her have.

I am so, so sorry, the letter ended. You are the best thing that ever happened to me. I can’t change what I did or what I didn’t do, but I will spend the rest of my life trying to show you how much I love you—if you’ll let me.

Nia didn’t realize she was crying until a tear hit the ink, blurring a word.

The next week at school, during another discussion on Gatsby and whether Daisy deserved forgiveness, Nia raised her hand for the first time.

“I think…” She swallowed. “I think sometimes forgiveness isn’t about what the other person deserves. It’s about whether you want to keep carrying what they did around forever.”

In the back of the room, Carly blinked at her. Slowly smiled.

Later that afternoon, Nia stood outside the coffee shop where her mother had said she’d be “every Thursday at four, just in case.” Her heart thudded against her ribs, and every survival instinct she’d built told her to run.

She went in anyway.

Her mom sat at a corner table, hands wrapped around a cheap paper cup like it was something holy. When she saw Nia, she stood so fast the chair scraped.

“You came,” she whispered.

“I read your letters,” Nia said. “All of them.”

Her mother looked terrified. Not of going back to prison. Not of some past mistake catching up to her. Of a seventeen-year-old girl who could walk back out the door.

“I’m not saying everything’s fine,” Nia said, voice shaking. “It’s not. I can’t forget what happened. But… I don’t want to hold on to this anger forever. So…”

She took a breath that felt like jumping off a cliff.

“I forgive you,” she said. “And maybe we can… see where it goes from here.”

Her mother’s shoulders collapsed with relief. Tears spilled down her cheeks. When Nia stepped forward into her arms, it felt like hugging a ghost that had finally turned solid.

Across town again, under the same California sky, another kid was learning a quieter version of the same lesson.

Jay had a habit of breaking promises. Little ones, mostly. “I’ll help with decorations after this game.” “I’ll bake cookies with you later.” “I’ll be back by five, six at the latest.”

Each time, his mom shook her head and did it herself. Cookies alone in a tiny kitchen before a night shift at the hospital. Wrapping presents solo. Hanging tinsel with one arm while she balanced the phone with the other, checking on her patients.

The night she got tired of lectures and decided to teach him a different way, she let him stay up.

“Really?” he asked, wide-eyed. “All night?”

“All night,” she said, setting down a tray with energy drinks and candy. “Only condition is you still go to school tomorrow. No excuses.”

He stayed up, of course. Powered by neon sugar and the thrill of doing something he wasn’t supposed to. Games, videos, group chats. By the time the sky lightened outside, his hands were still on the controller but his brain was mush.

The next day was a disaster.

He air-balled shots in basketball practice. Forgot basic math in class. Dozed off during science and jerked awake to the entire room giggling. And just when he thought it couldn’t get worse, his mom picked him up after school with a secretive smile.

“Hope you’re ready,” she said. “Dhar Mann Studios moved your audition up. They want to see you today.”

He’d been begging for that shot for months. Rehearsing monologues in the bathroom mirror. Reciting lines as he laced his sneakers. Now he could barely remember his own name.

He bombed the audition spectacularly. Every “So you see” line tangled with another quote. Words came out upside down. At one point, he started talking about his pants. His mom watched from the back row, wincing in sympathy.

That night, after he’d finally crashed and woken up again, she sat on the edge of his bed.

“So,” she said. “Worth it?”

He flushed. “No.”

“Rules are there because I love you,” she said quietly. “Not because I want to ruin your fun.”

He nodded, throat thick. “I know that now.”

“Good,” she said, kissing his forehead. “Also… they called. They still want you. Apparently you’re ‘memorable.’”

“Seriously?” he whispered.

“Seriously. But you’re going to bed on time from now on.”

“Gladly,” he said. And this time, he meant it.

In the weeks that followed, as the school year rolled toward homecoming and the holidays and that odd American ritual known as Bring Your Parent to School Day, the stories that had been playing out in separate apartments and crowded kitchens began to intersect.

Brandon passed Nia in the hallway, earbuds in, backpack slung over one shoulder. He didn’t know her history, only that she’d started sitting closer to a woman with tired eyes and a tentative smile whenever they met outside after school.

Jay bumped into them at the vending machine, apologizing as his script pages fluttered everywhere. A nurse in blue scrubs helped him gather them. Nia recognized the hospital logo on her badge. Brandon recognized the way she pushed her hair back when she was nervous.

At the end of the week, the school auditorium filled with parents. Some in suits, some in uniforms, some in jeans and T-shirts stained with the kinds of jobs nobody ever wrote college essays about.

Brooke—another girl in their class who had spent way too long wishing her mom was someone richer, shinier, more like the partners at the downtown law firm—asked not to be called up. She cringed when she saw her mother standing near the back in an off-rack blazer, clutching a manila folder that would end up getting her crooked boss arrested for stealing from a client’s settlement.

Later, when a classmate came up to tell Brooke her mom was a hero for saving a little girl’s surgery, Brooke’s ears burned with a strange mix of shame and pride.

At lunch, James pulled a regular-sized candy bar out of his backpack. Not the giant kind, not the limited edition one everyone was posting on Instagram. Just a basic one his dad had bought him at the corner store.

He started to complain—then remembered the day before, when his dad had bought himself a king-size and used that simple moment to teach him a lesson that stuck more than any lecture.

“It’s enough,” he told himself. And when Michelle flashed her sleek new sneakers at the next table and somebody bragged about their iPhone upgrade, he found it easier, just a little, not to care.

Outside, under a sky streaked pink and gold over the freeway and strip malls, parents stood waiting. Some with flowers. Some with car keys and tired smiles. Some alone, like they’d just walked out of county facilities with a paper bag and a second chance.

Kids spilled out the doors, eyes scanning the crowd.

Brandon went straight for his parents, wrapping his arms around both of them at once, ignoring the smirk from a kid who’d seen him ride off once on a rich man’s car.

Nia walked slower, hands jammed in her pockets, until she saw her mom standing by the fence, clutching the same shoebox of letters Nia had finally read. They both hesitated, then stepped into each other’s orbit like it was where they’d been meant to be all along.

Jay jogged up to his mom, phone in hand. “Hey,” he said. “My friend’s got a game later and I told him I’d be there to cheer him on. But I promised you I’d help with decorations tonight, so… I’m coming straight home.”

His mom smiled so wide he didn’t need a coach to tell him he’d made the right call.

In a town where billboards advertised luxury apartments and lottery jackpots, where kids compared phones and shoes and follower counts, something quieter was happening in the cracks.

A boy who’d wished his parents never met had seen what that reality really cost.

A girl who’d sworn she didn’t care if her mom disappeared had learned that forgiveness didn’t erase the past—but it could change the future.

A kid who thought rules were dumb had discovered that someone setting boundaries for you is its own kind of love.

And all over that slice of America—crowded apartments, modest homes, double-wide trailers parked under palm trees that didn’t quite match their postcard image—parents were slipping off work boots and name badges and cheap bracelets, hoping their kids would someday understand just how much invisible work, how many quiet sacrifices, went into the simple miracle of being there.