PLAYSTATION 5, said the box, in white letters on white.
For a second nobody said anything at all. Then Jordan said, "Whoa," in a voice that was trying too hard, a voice that sounded rehearsed, and Mom said, "Happy birthday, bug," and Grandpa said, "Well, would you look at that," and the three of them all turned, at exactly the same moment, to look at Caleb.
That was the worst part. Later, when he went over it — and he went over it a lot — that was the part that came back first. Not the box. The way they all looked at him. Like they were waiting. Like they wanted to see what he'd do.
He heard himself say, "Cool."
Jordan's face did something complicated. "Caleb—"
"I'm gonna get more punch." His cup was still half full. He stood up anyway and picked it up and walked into the kitchen, and he stood at the counter with his back to the doorway and stared at the punch bowl, at the sherbet melting into foam, at the ladle with the crack in the handle that Mom had glued, and he felt hot all the way up his neck, into his ears, into his scalp.
Five-fifty. Not this spring. There's a lot going on.
He heard Mom's chair scrape. He heard her say something low to Grandpa. Then she was in the kitchen behind him, and she put a hand on his shoulder, and he moved his shoulder out from under it.
"Cal," she said. "Honey. I know how this looks."
"It looks like you bought Jordan a PS5."
"It's not—" She stopped. He could hear her breathing. He could hear her deciding something. "It's more complicated than that. I promise. I'll explain, I just can't right this second, okay? Can you just give it a little time—"
"You said we couldn't afford it."
"We couldn't. We can't. That's true."
"Then how—" He turned around. Her face was pink and her eyes were wet and that made him angrier, somehow, that she got to be the one who looked hurt. "You said not this spring. It's spring. It's literally spring."