“Hi, Mom,” I said into my phone as I turned the knob.

  She was already there—standing in the kitchen like she’d been poured into the space and set to harden. Polo from the store, nametag still on, bun migrated down to the back of her neck.

  The shine on the counters was blinding.

  The chipped cow mug sat by the stove, looking judgemental.

  “Diana.” My name came out flat. Tired. She put down her phone. “How could you—after last night—where were you?”

  I closed the door behind me and let it click. “Out walking. I—lost track of time.”

  “Lost track.” She glanced at the oven clock. One of the bars on the eight was burned out, so it always looked like a six. “You know better than to be out after dark. After the police station, you decide to go for a stroll?”

  “I needed…” Air. A few minutes not thinking about my failures. “I needed to clear my head.”

  Her hands gripped the dishcloth. Twist, untwist, fold, smooth. “We are not doing this, Diana. Not the half-truths, not the shrugging. You scared me last night. You embarrassed yourself. You embarrassed me.” She stopped. Took a breath like she was switching gears. “And you have to make it right.”

  There it was. Make it right. The rock in my stomach rolled.

  “You’re grounded,” she said, and the words landed like rapping knuckles on the counter. “Two weeks. No going out except school, work if you have it, which I expect you will, and church if I can drag you.” One corner of her mouth twitched at her own joke and then flattened. “No parties. Phone stays, because I’m not a monster, but if I see games instead of homework, the phone lives in the sewing basket at night.”

  “The sewing basket?” I repeated, because it was safer than saying anything else.

  She ignored me. “Tomorrow we’re going to the skating center. You are going to apologize. You will offer to clean the wall. If you can’t—if it requires professionals—you will ask if there’s anything else you can do to make up for what you did. You will mean it. No eye-rolling.”

  “I won’t,” I said, even though my eyes were already itching to roll right out of my head and into the sink. “I’ll mean it.”

  “The precinct called.” She swallowed a sigh and kept going. “Monday after school, we’re going to the community service office. We’ll find out your hours and what you’ll be doing.”

  I imagined myself in a neon vest picking up trash along the highway while gulls judged me. “Okay,” I said. It came out small.

  “I get it.”

  Her face softened a fraction. Not much. Just enough to make my throat tight. “Do you?”

  “I messed up,” I said. It wasn’t the whole truth. It was true in part. “I was trying to—” Be someone. Be chosen. “It was stupid.”

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “Yes.” She pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose, then dropped her hand. “You’re a good kid, Diana. You’re not…this. I don’t know what’s going on with you and those girls, but chasing people who don’t care about you is a bad hobby.”

  “I know,” I lied. Or half-lied. Knowing and stopping were apparently different sports.

  She moved to the sink, turned on the tap, and rinsed the sponge even though it was clean. The smell of lemon and a ghost of bleach floated up. I thought about the alley and the scrubbed asphalt, and bile rose in my throat.

  “Did you—” The question jumped out before I could corral it. “Did you ever…clean…like, outside? With…bleach?”

  She turned, brows pulling together. “Outside?”

  “Never mind.” I swallowed, feeling like an idiot. “Weird thought.”

  She watched me a second longer than comfortable, then let it go.

  “Eat,” she said, defaulting to the one battlefield she could control. “There’s leftover pasta in the fridge. You look pale.”

  I took the Tupperware and spooned twirls into a bowl just to have something to do with my hands. The microwave hummed. The cow mug stared at me: Don’t have a cow! Ha, ha. Too late.

  I wanted to tell her everything. About the thing with the frill, the kids with the dull swords, the way the alley had been scrubbed like a kitchen floor. The way my head kept catching on shadows and depth like my brain was mismeasuring the world. The words queued up behind my teeth and then jammed. If Officer Morales’ careful pen and extra forms were any indication, best case, she’d give me that same look—polite, concerned, not believing. Worst case…doctors. Tests.

  Seeing things was not a fun conversation topic in a house where keeping it together was the religion.

  The microwave dinged.

  I took the bowl out and burned my fingers on the edge like a rite of passage. Mom got two forks without being asked and set them down, handles aligned. We ate standing at the counter, because plates were for less complicated days.

  “You can still see Sketch,” she said, like it cost her nothing. “Here. Or there. Homework. During your grounding.”

  A piece of pasta went down wrong, and I coughed. “Really?”

  She gave me a sideways look. “He’s a good influence.”

  “He’s not that good.” I tried for light and almost made it.

  Her mouth twitched again, then settled. “Tomorrow, we leave at nine. The rink opens at ten. You can sweat in the car and rehearse your apology.” She took my bowl when I was done and washed it like the dishwasher wasn’t right there. “Bed by ten tonight. No arguments.”

  “Ten,” I echoed. “Got it.”

  She dried her hands and hung the towel straight. Everything in its place. “I’m proud of you when you’re yourself,” she said, surprising me so hard I almost dropped my phone. “You don’t have to borrow trouble to belong to anyone.”

  Heat prickled behind my eyes. I blinked hard at the countertop. “Okay.”

  “Okay,” she echoed. She hesitated, like she wanted to reach for me and didn’t trust her hands not to shake. “Goodnight, baby.”

  “Night, Mom.”

  I escaped to my room before my face did something embarrassing. I shut the door and leaned against it, listening to the apartment settle around me—pipes ticking, someone downstairs laughing at a TV show, the faint grit of the city pushing at the window.

  Grounded for two weeks. Apologize at the rink. Community service on Monday. Lines drawn. Boxes checked. I’d braced for a month. As crappy as it felt, I’d gotten off easy.

  Maybe.

  Depends on what community service looks like.

  My brain spun laps: the scrubbed alley. The smell of cleaners where there shouldn’t have been any. The kids with their hungry-looking swords. We, in Sketch’s voice. Back to the alley.

  I set my phone on the nightstand. The monster floated up–the frill, the teeth. I had an excuse to see Sketch tomorrow.

  I smiled and turned off the light.