Where are you?
She typed back.
Coffee with Bea. Back in an hour.
You went out?
Stella frowned at the screen and typed.
Yes?
How did you get there?
And there it was. The question Stella had been avoiding for days.
She could lie. Say Bea drove. Say they walked. Say anything except the truth that was about to complicate everything even more.
But she was tired of dancing around the edges of her new life, pretending it was smaller than it was.
I drove, she typed.I have my license now.
The three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
Then nothing.
“Uh oh,” Bea said, reading over her shoulder. “That’s not a good silence.”
“No.”
“How did she not know you could drive?”
“It never came up.”
“It never—” Bea shook her head. “You don’t exactly have longconversations, do you?”
“She asks how I’m doing. I say fine. She asks about the Shack. I say fine. She doesn’t ask about the rest.”
“The rest being... your entire life?”
“Pretty much.”
The phone rang.
Stella answered before she could talk herself out of it. “Mum.”
“You have a driver’s license?” Fiona’s voice was sharp, clipped. “Since when?”
“Since a while ago. Tyler taught me. I passed the test and?—”
“Tyler taught you to drive? Without asking my permission?”
“I’m sixteen. I don’t need your permission to?—”
“You absolutely need my permission. You’re a child. You’re my child. And you’re driving around California like?—”
“Like a person who lives here?”
Silence. Stella could hear Fiona breathing, could picture her pacing whatever room she was in, phone pressed to her ear.
