Not over the blood rushing in my ears and the echo of my own voice, remembered from just two nights ago when I told Nico I loved him. Not to his face, of course. I whispered it to the picture I’d printed off the school website. The one where he was mid-laugh on the soccer field, wind tugging at his hair.
I’d pressed my lips to it.
Called it our secret.
Now that secret felt diseased.
I jumped as my mom slammed the car door hard enough to make the frame shake. She didn’t look at me, just stormed up the porch steps, her heels striking the wood like gunshots. My pulse tripped over itself, dread tightening my throat as I followed.
The keys jingled violently as she jammed them into the lock, muttering under her breath. I hesitated on the porch, glancing back at the car.
My dad was still in the driver’s seat, hands slack on the steering wheel, his eyes fixed straight ahead. The engine idled softly, exhaust curling into the cold air. He didn’t look at me. Didn’t look at anything. Just sat there, like if he stayed still long enough, the whole day might erase itself.
I’d lost him. I could see that.
He’d been in my corner once. Not loudly, never that…but enough to make me believe I wasn’t so bad. Now I could see the truth in the way he kept staring forward.
I was on my own.
My mom shoved the door open with her shoulder, the hinges groaning in protest. The sound made me flinch.
Inside, the faint smell of lemon cleaner clung to everything, unsullied and artificial, the way my mother liked it. She scrubbed the house until it gleamed, as if perfection could keep the cracks from showing. Lemon meant order. Lemon meant control.
It was obvious she had her own problem with obsession, though hers was the kind that got praised. Her addiction was perfection…and perfection never hurt anyone. Not the way mine did.
It burned the back of my throat.
I’d never smelled like lemon, no matter how many times she told me to clean up, straighten up, be better. I always carried something else on my skin: want, worry, the kind of wrongness she couldn’t wipe away.
The smell made my stomach twist until I thought I might throw up.
She dropped her purse onto the table with a sharpthudand spun on her heel so fast I almost collided with her.
Her eyes found me, dark and gleaming with fury, and I knew the real punishment hadn’t even started yet.
“You need more structure,” she snapped, her finger pointed like a weapon. “That’s what the therapist said, right? Well, I can tell you it’s not going to be at your school. I’m done letting you drag this family down with you.”
I didn’t respond. I just stood there with my backpack still slung over one shoulder since I’d carried it straight from school to the therapist’s office. The strap dug into my skin, and I felt small and stupid and sick all over again.
“You embarrassed us,” she hissed, her lips twisting into a snarl. “You embarrassedyourself. You’re lucky his parents didn’t file a restraining order.”
The termrestraining ordermade something shift in my chest.
Something I didn’t have a name for. Something rotten and soft, collapsing under its own weight.
The hoodie.
That was what had started today. The reason we’d been called in, the reason for the emergency appointment, the reason everyone looked at me like I was something that needed fixing.
I hadn’t meant for it to be a big deal. It had just been his hoodie, soft and warm, still smelling like him.
But then Laura had noticed it. And she’d told.
And suddenly it wasn’t comfort anymore…it wasevidence.
My mother shook her head like she couldn’t even look at me anymore, then turned and walked away without waiting for a response.
I went upstairs like I always did, one foot in front of the other, wooden and numb and not knowing what else to do. The afternoon light cut across the floorboards in neat, perfect lines, the kind my mother would’ve approved of. The edges of my mirror were taped with magazine clippings and sticky notes that didn’t make sense anymore.
