LEDA SAT IN bed, trying to catch up on her reading for English class, but her mind was racing too fast to focus on the words. She couldn’t stop thinking about Watt, and what had happened on Saturday night.
She’d woken the next morning to find nothing but rumpled bedcovers, Watt already gone. Then she’d remembered everything—the press of his mouth on hers, the strong, certain way his hands had traveled over her body—and she’d rolled over to bury her face in her pillow, stifling a groan. Thank god she hadn’t let it go too far. What had she been thinking, bringing home Watt Bakradi? She didn’t even like him. Might, in fact, detest him.
Well, she decided crisply, at least not liking him meant that it would be easy to erase this whole incident. No need to bring it up ever again.
Except that even now, she couldn’t hold back the memories flashing hot and bright through her mind, faster and faster. She closed her eyes against them, but that just made them come more quickly—
“Leda,” her mom said, pushing open her bedroom door.
“I thought we agreed that you were going to start knocking.” Leda couldn’t help being immediately on the defensive. She hoped the flush on her cheeks didn’t somehow betray what she’d just been thinking about.
Her mom wandered over to her closet, tapping angrily through the clothing display on Leda’s touch screen. She’d always found a strange comfort in clothes, as if by organizing the single perfect outfit she could ward off all the unpleasantness of life.
“I’m worried about you,” Ilara said, still looking at the screen. She was wearing silk pajamas that were covered in printed chickens, which for some reason struck Leda as absurdly comical. “I’ve been worried since before Eris died. Which is why we’re going to your check-in at Silver Cove next weekend, just you and me.”
Leda jumped out of bed, startled. “What? No!” Leda didn’t want to go back there—especially not with her mom.
“Leda, the four-month follow-up is a recommended part of your treatment. I think it would be good for you, given everything that’s been going on. Dr. Vanderstein agrees with me.”
“God, Mom, you have got to stop discussing me with him! It is completely unethical!” Leda cried out. She took a deep breath and tried to regain a measure of calm. “I don’t need to go. I promise.”
Leda couldn’t bear the thought of returning to Silver Cove. It was crowded with too many memories. If she went back, she would be forced to confront everything that had happened in the past few months—would have to remember the Leda Cole who’d first shown up there; young and wounded and still in love with Atlas. That girl may have been stupid, but at least she was better than this new Leda, who had killed someone, then blackmailed others into lying about it.
Leda was afraid, she realized, of the ghost of her former self.
Her mom sighed, and this time her tone was firm. “I know you’ve been lying to me.”
Leda’s heart raced. The mirrors in her closet made it seem as though there were three of Ilara, all of them reprimanding her daughter in the same disappointed tone. “You tell me that you’re going to Avery’s all the time, but then I hear from Elizabeth Fuller that you haven’t stopped by in weeks! What’s going on that you aren’t telling me?” her mom went on, defeated.
Leda stepped forward and pulled her mom into a hug. Her poor, sweet, trusting mom, who still didn’t know that Leda’s dad had cheated on her, who just wanted the best for her children. “I’m sorry,” Leda murmured, trying desperately to buy time. “I love you.” Ilara was so thin that Leda could feel each bone in her spine, all stacked on one another like curved puzzle pieces.
“Please, Leda. Whatever it is, I promise I want to help. I of all people have no room to judge,” Ilara said softly, and now she sounded close to tears. “After all, it’s my fault you got into this mess to begin with.”
Leda blinked, momentarily startled by her own insensitivity. She’d never considered that her mom might blame herself for Leda’s addiction. It had been Ilara’s xenperheidren that Leda had started popping back in seventh grade, when she first realized what they were. Her mom’s were legal, of course, prescribed for anxiety by none other than Dr. Vanderstein. But still.
If there was no way out of this rehab check-in, then at the very least Leda needed to go without her mom. It would be too emotionally taxing for Ilara. Leda couldn’t ask that of her.
“I’ll go by myself,” she offered, but her mom shook her head.
“You need an accountability partner there with you. What about Dad?”
Leda’s heart leapt in wild panic. Absolutely not. There was no way in hell she was spending an entire weekend alone with her dad. All those lectures and sharing circles—he might try to talk to her about Eris again, make some bizarre confession to relieve his own conscience, all under the guise of “healing.”
And then Leda realized exactly who she should ask. Someone who couldn’t make any demands of her, who would let her go to yoga and holo screenings instead of all the actual rehab activities. Someone who couldn’t tell her no.
“You were right, Mom. I have been keeping something from you.” Here it was, the gamble. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? “I have a new boyfriend.”
Sure enough, Ilara gave a sharp intake of breath, pleased to be proven right. “Boyfriend? Who is he?”
“Watt Bakradi. I brought him to the Hudson Conservancy Ball. He lives downTower, so I thought …” She purposefully let the silence drag out.
“What? That I wouldn’t approve?”
Leda shrugged, letting her mom take that as a yes.
“Come on, Leda. I hope you think better of me than that. I came from nothing too.” Ilara reached for Leda’s hands and gave her a firm, well-meaning squeeze.
“Thank you.” Leda exhaled in relief. “So, I was hoping Watt could come to the rehab check-in with me instead.”
Her mom still frowned. “I’m happy that you’ve found Watt, but I’m not sure he’s the right person to bring to Silver Cove. You haven’t been dating him that long; he’s not equipped to talk about your history. I would feel much better if your father went instead.”
Leda looked down as if embarrassed; digging herself further in, burying herself under more lies. “Watt does know my history. And he’s known me for a while, actually. It’s just a sensitive subject, because of how I met him.”
“What do you mean?”
“His older sister went to Silver Cove. She went through something similar.” Leda’s stomach twisted at the lie, but then she thought again of going back there—of seeing the old familiar places, and worse, what it might do to her mom—and her resolve hardened.
“Watt’s been my accountability partner recently. After everything that happened with his sister, it’s important to him to be part of my healing process. And it would mean a lot to me to have him there.”
Ilara was silent for a moment, studying Leda as if she wasn’t quite sure what to make of this new development. “Let me discuss this with your father. But I guess it’s all right.” She paused at the doorway. “You should bring Watt over for dinner sometime soon. And his sister,” she added warmly. “I’d love to meet them both.”
Leda held her mom’s gaze as she stretched her web of lies even further. “I can bring Watt. But his sister died last year.”
“Oh, Leda. I’m sorry.” Her mom’s face paled, and she swallowed. And Leda knew she had won.
“I love you, Mom.”
“Love you too. I’m proud of you,” Ilara said softly, shutting the door behind her.
Leda fell back onto her bed and began composing a message to Watt. Clear your plans for next weekend and pack your bags, she wrote. You’re coming with me to Nevada.