Every hair on my body stands on end.

Via betrayed Penn. She destroyed his acceptance letter, so to speak. She never wanted to come back to start over. She came back to get even.

“Tell me you understand, that you will comply, and that this matter is sorted, Miss Followhill.” He stands up, parking his hands on his waist. His crotch is in my face, and I feel the need to throw up again.

I have an epiphany at that moment. I know what I need to do to save everyone.

Penn.

Adriana.

Harper.

Bailey.

Most of all—myself.

I nod, my heart hardening as I come to terms with what I have to do.

“Crystal clear, Principal Prichard.”

I crawl to my room with what little energy I have left. Every bone in my body is sore. My muscles are stiff, and my butt burns with each step I take.

The house is quiet. Bailey and Melody are at ballet. Dad’s at work. Penn—probably still at practice, or with Adriana and Harper. I don’t even have it in me to feel relieved that Via isn’t here. I haven’t seen the hideous pink Jeep she ended up accepting (“Mel, it’s the best thing that ever happened to me! So, so beautiful, thank you!”), and there’s no sign of anyone else in the house.

Pushing my door open, the sour scent of alcohol and wine fills my nostrils, and I stumble back, my spine hitting the opposite wall.

As the door creaks ajar, I get a better view of my room and see the reason for the odor. My bare toes are soaked and sticky on the floor.

My champagne aquarium wall is shattered. The hammer Via used is still hanging in the middle of the glass, from which the pink champagne filters down, making a hissing sound of a freshly opened beer bottle.

I stagger inside, supporting myself on random furniture. I’m trying to open my eyes all the way, but the skin around them is too swollen and tender. As I enter deeper into my room, I notice a piece of cream-colored paper stuck to a wet piece of glass that’s still standing in the aquarium. I recognize the note instantly. It was torn from my journal. I pluck it out.

Tell them it was an accident

Or your mom will find out you killed her dream, too.

My eyes roll inside their sockets, and my knees give out. Everything turns black, just like the book where I keep all my secrets, and there is no light at the end of my tunnel.

Love is so much like death

Certain

Absolute

And out of our control

The future is always blissfully photoshopped.

We’re always a few pounds lighter, a few brain cells smarter, and soaked with life experience and healthy logic.

The sad reality is, you never grow up to be who you’d imagined yourself as.

Through adolescence and my twenties, I thought I’d be the best mother in the world. Motherhood was the end game, the goal, the quest. I was so acutely aware of the mistakes my own parents had made with me, and I vowed to be perfect.

From the outside, parenting looked almost easy. Whoever said it doesn’t come with a guidebook was wrong. There were dozens of thick, helpful books—all of which I read while pregnant with Daria—and a few principles I thought were vital for success:

Don’t raise your voice to your kid.

Don’t lose your shit (see: number one).

Give them space.

Trust them.

Encourage their independence.

Shower them with love and gratitude, and they will grow up to be good humans.

I was bullied into becoming a ballerina by parents who wanted their daughter to be everything my mother couldn’t afford to be. So when Daria came along, and I saw from a very young age that she was spirited, rebellious, and full of the same anger her father harbored—raw fierceness that couldn’t be contained—I didn’t push her to follow my footsteps. Ballet, after all, is harsh and demanding. I always made sure she knew she wasn’t expected to be like me. But it seemed like the more choice I gave her—the harder she tried to prove me wrong.

I wonder where it all went wrong while folding the kids’ clothes in the laundry room. Doing the laundry is not a task I need to do with the amount of help I get around the house, but it’s a telling job when you raise teenagers.

I can see, smell, and find all their secrets.

I found Daria’s pompom string in Penn’s back pocket. Penn’s mouthguard in the pocket of Daria’s cardigan. There is still a resistant bubblegum-pink lipstick stain that refuses to leave one of Penn’s shirts. A lipstick I know belongs to my daughter. Bailey’s clothes are always full of mud—she rolls with Lev, our neighbor, on the hills of El Dorado. Via is the only one who is careful not to show where she’s been. She is, therefore, the kid I know who hides the most.

She thinks she is fooling us. But the fact of the matter is, I let her get away with her behavior because she’s been through so much.

I stop when I get to Daria’s pajama dress. It is sticky and heavier than the rest of the clothes as though it’s not completely dried. I turn it around and sniff—a mother always sniffs her kids’ clothes—and it smells like aloe.

Why would she put aloe all over her behind?

Clutching the fabric in my fist, I leave the laundry room to ask her just that.

Over the past few months, I’ve been begging for crumbs of her attention, knowing somewhere deep inside me that I don’t deserve them. I’ve failed her one too many times. She always seemed so strong and opinionated, and I made the gravest mistake a parent could. I treated her like an equal.