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“How late were you out?”

I don’t answer her.

Mom takes a bite of her toast. “Can you call it?”

No idea why she can’t use the app on her tablet, but whatever. I dig my phone from my pocket, find Mom’s contact, and call her. The house is silent for a few long seconds before a default ringtone jingles from her coat pocket across the house. She sighs in relief. Presumably because that means she didn’t leave it in a rideshare.

I chug my water, throw two slices of bread in the toaster—whole grain, sliced thin to cut down on calories—and go fetch it for her.

When I get it out of her coat pocket, there’s a text from Alyssa’s dad.

Warren

Did you get home all right, Bellamy?

“Really?” I say as I bring the phone over. “Him again?”

“He’s a nice man,” Mom says.

I drop the phone into her waiting hand. Mom and Warren Hanover broke up years ago. Or, I’m unsure if their relationship was enough of a relationship to warrant breaking up when it ended. I don’t want to think about this.

Mom adds, trying to be sharp but not quite managing it, “It’s nice to feel safe every once in a while. Is that a crime.”

She looks awful. Bags under her eyes, bathrobe badly tied. Strands of red hair sticking out of the bottom of the towel wrap. Barely awake past noon and bleary, with a splotch of makeup left behind at the corner of her eye. She takes another bite of her toast and winces at the taste, letting it drop gracelessly back onto the plate.

I realize, with all the weight of a stone sinking into the Potomac, that this is what I look like right now.

My eyes slide to the decorative mirror Mom hung on the back wall of the kitchen. To brighten up the place, she said. There I am: hair a disaster, eyes bloodshot, shoulders hunched like the alcohol is weighing me down.

How was the party at Jenna St. Clair’s only two weeks ago? What happened? When Mom poured me those shots at the butcher block counter, telling me to drink so I’d be tolerable during the crew introductions, the idea that I needed liquor to get through a situation was disgusting. Now …

I’ve been using it to get through everything. Parties, nightmares, conversations.

The toaster clicks. A crumb stumbles off Mom’s plate, landing next to the patch of wood filler. I grab my breakfast, muddle through it, and dump my plate in the sink.

For some reason, I ask, “Were you and Dad happy?”

I’m not sure what kind of response I’ll get with a question like that. A roll of the eyes, or a spark of anger. But Mom slumps a bit, propping her chin on her hand. She focuses on her glass of water instead of me.

“We weren’t perfect,” she says. “We didn’t agree on a lot of issues, and we rushed into things young. Or. Mm. I was young. But he gave me a family. That’s all that mattered.”

“Did you ever … suspect anything?”

“Sometimes, I wish I had,” she says. There’s a strange heaviness to her words. Like she’s been waiting for someone to ask, with the cameras off, so she could tell the unembellished truth. “But that would’ve required me to be a much smarter woman than I am. Or a more present wife than I was.”

If I was a better person, this would make my heart soften toward her. See, a kinder version of me would say, she was a little girl once. She wanted love and a life of her own. But I’m not a better person, and all it does is make me angry. Because, yeah, apparently she is capable of being soft, and thoughtful, and understanding of mistakes—just only toward herself.

Not when it comes to me.

And right now, I look exactly like her.

So, on Monday morning, I shower and scrub my skin until I’m red. I do my makeup with no intention of washing it off when I get to school, and tie my hair into a pretty ponytail. The foundation covers the posthangover dullness. Anything to keep from looking pathetic. Anything to keep from looking like I have a problem, or like I’m anything other than perfect.

Today’s the day, and I will not let my mother—or myself—ruin it.

I study the train to school like it’s the last time I’ll ever take it. A 3000-series on the Blue Line with old maps on the walls and crackly intercoms: Eastern Market station, Capitol South, Federal Center SW, L’Enfant, then a transfer to Green for one more stop north. The same path I’ve taken almost every day for years.

Obviously, this isn’t the last time I’ll take the Metro. But there’s a finality to it anyway. With what we’re planning, today feels like standing at the edge of a cliff. I texted Felicity while waiting for the transfer to arrive, my hair and uniform skirt fluttering in the wind. After school, we’ll go down to the waterfront, and we’re going to find Jane Doe’s wallet in the penthouse walls, and—