Page 65 of Furious

Something creaks overhead.

I bolt upright after the moment it takes me to place the sound—it’s been months since I’ve heard anyone moving around the attic besides me. I leap off my mattress to look out my bedroom window, which overlooks the driveway, and find it empty. Maybe Max parked by the road? She might’ve gotten here late and wanted to let herself in through the back porch door rather than wake everyone with the rumble of her bike.

As I sprint from my bedroom to the spiral staircase down the hall, a new scene unspools before me, scripting itself. My sister would have driven through the night to get here, plagued by regrets over the last words we hurled at each other. I picture it as I pound up the steps. She’ll be sitting on the daybed in her old yolk-yellow room. She’ll apologize, and then I’ll apologize, and everything will be—

Perched stiffly on the edge of the daybed, Mom startles when I burst through the shower curtain into the attic. She’s still in her pajamas and pilled, short summer bathrobe instead of the put-together athleisure that is her usual summer uniform, and has yesterday evening’s coffee mug clutched between her hands. She went right to the coffee maker the moment we walked into the house, before Dad quietly banished me to my bedroom, telling me we’d talk tomorrow. I wonder how long she’s been up here, if I missed the sounds of her climbing the staircase. I wonder if she ever went to sleep last night.

“El,” Mom says when she recovers from her shock.

Still frozen in the doorway (“curtainway”?), I don’t know what to say back.

She sighs. “I was planning to wait till later to talk, once your father was up. Or hell, once he was home from work. But I guess we can’t put this off forever, huh?”

“I guess.”

It’s strange to hear her speak to me like … like she’s a person, and like I’m a person. Mom pats the bed beside her, and I drift closer, though I stop just short.

That seems good enough for her, for now. “What were you thinking?” she asks, again, not as a parent might, but softly, as if she actually wants to know, and plans to listen.

Which makes me want to tell her the truth.

“I—I was trying to help Max. I thought if I could see her and talk to her, I could get her to come home. And maybe … if it was both of us asking, then you’d let her stay.”

Mom stares down into what has to be a room-temperature mug of coffee, processing. “You made some pretty poor choices, El.”

“I know.”

“You could’ve been badly hurt, you and your friend.”

“My girlfriend,” I mutter instinctively, and then, “ex.”

Mom looks up at that, raising an eyebrow. “Really? Well. I’m sorry about that.”

I snort. “You didn’t even like her.”

“I didn’t know her. I would’ve liked to have the chance. But I think I know why you didn’t feel you could talk to us. To me. And I know it’s because of my poor choices, too.”

“So you’re not mad?”

Mom blinks back at me. “Of course I’m mad, Eliana. I’m extremely mad. You drove a motorcycle across state lines without a license—”

“With a license!” I insist. “I—Max helped me get it, she …”

Mom winces at my sister’s and my machinations, which are probably not helping my case. “And with another minor on the bike. That’s on top of everything you two did to get in trouble in the first place. That was an appalling series of decisions, and you both might’ve been seriously hurt, in any number of ways. But.” She sighs. “Your father and I have made some stinkers, too, starting with leaving you out of the conversation when Max went away. And God, before that. I can’t tell you how many regrets we have over your sister and the choices we made.”

Though I’m scared of the answer, I force myself to ask, “Do you regret kicking her out?”

“El … we didn’t kick your sister out.”

Wait, that’s not true.

That can’t be true.

“Max was furious with us when we told her that going pro was off the table until after college. She never even wanted to go to school. She would’ve kept riding forever. But we truly believed she wasn’t able to handle that life without burning out. Even when she was your age, she was getting into trouble, falling in with trouble. You were just a kid then, so maybe you didn’t see it, and we sure didn’t want you to. But there were nights when she never came home, places she went that she never told us about, and we … We told her no, that she had to go to school. We wanted to keep her safe. That was our mistake, too, because she was miserable there.”

“You think you should’ve let her go pro?”

Mom sets her mug down on the floor to clasp her hands together and prop her chin on her fists. “No. I don’t know. I still wonder what we could’ve done differently, how we could have kept her safe without holding on so tight. Maybe there isn’t an answer. When she dropped out, she came home and fell back in with the same crowd anyway, the same bad habits. I thought working for Jolene might keep her straight; that’s a good woman, and I know she was there for your sister when Max didn’t want me to be. In the end, though, after she crashed the car and got her DUI—”