She had been compulsively checking the local news station’s website since four in the morning. There was nothing. No reports of any… anything.

But like her little joyride mattered? Like there was some kind of factory-installed tracer on the BMW that notified the police whenever someone with a learner’s permit took the thing out alone?

She just needed to get over herself. Yes, she had taken her father’s car out when she hadn’t had permission and without a valid full driver’s license. Yes, her sister had been with her. Yes, that had been dangerous. But they’d made it back here fine, the car was still safe in the garage, and she and Terrie had been in bed like the good little children they hadn’t been before their father had come home with that THOT.

End of story.

Right?

Elle went back to the local CBS news channel. Impending snowstorm. Missing dog found safe. Budget cuts coming in the new year. No one hit by a car by a teenage girl driving illegally or anybody stabbed—

As the pain ramped up behind her eyebrows, she looked out to the hall light and the front door. She kept feeling like the police were going to show up at any moment and she was going to be arrested for obstructing justice because she hadn’t come forward right away about—

“Stoooooooooooooop,” she groaned.

Police did not come after people for dreams. She was being insane.

Dropping her phone, she put her head in her hands. Her mind was like an amusement ride, going up and around and upside down.

She hated amusement rides.

On that note, she stared across at the refrigerator. Front and center, on the freezer side, was the school calendar for December. The sheet of blue paper with its squares full of stuff was held in place by two Disney magnets that had pictures from the trip last spring break. Herself, Terrie, and Dad. All smiles.

So the photographs were kind of like this house. Everything but Mom.

And what a lie those smiles were. Their dad had intended for the vacation to lift everybody’s spirits. Instead, Elle had been miserable on all the rides, Terrie had complained about the food, and their father had spent a lot of time staring off into space.

Even though she tried not to reimagine the night before as if the divorce hadn’t happened, it was hard not to conclude that if her parents were still together, she’d still be asleep right now.

Antsy and achy, she compared the kitchen she was in to the one she’d grown up with—because even though the past made her sad, it was better than diving back into her phone. Here, the furniture was new, and the room was in a different layout. Terrie’s backpack was on the counter in the corner by the landline that no one used and probably wasn’t even turned on. There was a pair of running shoes—man-sized—next to some snow boots—little-girl-sized—over by the door out to the garage. The cereal boxes were all kid kinds like Cap’n Crunch and Frosted Mini-Wheats, and there were avocados mixed up with the apples in the fruit bowl and whole-grain bagels with everything spices were left out by the toaster.

If her mom had lived here, the clutter would have been cleaned up, the phone line turned on, and the cereals would have been organic substitutes of brand names that had no sugar added.

Elle and her sister and father had moved into this house, a two-story from the 1990s, about eighteen months ago, and the street had a lot of families on it. Just like at their old address, in the warmer months, bikes sunbathed on front lawns that were mowed by the owners, not fancy lawn services, and now that it was cold and Christmas was coming, there were blankets of red and green lights in all the bushes and twinkling white icicle strings hanging off the gutters.

So it was almost the same.

And completely different.

Funny, she’d always assumed everyone’s life was perfect on their old street. Now, it felt like everybody else’s life was perfect.

Especially after her bad choice last night.

At least Terrie was still asleep in her room upstairs. If Elle had to deal with that mouth this morning? Not going to be good for anyone.

She checked her phone for the time and worried about how much longer her father was going to be working out down in the cellar. She needed to get this conversation over before Terrie woke up. He rode that Peloton bike four times a week—just her luck, to have missed one of his three recovery days.

Tip-tap, tip-tap.

The sound of her short nails on the table made her think about family dinner. Part of the reason their father pedaled his heart out early in the morning in the basement was because he wanted to be home at six every night for family dinner: Unless he had a work function, they ate together at this four-seater table, the one unfilled seat something Elle was beginning to not dwell on so much. The only time he ever missed the meal was once a week when he was at a work-related event.

Or now, she supposed, if he had a date.

At least he’d come home last night. He’d cracked her bedroom door just after eleven and looked in while she’d pretended to be asleep. She hadn’t been ready to talk yet, the right words still ordering themselves in her head, soldiers that had refused to get into formation. Clearly, he hadn’t guessed what she’d done, the BMW having been returned to the garage just fine, and with Terrie then asleep, that mouth was on standby.

And there had been more good news as that woman in the LBD had gone home. As her father had reshut her door, Elle had watched the departure from her bed, the headlights flashing across the front of the house as whatever car the date had been driving backed out of their driveway and moved off down their street—

The creaking of the cellar stairs was soft as her father ascended on tiptoes. He was always worried about how much they slept, so he was quiet when he moved around in the early morning.