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“Just tell me why.”

I closed my eyes, fisted my hands to keep them from shaking when I poured the milk in the glass. Just something to do because I wasn’t hungry or thirsty or anything at all.

Just sorry.

“Please, Nil, just tell me why so I don’t beat myself up over it. Tell me why.”

My stomach twisted and turned something awful. I offered Dad my phone with the video on it playing on repeat—with the sound turned off. If I heard one more of those shouts, I was going to fucking set something on fire.

Dad watched the video.

He put the phone on the kitchen table face first and closed his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I choked—the hardest thing I had ever said to anyone in my whole life.

“You couldn’t just come to me about it?” he said, and it was like he was driving this very sharp knife right into my gut.

“No, Dad. I thought I?—”

“You thought what ?!” he shouted— shouted like he so rarely had done before. Once that I remembered and never this loudly. “You though what, Nilah?” His hands were on his head. My tears slipped down my cheeks. “What did you think when you did what you did last night? And when you ruined the Jenkinses’ pool a week ago? Or when you broke the window and threw a skunk inside the Reeds’ house before that? What was it—what did you think?!”

If I were to have any motivation to defend myself, I’d tell him that Mike cheated, and that Tamara Reed had trashed my locker to deserve us bothering to catch and throw a damn skunk inside her house back in February—but I wasn’t. Just because someone ruined your things and wrote cuckoo on your locker and desk and even the toilet stall you usually used didn’t justify breaking and entering.

“I-I-I…I’m sorry, Dad,” I said, and I meant it, I really did. “But they deserved it. You saw what they did to Fi. They?—”

“And who are you to decide that?!” He came closer, and it felt like his voice slammed onto me—it was that loud.

He remembered himself quickly and he regretted his outburst—I knew he did. He even took a few steps back, but he was too out of it to control himself now.

I got it. I didn’t blame him at all. God knows I deserved it.

“You have trouble, you come to me, damn it! Do you know what you’ve done?” he shouted and probably said more things, but my brain blocked half of it to keep me safe.

Still, I heard plenty.

“Do you know how much I have to pay for all that damage? Do you care that I don’t have a job anymore—do you? Do you care that you’ve put an even bigger target on her back with this— do you care about your sister at all ?!”

With every word he spoke, I felt smaller and smaller. Like I said, I was really, really not going to blame him, but later. Right now, I did. Right now, I needed to; otherwise, I wasn’t going to survive this at all.

I needed to blame him so I could gather the strength to walk out of that kitchen while he still shouted and go all the way upstairs, lock the door to my room to make sure nobody saw me crying.

I promise I won’t blame you later, Dad. I promise.

Sometimes pretending got to you.

Sometimes everything just became too much.

I made rash decisions. I took stupid risks. I acted on anger when I knew better—God, I always knew better.

But I acted anyway because I was always more afraid of regret than repercussions. Yet, somehow, I always ended up headfirst into it. Knee deep into guilt. Nose deep into shame.

I’d been trying to tell myself for so long now that I knew what I was doing, but the truth was that I didn’t. I just threw myself at cooking and trying to fix everything around the house that I could fix because that way I didn’t have to sit and think. I obsessed about dealing with other people, making sure Fi and Dad were okay, making sure others got what they deserved, that they didn’t get away unpunished, but the truth was that I was only punishing myself. My family. The people I cared about.

Betty, too.

By trying to run away from myself, I was fucking this up even more.

Dad and Fi would be better off if I were away. I knew that, always did. I just pretended that I didn’t because the thought of being alone with my own thoughts all the damn time terrified me worse than anything else.

“Cuckoo!”

Kids ran down the street, laughing. Shouting out to me while I sat there in my driveway and waited for Betty. She said she’d come say hi before going home. And my room was going to suffocate me, and those things that kept on fucking floating—for real or not didn’t matter—were going to make me jump off the rooftop, so I came outside. Just to get some air. Just to try to forget.

“ You have to believe me! I can move things with my mind! I can make things fly! Look!”

The fuckers looked older than Fi, about ten of them, most on skateboards, ready to scatter if I went after them, which I usually did when they called to me like this.

Not today, though. Not today.

“Cuckoo-cuckoo-koo!”

Their laughter echoed in my head, but I watched them. They were having the time of their lives laughing at me. So maybe my existence wasn’t a complete failure?

“Look at me, I can make things fly! ” They raised their hands, moved their fingers, while their friends jumped in the air, gasping, playing. Just laughing. Someone must have told them about me because they weren’t old enough to have been there when I actually said those things.

Then someone came running up the street, throwing rocks at them.

“Get the fuck out of here, you little maggots! Wait till I catch you!”

Betty.

I closed my eyes but couldn’t help my smile. The kids ran away to the other side, laughing still, calling my nickname.

“Little fuckers,” said Betty when she came closer, her backpack on still.

“Eh, they’re just kids. I think I spent too long taking them too seriously.” Which was no excuse for what I’d done, but still.

“They’re little pests is what they are. I’ll catch ‘em—you just wait.”

“Yeah, please don’t. We don’t need more trouble.”

She sat on the driveway with me, right there on the asphalt. “There’s always room for more trouble.”

“What are they saying?” Her dad had made her go to school. Mine had disappeared somewhere after that screaming session in the morning.

I was already not blaming him, but I dreaded the apology I needed to make. To both him and Fi.

Because Dad was right. I had put an even bigger target on her now. You know—by being me .

“Nothing to me. I told them whoever spoke to me was the next one to wake up covered in dog poop. They stayed away after that,” Betty said, and I admired her attitude. Her courage. Without her I’d have never been brave enough to do half the things I’d done.

Laying my head on her shoulder, I sighed. “I’m sorry, Bet.”

“Don’t give me that bullshit. This is not your fault. It’s their fault for asking for it, not yours for fighting back.”

“Yes, but if it wasn’t for me?—”

“You didn’t make me do shit, Nil. Stop it.” She jumped to her feet, pushing her hair back.

“Did you do your makeup at school?” Because I could have sworn she had nothing on at the sheriff’s department that morning.

“Sure did. You like it? I tried some brighter pink on my cheeks.” She pushed aside her hair to show me.

“Makes your eyes pop,” I said with a nod.

“Good. See you at midnight. I’ll bring the beer.”

I watched her walking toward her house, and Mrs. Rogers was by the door, waiting for her. Concerned for her only daughter. And when she held the door open for Betty to go inside, she made sure to show me exactly how much she despised me with a single look.

I didn’t blame her, either. She’d been sweet with me once. When I first started hanging out with Betty, she’d treated me so nicely because I didn’t have a mom and she was always so careful around me about what she said. How she talked to Betty. Like she thought I might be hurt if she even smiled at her own daughter for too long.

I appreciated it, and it lasted a couple years.

Then, she found out just how much trouble Bet and I could get into when we started sneaking out at night, and now she hates me. A perfectly sensible woman.

I stood up and went back to my room before another group of kids found me there and called me names. Fi was going to be back soon, anyway, and we had a lot to talk about.

But even before I sat out there today, my mind had been made. There was no going back. I’d truly decided to leave home, God help me.

By this time next month, I’d be out of their hair for good, and Fi and Dad could finally be at peace like they deserved.

* * *

I was such a coward.

I didn’t dare walk out of my room to talk to Fi or Dad yet. I hadn’t even gone out for dinner. Something— fear —kept stopping me. The best I could do was sit by the window and look at the sky, wait for midnight so that I could sneak out to go see Betty, and tell her first. See what it felt like. Have a taste of whatever came next, before I told my family.

That’s why, when a silver car stopped in our driveway and my dad came outside, I saw it.

When two men—one of them familiar, though I wasn’t sure from where—got out of the car and went closer to him, I saw it.

When the stranger pulled an actual gun and waved it at Dad’s face, I froze in place, every muscle in my body locked.

The men were talking, saying something, while my Dad held his hands up and said something back. Tried to calm them down. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t make a single sound, and the moment I could move my limbs again, it didn’t even cross my mind to grab my phone and call the police. I just jumped to my feet and unlocked my door and ran so fast I didn’t remember getting downstairs. My heart hammered, my lungs burned—and the moment I stepped into the foyer, Dad was coming through the door.

Before he closed it again, I saw the silver car driving away.

Tears in my eyes. I was breathing so heavily, and my throat was so tight that I couldn’t speak. All I could do was point at his face, at the paleness of his skin, his forehead slick with sweat.

“Breathe, Nilah,” Dad said, slowly coming closer, and his hands were shaking but he looked concerned now—concerned about me. His eyes were wide and dark with panic.

“Wh-who was that?” He came closer and I put my hands on his shoulders for support. “Dad, who was that?! What-what…”

“Nobody—it’s okay,” Dad said. “It’s fine. Let’s go sit down.”

He basically dragged me all the way to the dark kitchen where only a little light came through from the hallway. He sat me down and poured me a glass of water while I got myself under control, breathed in deeply and forced my body to stop shaking.

“Who was that, Dad?”

He remained standing, hands on the back of the chair across from me, head down.

“Just some friends of William Owens,” Dad said.

If he’d slapped me, burned me, dragged me across town tied to the back of his truck, it would have hurt less. William Owens, the father of that girl who’d invited Fi to the birthday party. The owner of the car I’d slashed the tires of and Betty had coated the windshield of with dog poop.

“We have to call the police.” That he would dare to send people here to our door, people with guns, to threaten my father?—

“We will do no such thing.”

I shook my head, the adrenaline now making me jump to my feet, my body suddenly restless.

“Dad, they showed up at your door and threatened you with?—”

“They didn’t threaten me. We had a conversation.” Lies. All he told me were lies. “He just wants new tires, which is fair, and the promise that you won’t bother him or his family again. I agreed and gave him my word that you wouldn’t.”

Tears streamed down my cheeks, and they seemed to come all at once within the second. A lump had formed in my throat and my stomach was a twisting mess. Your fault-your fault-your fault , said the voice in my head.

And that voice always told the truth.

I’m sorry.

The words remained there in my throat, stuck in that lump.

I didn’t mean to —but I did. I’d wanted to pay them back.

Now look what I’d done. My dad was shaking and sweating, and he was as pale as the kitchen cabinets behind him.

“Nilah,” Dad said, and I broke a little more. Those eyes, the way they pleaded with me… “I gave them my word that you wouldn’t bother them again.”

What he didn’t say was please.

Something about making strangers wave their guns at your father’s face, and something about making your father beg you with his eyes.

I stood up. I moved toward the hallway.

“Nilah, where are you going?!” Dad called.

I didn’t stop. I just ran out the door and stopped in the driveway. The wide road in front of the houses was empty. Lights were on everywhere, and the night was quiet. I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply, tried to calm down my racing heart.

But Dad called my name again, and what little control I had left disappeared. I turned and ran all the way around the house, into the forest, and I didn’t look back.

Trees. Darkness. Silver moonlight barely peeking through the canopy. Tall grass blades and bushes and leaves fallen from the trees. Pines and twigs breaking underneath my feet. I was breathing and my heart was beating in my ears, but I could have sworn that I was the wind. I could have sworn I didn’t exist outside of this darkness.

Then the trees ended.

My body, my thoughts came to a halt as I looked ahead into the meadow illuminated by the silver light of the moon shining in the sky. I’d run much, much farther than I’d intended to.

As if hypnotized, I stepped out of the tree line and the moonlight touched my skin. The tall grass, the wildflowers, the trees surrounding the open space looked so different now than they had back then—a place where I’d danced and sang to myself and made pretty tiaras and felt like a real-life princess. A place where I could be completely me, so absolutely free for the first time in my life when I still didn’t even know what freedom meant.

Where that snake bit me, and where that boy with the golden eyes saved my life. Changed my life forever.

I went to the very place where I had fallen that day. I looked around, breathed in the smell of pines, heard the song of the nightingales and the hooting of the owls. I tried to see through the shadows of the trees, as if a part of me was hoping to find a golden-eyed boy smiling at me.

There was nobody there.

My eyes closed and the tears that had gathered in them came out of me all at once, spilled down my cheeks and dripped from my chin. My head lowered but my chest felt like it was on fire, and my muscles locked tightly, too. The flames that were ignited over my very heart traveled up and down my body, sent scorching heat to the palms of my hands. A scream ripped out of me, long and hard, and birds flew from their branches and animals scattered away. I heard it all—or maybe it was just my imagination—but I fell on my knees on the forest floor, and I cried more tears, warmer, bigger, until my eyes opened. Until I saw twigs and pines and leaves and flowers floating in the air around me, the moonlight giving them an eerie appearance, like they were ghosts, translucent, not really there.

And the palms of my hands were glowing.

This I had never noticed before in my room, but the darkness made it easy to see how the skin of my palms had come alive, how they pulsated with a heat that should have melted my hands off completely. It didn’t, though. Instead, it made everything around me that wasn’t attached to the ground, possibly in a half-mile radius, levitate in the air.

I didn’t try to stop it. I didn’t look at any of it for long, either—couldn’t if I tried. Too many tears in my eyes. They closed, and my chin rested against my chest, and my shoulders shook now and then.

For a while, I sat there in the middle of the meadow in silence. My hands cooled down more with each new tear, until nothing around me was floating in the air anymore.

It was over. Everything was over for real.

In that moment, I saw what I wanted—what I needed to do with more clarity than I ever had before.

This was my very last night in this town. Tomorrow, I left Lavender Hill behind.