“I didn’t know until Emma showed up.”

“You didn’t know?” His eyes swung to her. “She,” he began, pointing in the direction of the departing car, “shouldn’t be making plans without consulting us first.”

“She isn’t grounded. It was her choice not to go out before now.” Lina fought to keep her emotions in check, not wanting their conversation to escalate into an argument as it so often did when they were discussing Katie.

“This is insanity. It’s just going to start all over again.”

“No, it’s not. Why are you being so negative? She’s better. Why can’t you see that? We have to trust her.”

He exploded. “Trust her! We don’t even know her. She doesn’t talk!”

“That’s not true. She talked during dinner.”

“What’s going on with Katie?” Logan asked as he approached.

“Nothing you need to worry about,” Phil said. “Go inside and get out that math problem you need help with. I’ll be in in a minute.” He waited until Logan was out of earshot before continuing. “If something happens to her tonight—”

“It won’t. Dr. Drayton—”

“No! No more Dr. Drayton! Can we go one fucking evening without his name coming out of your mouth?”

“What’s up with your dad? He looked angry,” Emma said as soon as she turned onto the main road.

“He’s completely out of touch,” Katie answered. “That’s what’s up with him.”

“Did he really ground you for six months?”

“It was more like forever.”

“What did you do? I mean, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

And just like that, the make-it-or-break-it moment in their fragile relationship arrived. Katie knew this instant would come, she just didn’t expect to reach it in the first two minutes of the evening.

There was a litany of offenses she could share, including the time she was caught sneaking back into the house after a night of drinking, the time she poured half of her father’s favorite scotch into a thermos and replaced it with water and a touch of orange food coloring, which, in her defense, he could never prove definitively she did, or the time her father saw her with a marijuana joint hanging from her lips, courtesy of a narc named Megan who texted him and told him Katie had skipped school and gone to a friend’s to celebrate National Weed Day. But she wasn’t going to share any of that with Emma, not yet.

She would confess to her most serious transgression, the reason she became a prisoner in her own house, and Emma’s reaction would tell Katie if there was any possibility for the friendship to go forward. As much as she didn’t plan to do drugs again, Katie wasn’t hanging out with a nerd.

“I did shrooms in my bedroom.”

“Oh my God, Katie. You didn’t! You must have unconsciously wanted to be caught.”

Emma sounded like Dr. Drayton and, although Katie suspected he didn’t believe her when she assured him it wasn’t a play for attention, he was wrong. Doing shrooms at home was a mistake, a momentary lapse in judgment which, because of her uptight, irrational father, cost Katie sophomore year. But she did it with good intentions.