I knew it now, clear as the sky above me. I never should have offered to help Vera and John. Only, I’d still been afraid Davis would come after me. I was afraid my haphazard attempt at blackmail had only made him madder. And more than anything, I couldn’t bear the thought of starting over again. Of losing the people I loved so dearly. The people who I’d naively trusted to love me more unconditionally than my parents.

Of course, I’d managed to lose them both anyway.

Like my dad said, I somehow found a way to fuck it up.

It was another fifteen minutes before I pulled up to the street on the edge of North Seattle, before I found myself staring at the yellow siding, only lightly weathered, and the white trim, which looked recently painted.

I pulled the car into the driveway, behind a newer-model Subaru than they’d had before.

Leaving Dusty in the car, I climbed the stone steps with heavy feet.

I took a deep breath. I was done with all that now.

Lucy’s friends were dead. Olivia’s friends were well behind her. And that wasn’t even taking into account the legal obligations, the court date I would never, ever, ever show up for.

In some ways, I had been pummeling toward rock bottom for years, but now I had finally, indisputably, hit it.

I didn’t want to lie anymore. I didn’t want to be that person. I wanted to find a way not to think about all the awful things I’d already done.

In the aftermath of all that had happened in college, I’d believed my parents didn’t love me anymore – that they never would again. But I knew how much I’d missed them over the years, in spite of myself. I knew how much I craved my family even if I hated them for how they’d reacted. It had been impossible not to wonder if I had blown up my life too quickly, too easily. If they would have come around had I given them a chance.

So now I was giving them another chance, and I prayed, against all odds, that they’d take it. I prayed that I’d been wrong, that their love hadn’t been conditional after all.

I rapped on the door three times.

After a moment, it swung open, and it smelled, suddenly, of turkey tetrazzini, the same recipe I’d made for Vera and John one night, the one Davis had loved, too.

Her hair was all gray now, her lips coated in pale pink, her earrings pearlescent and heart-wrenchingly familiar.

Behind her, he appeared, his eyes widening at the sight of me. His hair was whiter, his wrinkles deeper – a map across his face of the years I’d missed.

‘Stephanie?’ he asked.

‘My god,’ she said. ‘It’s you.’