Chapter 2: The First Honest Answer
The front door clicked shut behind Maya.
Lily stood in the hallway, staring at it as if she could still see her friend through the wood. Her hands were balled at her sides. Mine were trembling, though I had tucked them beneath my arms.
I wanted to ask what was on Maya’s phone. I wanted to know where she was going, whether she was safe, and why Lily had looked so frightened when Maya left.
I remembered my promise.
“I won’t ask her anything,” I said.
Lily turned to me. “You already did.”
“I asked her name. You’re right.”
“And you were about to ask what happened.”
“I was.”
She let out a short, humorless breath. “You keep saying you understand.”
“I don’t. That’s the problem.”
For a moment, neither of us moved. Then I noticed a fine gray streak of dust on the front of my shirt. My shoulder throbbed from hitting the bed frame when I crawled out from under it. I felt foolish and tired, and I knew neither feeling gave me the right to make this about myself.
“Would you sit with me?” I asked. “Not so I can interrogate you. Just so we’re not standing in the hallway.”
Lily’s expression hardened.
“That’s what people say before they interrogate you.”
“Then you can tell me when I start doing it.”
She looked toward the closed front door again. “I don’t want you calling the school.”
“I heard you.”
“Or Maya’s mom.”
“I heard that, too.”
“You don’t know what you’re agreeing to.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t. But I can listen before I decide what to do.”
Her eyes searched my face, looking for the catch. I couldn’t blame her. I had hidden beneath her bed instead of speaking to her. Trust was not something I could demand back because I had finally apologized.
Lily walked past me into the kitchen. I followed, leaving a few feet between us. She didn’t sit at the table. She leaned against the counter, her backpack still on one shoulder.
I lowered myself into a chair. My sore shoulder protested.
“You hurt yourself?” she asked.
“I hit the bed frame.”
A little crease appeared between her eyebrows. “When you came out?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you even do that?”
“I thought I needed to catch you in a lie.” I looked down at my hands. “I was wrong about what I needed.”
She shifted the backpack strap higher. “You could’ve just asked me.”
“I should have.”
“No. You should’ve asked what was wrong.”
The words landed harder than the first time she said them. Perhaps because, now that Maya was gone, there was no one else in the room to distract me from them.
“You’re right,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
Lily looked away. The refrigerator hummed between us.
“Are you going to make me go back today?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
Her face closed.
“That sounded bad,” I said. “I mean I don’t know what will keep you safe, because I don’t understand what’s happening. I’m not going to march you into the building without hearing you.”
“You can’t just keep me home.”
“I know.”
“And you can’t fix it by calling somebody and telling them to stop.”
“I know that, too.”
She gave me a doubtful look. “Do you?”
I wanted to say yes. I wanted to promise that I could solve it with one phone call, the right words, the right kind of motherly certainty. But Maya’s face at the door had told me how little certainty could help when it came too soon.
“No,” I said. “Not yet.”
Lily’s grip tightened on the strap. “Maya and I haven’t been in class.”
The admission came so quietly I nearly missed it.
I stayed still. “Okay.”
“Not all day,” she added quickly. “We go in. We just leave sometimes.”
“Leave school?”
She nodded once.
“Where do you go?”
“Here, mostly.”
The room seemed to contract around that word. Here. My house, where I had made breakfast and folded laundry and assumed the hours passed just as the schedule said they did.
“How many times?”
Lily’s chin lifted, a warning. “You said you’d listen before deciding.”
“I’m asking because I need to understand. But you don’t have to give me a number right now.”
Her shoulders dropped a fraction. “I don’t know the exact number.”
“Was it once? A few times?”
“More than once.”
“Were you and Maya together every time?”
“Usually.”
“Lily, I’m not asking to trap you.”
“That’s what questions do when you already know the answer you want.”
I stopped. She was right again, or close enough that arguing would only prove her point.
“I’m scared,” I said. “That’s making me ask too many questions too quickly. I’ll slow down.”
Lily studied the counter. “We weren’t trying to get away with something.”
“I believe you.”
“You don’t even know what happened.”
“No. But I believe you weren’t doing it for fun.”
She pressed her lips together. Her eyes were shiny, but she didn’t cry. I wondered how long she had been holding herself together and how much energy that took.
“Did someone hurt Maya?” I asked.
Her head snapped up. “You said you’d listen.”
“You’re right. That was another question.”
“You always do that. You say you won’t, and then you do.”
I felt heat rise in my face. “You’re right.”
She looked almost angry that I wasn’t arguing.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ll stop.”
For several seconds, she watched me as if waiting for the apology to expire. Then she eased the backpack off her shoulder and set it on the floor.
The gesture was small, but it felt like the first thing she had put down all morning.
“I didn’t want her to be alone,” she said.
I didn’t ask who. We both knew.
“Sometimes she couldn’t make herself go back in,” Lily continued. “And if I went back without her, she’d be there by herself.”
“Did you tell an adult at school?”
“I tried.”
“What happened?”
Her jaw tightened. “It didn’t help.”
I kept quiet. The silence stretched, but I didn’t fill it. This time, I understood that the pause belonged to her.
She pulled her phone from her pocket and woke the screen. Her thumb moved over it, then stopped.
“There’s something I should show you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.” She swallowed. “But if I don’t, you’ll think I’m making it sound worse than it is.”
“I won’t.”
“You might.”
“I might misunderstand,” I said. “That isn’t the same as deciding you’re lying.”
She lowered her eyes to the phone. “Maya sent me a screenshot. It came from somebody at school. I don’t know who wrote it.”
“Okay.”
“She said not to show anybody.”
“And you’re choosing to show me.”
Lily nodded, but she didn’t hand over the phone. Instead, she turned the screen so I could see it from where I sat.
There was a message in a group conversation, the sender’s name cropped out. The text was brief. It said another post was coming soon, and that people should stay tuned.
No explanation. No name. No proof of who had written it.
Still, a cold sensation crept up my arms.
“Is this about Maya?” I asked.
Lily’s eyes sharpened.
I corrected myself. “Does it make you worried?”
“Yes.”
“Because of what’s already been posted?”
She hesitated. “Yes.”
I looked at the message again. “What does ‘another post’ mean?”
Lily locked the phone.
“I’m not ready to tell you everything.”
My first instinct was to push. She was thirteen. I was her mother. Something frightening was happening, and I wanted every detail right now so I could act.
But the first time I had tried to take control, I had hidden under her bed.
“Okay,” I said.
She looked surprised. “Okay?”
“Okay. You can tell me one piece at a time.”
“What if I don’t tell you enough?”
“Then I’ll keep listening.”
“What if the school gets involved and makes everything worse?”
“I can’t promise they’ll handle it perfectly. I can promise I won’t pretend this is nothing.”
Lily’s gaze flicked to the phone in her hand.
“I’m not asking you to call anyone this minute,” I said. “But if someone is in danger, or if this gets worse, I may need to bring in adults who can help. I won’t make that decision behind your back if I can talk to you first.”
“That’s not a promise you can keep.”
“No,” I admitted. “Not in every situation. I’m not going to lie to you just to make this easier.”
For the first time since Maya left, Lily’s expression softened—not into trust, exactly, but into something less guarded.
“She thinks it’s going to get worse,” Lily said.
“Because of this message?”
“Because the person who sent it said the next one would be different.”
“How?”
She stared down at the locked phone. Her breathing turned shallow, and I felt my own fear rising to meet it.
“I can’t tell you who sent it,” she said. “I don’t know.”
“That’s okay.”
“And I can’t tell you everything about the first post yet.”
“Okay.”
“But the next one might not just be about her.”
I leaned forward, then stopped myself from reaching across the table.
“What do you mean?”
May you like
Lily lifted her eyes to mine. They were frightened, but steady now.
“They said the next post might use both our names.”
