Lily didn’t come back that night.
Mom spent the evening pacing the living room, her phone glued to her hand. She left message after message, her voice tight with panic. “Lily, sweetheart, please call me back. Just let me know you’re okay.”
I sat curled on the couch, pretending to be worried too, though the sick churn in my stomach wasn’t just fear for my sister’s safety—it was fear of what she might be saying while she was gone.
Mark moved around quietly, calm on the outside, but I knew him well enough now to recognize the tension in his shoulders, the clipped edge of his voice when he reassured Mom. “She’ll be back. She’s just blowing off steam.”
But when our eyes met across the room, his look said what we both knew: she could be doing more than that.
She could be blowing us up.
⸻
