When Taylor asks me to spend the night, I accept immediately. Not that I really needed the incident with Mom and Alex at the grocery store to want to avoid her. But I fully cannot wrap my head around Mom threatening Alex like that. I think she even lifted him by his throat. I shake the image out of my head. I don’t want to deal with it right now. Or ever really, but I get the impression that that will not be an option.
Taylor is still sound asleep when I wake up, so I sneak out of her room and go downstairs to sit on the couch. I pull out my phone and open my texts from Alex. Lately the only thing we’ve been talking about is perfunctory messages about cross country, but I feel like I should say something about Mom. And I feel like just sorry won’t cut it.
But the truth is, I have no expl
