My mother called me at seven in the morning, and I knew before I answered that someone had beaten me to the truth I still hadn't figured out how to tell her.
"Harper Elizabeth Chen." Her voice had the particular flatness she'd used exactly twice in my life — once when I wrecked her car at seventeen, once when I dropped out of the pre-med track sophomore year. "There is a photograph of you on my phone right now, kissing a man old enough to be your father, and I need you to explain it to me before I let myself finish the thought I'm currently having."
"Mom—"
"Is that Ethan's father?"
I sat down hard on the edge of my bed, the phone hot against my ear, the city already loud outside my window in a way that felt personal, like everyone in it had read the same six words under the same grainy
