Lucita sat on Silvia’s floor beside Becca, SAT books open. Literally every college she was applying to was in Boston. Home. BU, BC, MIT (to appease her mom), and Emerson.

That’s it. Emerson was her goal, her dream school.

And to get there, she had to get at least a 1210. At least. No biggie, right?

Except for the fact that in every single practice test she took, she scored just shy of that. She should be golden. And in theory, she was. She was in every single AP class imaginable and wrote book reviews for the school paper.

Except this damn SAT. Of which she had to take two! Not just the standardized SAT. No, Emerson, and every single college requires a specialized SAT. And because she was a glutton for punishment, she had chosen the Biology E/M SAT.

She just had to do better. Be better.

Which meant she had to study.

“Ugh, I can’t wait to go back to school,” groaned Silvia.

Lucita bit down on her cuticle. “It’ll be so much better with you. It’s been boring without you.”

“Liz has been better,” muttered Becca.

“Right. That’s because she has a college boyfriend,” said Lucita, rolling her eyes.

“Wait? What?”

“Oh! We didn’t tell you?” said Becca.

“I’ve been suspended.”

“Ugh, I can’t believe we didn’t tell you. We’re terrible.”

“The worst,” finished Becca, all smiles.

Lucita grinned at them, closing her prep book. She needed the break anyway.

“Okay, so apparently, during winter break, she met this dude. He’s a freshman at Broward College.”

“She’s in love,” said Becca, hand over her heart.

Silvia fell over on her bed laughing. “You’ve got to be kidding. In love?”

“I know. They’ve been dating for what, two months? If that. But he picks her up from school in his car. Which, by the way, looks like something that is going to break down any moment.”

“She’s trying, though,” said Becca.

Lucita rolled her eyes.

“What does that mean? Trying?”

“She means that Liz is being nice.”

“Nice?”

“She’s all ‘hey guys,’ ‘how are you?’ ladida. Just wait until Evie returns, she’ll go back to being the girl who almost flunked me in French class.”

“Yeah, I can’t believe she’s being nice. What about Jason and Amelia?”

“Oh boy. She’s still nasty to them.”

“But Jason is already getting bored with her.” Lucita tried not to sound too happy with that, but she was. The whole relationship had left a bad taste in her mouth.

“Don’t sound too happy.”

“I told him not to date her. Besides, he wasn’t dating her for the right reasons. Just like last time.”

All three girls fell silent before Silvia finally cleared her throat. “Anyway, I’ll be back to school on Monday.”

“Unfortunately, so will Evie,” said Becca.

“Evie is on academic probation,” Silvia said, reminding them and giving them some hope that Evie will leave them alone and not cause them trouble.

“She can still cause trouble,” said Lucita. “You don’t have to be the one doing the act to cause the trouble, just the devil whispering, manipulating on the shoulder.” All girls fell silent again, remembering just how good Evie was at doing just that.

***

Lucita walked through the apartment complex back to her apartment. Blake was sitting by the pool, a tripod set up, capturing a photo of the night sky. He gave her a quick hello as she passed by.

Her key had barely gone into the lock when the door was yanked open. Her mother quickly hanged her in, shoving her against the wall.

“Do you have any idea how late it is?”

Lucita stared at her mother, shock carving into her face. “It’s barely nine,” she muttered, feeling like a kid again, scared and alone. Her mother had that look in her eyes, one Lucita hadn’t seen in a while.

“Don’t give me an attitude.”

Lucita just stood there, back pressed against the wall, as she studied her mother. She knew this version of her mother. She hated this version of her mother. The overbearing one, the one that kept her locked up, the one who snapped at her for any time infraction.

“Mom,” she began tentatively, “Have you been taking your medication?”

Her mother was bipolar; they both were. They each had a different version, but they both had it, this thing that made them frantic, chaotic, different. But her mother had a stronger version, a version that changed her, a version that made her violent, volatile, cruel. Right now, therapy was enough for Luci. Still, sometimes she lay awake at night, scared she would turn into this version of her mother, volatile, dangerous. She sometimes worried, when she became frantic, if she would need the medication, just like her mother.

“I’m fine. I don’t need it every day.”

“That’s not what I’m asking. Where are your bottles?” She shoved past her mother and into the bathroom. There in the medicine cabinet was one full bottle of Haloperidol in front of another full bottle.

Two months’ worth of medication, unopened.

“Give those to me!”

Lucita snatched back her arm, holding the medication away from her.

“Two months. This is two months’ worth of medication. You have been off your medication for two months?”

“And what about you! Why do I need to take medication and you don’t!”

“Because you’re abusive without it! What, you want to be like Becca’s mom and lose me forever?”

“Don’t compare me to—”

“I will! Her mother is just bitter. You have an excuse. You are better with this stuff. Don’t you want to be better? You promised me. You promised me you were going to be better!”

She wanted to cry. She thought this was behind them. Her mother stared at her before collapsing onto the floor in a fit of tears. Luci wanted to comfort her, but she was angry and scared. Her mother used to keep her locked up in a gilded cage. She used to criticize, yell at, and berate her for the most minor infractions.

Her mother scared her and would terrorize her.

Suddenly, she was four again, locked up in the bathroom without bottoms because she hadn’t been able to hold it while her mother had chatted with her friend, wetting herself.

That’s who her mother had been. She didn’t want that person to be her mother.

“I was fine,” sobbed her mother.

“You were fine because you were taking your medication,” she said, pressed up against the sink counter.

“I know. I only meant to go for a couple of days, but then it was weeks, and I felt okay. I was okay.”

“You’re not.”

“I know I’m not!” Lucita flinched, taking a step away, away from the sink, away from her mother on the floor before her.

Her mother must have seen the fear in her eyes, must have seen her flinch, because she tried to reach out to her. But Lucita continued to walk away, back now pressing up against the shower door.

“Mija, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“I’m going to stay over at Vee’s. I can’t—I can’t be around you like this. I can’t.” Lucita let the bottles fall from her hands as she ran from the bathroom, around her sobbing mother, towards her room, packing what she needed for school, some clothes, and the travel kit she had kept hidden under her bed for this situation, hoping to never need it. She could still hear her mother crying when she ran out.

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