We go back to Thursday's evening - Valerie's POV

Chapter 6

Valerie POV

I hated my mother.

Not forever-hated. Just right now, on this bus, with my wet hair dripping chlorine down the back of my neck and my swim bag crushing my thighs, for the next thirty minutes. That was how long it took the 42 to crawl from campus to my stop, and I had to do it standing for the first ten because some guy in a polo had decided his legs needed an entire row.

Thirty minutes. Thirty. I could have been home in ten if Mom wasn’t such a…

My phone buzzed in my hand. Thank God. I needed witnesses.

Chloe: “okay so are we gonna talk about how u went home on the bus like a peasant”

Valerie: “dont. i will end u”

Valerie: “my mom made brian drive me this morning and then said he doesnt have to pick me up because he has ‘things to do’. like WHAT things. hes a hermit. his things are a pillow and a screen”

Chloe typed like she swam: fast, aggressive, zero warm-up. Three bubbles appeared before I’d even put the phone down.

Chloe: “lmaooo ur mom is so unfair”

Chloe: “wait but why were u mad he drove u. at least ur ride was free”

Valerie: “because the whole way there he was breathing weird and being a creep”

That was a lie. He’d barely said a word. But it sounded better than “I didn’t want my friends to see me in the car with my weird brother,” which was the real reason and which I would take to my grave.

A fourth bubble. Yasmin, this time. Yasmin typed like she was reading a patient their results: calm, short, a little bit mean in a way you only noticed later.

Yasmin: “He’s not a creep. He looks at everyone like they’re a tutorial he forgot to skip.”

I snorted so loud the old lady across the aisle glared at me.

Chloe: “no he IS a creep. he stared at my legs for like 10 minutes at ur birthday. i counted”

Valerie: “he stares at everybody. its like a default setting. ive seen him stare at a LAMP”

Chloe: “thats worse”

Chloe: “also ryan said hi to me in the hallway today. HI. like with his mouth”

I snorted and typed back.

Valerie: “ok romeo. did he say anything else or was it just the hi”

Chloe: “he said hi. and then he LOOKED at me. i think hes about to ask me out”

Valerie: “u said that about the library guy”

Chloe: “the library guy was a skeleton. ryan is a MAN”

We went back and forth like that for a few minutes, Chloe sending longer and longer paragraphs, me pretending to care about his jaw. Yasmin was usually the first to jump in with something dry. This time the chat just sat there under Chloe’s last message.

My phone buzzed again, but this time it wasn’t the group. A little “Chloe (private)” banner slid down over the top of the screen.

Chloe (private): “why is yas being weird”

Chloe (private): “shes been super quiet since i said ryan”

I looked back at the group. Nothing from Yasmin. Not a single message since Chloe first said Ryan’s name, almost five minutes ago. Chloe wasn’t being paranoid. Yasmin really was being weird. I just hadn’t clocked it until someone said it out loud.

Ryan. A sophomore, one year ahead of us, with the kind of hair that looked like he’d just gotten out of bed and somehow it was still perfect. Chloe had been in love with him since orientation week, and she announced it every day like the weather.

So I opened the other chat, the one that was just me and Yasmin, and typed fast.

Valerie (private to Yasmin): “if u like him and dont want her to find out u cant be this obvious. say SOMETHING”

The dots appeared right away, like she’d been sitting there waiting for me.

Yasmin (private): “Obvious? Chloe is going to say his name forty more times today. I can feel it in my bones.”

I looked at that for a second. Then I typed with my thumb hovering over the screen like an idiot.

Valerie (private to Yasmin): “girl just send a lol or smth. u went silent the second she said his name. she WILL notice”

Three dots. Then nothing. Then three dots again. A whole movie played in the time it took her to answer.

Yasmin (private): “I know. I know. I like peace.”

Yasmin (private): “She said it first. She always says everything first. I’m not fighting my best friend over a boy with good hair.”

Of course. Yasmin had told me at the party, whispering in a bathroom with her eyeliner smudged, and she’d made me swear on my swim medals not to say a word. Everybody else had figured it out anyway, except Chloe, who had the self-awareness of a golden retriever on a treadmill. I felt a weird little flutter in my chest, the kind you get when you’re holding two secrets and both of them belong to people you love. It was kind of delicious, to be honest.

Valerie (private to Chloe): “idk maybe shes tired. she has that pathology exam”

Chloe (private): “shes been tired since august, she needs to chill”

Chloe (group): “anyway. did u guys see that i beat v in the 200 today”

Valerie: “by .02. cry about it”

Chloe: “whatever captain of the first years”

She said it like “participation trophy.” I smiled at my phone with my teeth. Oh, Chloe. Babe. You just keep telling yourself that. She was jealous. She’d been jealous since Coach Ortega handed me the armband, and she’d been doing a terrible job of hiding it ever since.

The bus hissed to a stop. My stop. I hauled the bag over my shoulder and pushed past the polo guy, who still hadn’t moved his legs.

The house was quiet. The TV was on in the living room, and Brian was on the couch sprawled out, eyes glued to something with a guy alone in a dark cell, staring up at the moon through a tiny barred window. I didn’t say hi. He didn’t say hi. That was how we did things now.

He did look up, though, just for a second, as I passed. I couldn’t read the look. It was almost… satisfied. Like a cat watching you walk into a room it already knew you’d be in.

Creep, I thought, without really meaning it.

I took the stairs two at a time, dropped my bag in the middle of my floor, and fell face-first onto my bed. I’d been talking to Yasmin for about five minutes, something about how she’d had to dissect a heart and I’d have to dissect her—

“Valerie!”

My mother’s voice cut up the stairs like a whip. I didn’t even lift my head.

“What?!”

“Valerie, if I call you, it’s so you’ll come down, not so you’ll answer me!”

I groaned into my pillow. I just got home. I literally just got home. But Mom’s “don’t make me count to three” voice was back, and when that voice came out, you went. I slammed my door a little harder than I needed to, because I could, and stomped down the stairs complaining the whole way.

“I only just got home because I had to take the bus, you know. And I was in the middle of talking to my friend. Whatever you need, can it be quick?”

Mom was standing at the bottom of the stairs with her arms crossed. She was still in her work clothes, the white ruffled blouse, the blazer, and she looked… off. Her cheeks were flushed, and her lipstick was smudged at one corner. Mom never smudged her lipstick. Mom reapplied it in the rearview mirror at red lights.

Behind her, Brian had gone very still on the couch.

“Can you make dinner with your father?” she asked.

“No way!” I exploded. “I spent thirty minutes on the bus with my swim bag, and I still have homework!”

“Why doesn’t Brian help him?” I said, throwing a hand toward the couch. Make the hermit chop an onion for once in his life.

“That isn’t his job,” Mom said, perfectly calm, like she was telling me the sky was blue. “And Brian has things to do.”

I actually laughed. It just came out.

“What do you mean it’s not his job?! What things?! All he does is sit on the couch watching anime!”

“Valerie Hartley, if I say your brother has other things to do, then he has other things to do. And if I tell you to help your father make dinner, you help your father make dinner. Is that understood?”

There it was. The full name. I grumbled something that wasn’t quite a word, and then, because I’m not a monster, and because it was easier than winning, I muttered the truth.

“I hate you.”

Her whole face changed. The tight lines around her mouth went soft, and she stepped closer.

“And I only want the best for my princess.”

That was her trick. She did it to me when I was five, and she still did it to me now. I hated that it worked.

“It doesn’t seem like it,” I said, quieter.

“One day you’ll thank me,” she said, smiling, and then she hugged me, and she smelled like perfume and something else I couldn’t place. Sweat, maybe, or… whatever. “Now, when your father gets home, I want you to help him. I have to change and go to class. Are we clear?”

“Yes,” I said, because the hug had worked, and because apparently I was five.

She went upstairs, and I stood there. On the couch, Brian had resumed his show. He was smiling at the screen, where two characters stood under a huge moon, solemnly making some kind of promise.

Dad got home twenty minutes later, and the house relaxed the way it always did when he walked in. He came into the kitchen loosening his tie, ruffled my hair, and asked how the pool had been, and I told him about beating Chloe in the 100 and losing the 200 by .02, which was a lie, but he liked hearing I’d won something. We always played that game. He was the softest touch in the house, my accomplice, the one who slipped me twenty bucks when Mom said no.

So it was weird when, halfway through chopping onions, he stopped.

Just stopped. Knife in hand. His eyes drifted to the wall above the stove, and for maybe five or six seconds he stared at it with this small, dreamy half-smile, like he’d just remembered something wonderful.

“Dad?”

“Hm? Oh.” He blinked, shook himself, and went back to the onions. “Sorry, sweetheart. Long day.”

“You okay?”

“Better than okay.” He laughed, a little too loud. “Did you know your brother is a genius?”

I stared at him.

“I watched this thing he made. For his channel. On my lunch break. Twice. Honestly, Val, it’s… it’s not what you’d think. It’s really good.”

“Dad. You don’t even watch anime.”

“It’s not really about anime,” he said vaguely, and went back to chopping.

I let it go. People were always getting weird about something. Dad had gotten into pickleball last year and talked about it for three months. This was probably just the new pickleball.

I tried again while I was stirring the sauce, because I couldn’t help it.

“Mom said Brian ‘has things to do,’” I said, in my best imitation of her voice. “Like what, Dad? Practicing his anime hair?”

It was exactly the kind of joke he would have laughed at before pretending he hadn’t.

“That’s not nice, Valerie.”

He didn’t look up from the cutting board. He said it in a flat, quiet voice I’d never heard from him, like he was reading it off a card.

“Your brother is a very special young man,” he added. “You should be nicer to him.”

“That’s not nice”? Since when?

Mom came back down in these yoga pants, you know, the really tight ones, the ones she hadn’t worn in years because she’d said they’d gotten too small. I was putting down forks when I noticed them.

“Mom, aren’t those pants kind of tight?”

She turned her hips and looked over her shoulder at her own butt, like it was a piece of furniture she was evaluating.

“I don’t think so. They fit me perfectly.”

They did fit her perfectly. That was the problem. They fit like a second skin. And right there, I noticed something else. There were no lines. None. Not a single line of underwear anywhere.

“Did you go out in those without underwear?”

She froze. Only for a second, but I saw it. Then she blinked and smiled.

“No, no. I took it off upstairs just now. It was soaked in sweat.”

Okay. That’s… a lot. I had asked, sure, but I had not needed to know my mother’s underwear was soaked. I wanted a second opinion, so I went looking for the only reasonable adult in the house. Dad was already coming in from the kitchen with a tray.

“Dad, what do you think?”

He set the tray down. He looked at me, then at Mom, then at me again. He had this look, like he was reading from a script someone had slid under the door.

“I think your mother is a strong, independent, sexy woman,” he said. “She can do whatever she wants, because she’s THE woman of this house.”

I blinked. “Very feminist of you, Dad,” I said, rolling my eyes.

He laughed, embarrassed, and scratched the back of his neck.

That’s not what I wanted him to say. I’d expected Dad to be on my side, a groan, a “yeah, Val, that is a lot.” Instead he’d basically told me Mom could do whatever she wanted, and what was I supposed to say to that? I couldn’t even argue with it. And he hadn’t said it like a joke. He’d said it like a pledge.

We sat down to eat. Brian came down last, silent as a ghost, and slid into his chair across from Mom. Nobody said anything for a second, and then Mom served the salad, and we were back to normal. Almost.

Then Dad said, “Valerie, you really need to start being tidier. Your room is a disaster.”

And I lost it. Not loud. Just… a little ping of rage that had been building all day.

“Why does everybody keep busting my balls and nobody says anything to Brian about finding a job? At least I have school and swim practice!”

Dad frowned at me. A real frown, not a pretend one. “That’s not Brian’s responsibility, Valerie. He’s started a new project with your mother.”

A project. I almost laughed again. But Mom nodded along, and Dad nodded along, and Brian just kept eating his salad with his eyes on his plate, and the whole table felt like a play I hadn’t been given the script for.

For the rest of dinner I stayed glued to my phone under the table, only half-listening to whatever the grown-ups were saying about the bank.

My phone buzzed under my own leg. I peeked down. It was Chloe: “OMG did u see ryan posted a story” Yasmin: “She’s typing again. I can hear it.”

I bit down on my smile so hard it hurt.

When the plates were cleared, Mom said she’d wash up, which was weird, because Mom had told me, my entire life, that washing dishes was “a punishment for people who can’t cook.” But I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. If Mom wanted dishes, Mom could have dishes.

“I’ve got to study,” I said, and bolted before anything could change.

I got four problems into my physiology homework before my phone went off again, and this time it was Stephany.

A text bubble, a long one. I’d messaged her at breakfast, one of those sulky furious paragraphs about Mom picking Brian over me, and she’d been at work all day, writing code or hacking the Pentagon or whatever it is she does. I curled up on my bed with the phone close to my face.

Stephany: “Hey Val. Sorry I’m only answering now, work was a mess. I get it, the bus thing is annoying, and I get why you’re mad at Mom. It feels unfair when someone picks the other side.”

Stephany: “But let me ask you something. Why do you think Mom made that call? She’s usually fair. Maybe it was less about you and more about Brian needing a nudge? I don’t think you’re wrong to be annoyed. Just that it’s a pretty small thing, and you do get a lot of rides lol.”

Stephany: “Love you, kiddo. Call me this weekend. Proud of you for the 100m btw.”

I read it twice. Stephany Hartley, wise woman of the mountain, had just told me to grow up with a heart emoji on it.

I wanted to be mad. I really did. But it was Stephany. She’d always been my person, the one who taught me how to do eyeliner and told me which boys to ignore. And she was right, a little. That was the worst part.

Valerie: “ok ok. ur right. a LITTLE. also apparently brian is doing some ‘project’ w mom?? like a youtube channel or smth. so maybe thats why she took his side”

Stephany: “A YouTube channel? That’s actually good news. He’s been stuck for a while. That would explain Mom’s call. She’s probably backing him up. Give them both a break. Go to bed early.”

I was still smiling at that when my phone buzzed again.

Mom: “Hi sweetheart! One of the girls at the office sent me this today and I thought of you right away. Everyone at work is talking about it. It’s makeup, but honestly it’s more than that. Watch it when you have a minute and tell me what you think? ❤”

A link. A thumbnail of a girl with glittery eyeshadow on a pink background, and a title in big bubbly letters: FULL GLAM in 10 MINUTES!! (you NEED to see this). It looked like a thousand other makeup videos, just slightly off, like someone had copied the format from memory.

Oh, you’re kidding. Mom knew the basics. She wore a clean, polished face to every meeting, foundation, mascara, one perfect lipstick, but she had never once sent me a makeup video in her life. Mom’s idea of a beauty tutorial was fixing her lipstick in the rearview mirror at a red light. And now she was sending me this? On the same day she’d made me take the bus? After she’d told me, to my face, that Brian didn’t have to do anything?

No. Absolutely not. I put the phone face-down on my pillow and went back to my homework.

I lasted four minutes.

It wasn’t really about the video. It was Stephany. Maybe it was less about you and more about Brian needing a nudge. I was still mad, but my sister had a point, and so did the small, annoying part of me that knew Mom had just done something she never did. She’d tried. In my whole life, Mom had never sent me anything that wasn’t a reminder or a grocery list. If I watched it, I could send her a thumbs-up and put this whole stupid day behind us. And honestly? I loved a good makeup tutorial. There’d be a party this weekend, and I needed a look.

I grabbed my phone and my earbuds. Five minutes. Just to say I watched it.

The video started, and there were colors…

I woke up with my cheek stuck to the screen of my phone.

The room was dark. My desk lamp was still on, my physiology notes scattered on the floor, and my pillow was soaked. I touched my chin, and—gross—I’d been drooling like a baby.

I picked up my phone. 1:07 a.m.

What? I’d just pressed play. It had been, like, five minutes. How long was that video?

I didn’t remember a single thing that had happened in it, but my whole body felt warm and fuzzy, like I’d been wrapped in a heated blanket, and my brain was ringing in this clean, happy way.

Okay. That was the best video I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

I typed with my thumbs, half-asleep.

Valerie: “omg mom. that video was SO good. is there more??”

I hit send, rolled over, and didn’t think about anything at all.

The alarm went off at six forty, and it was like being dragged out of the ocean.

I slapped the phone to silence it, and my eyes were glued shut, my arms made of sandbags. And the first thing I thought, before I thought coffee or class or Mom is a witch, was:

The video.

It hit me like a craving. A little pulse behind my eyes, low and urgent. I’d only watched it once, and I’d been out cold, and I couldn’t even remember what happened in it. Just the colors, and how good it had felt. I needed to see those colors again.

Okay. Just a few minutes. Before I shower.

I shoved my earbuds in, found the link, and pressed play. And the colors began to move…

Something touched my shoulder.

A hand. Warm. And someone pulled the earbuds out of my ears—pop, pop—and the world rushed back in. I blinked. My room. Daylight. My heart pounding like I’d surfaced from a long dive.

“Valerie, stop watching that. You have to go to class.”

Mom’s voice. Leaning over me.

“I have to go to class,” I heard myself say, in this flat, empty voice that didn’t sound like mine. Then my brain caught up. I blinked. “Mom? What time is it?”

She glanced at my nightstand clock.

“Almost seven.”

“Almost seven?! And I haven’t even showered!”

That’s when I noticed that my hand was under my shorts. Pressed flat against my… yeah. I snatched it out so fast I almost pulled a muscle. Oh my God. Oh my God, did she see? But Mom was standing there like nothing was wrong, as calm as a statue.

“Oh my God, I’m going to be so late!” I cried, shooting out of bed.

“Hurry up. I’m driving you today. Your brother isn’t going to college, and he needs the car.”

I stopped. Brian needed the car.

“Okay. And how do I get home?”

“By bus. Your brother’s decision.”

“If the mas— I mean, if Brian said so.”

The room went still.

Mas— what? What was I about to say? Master?

I stared at Mom, trying to find the end of the sentence. It was gone, slippery, like a dream you can’t hold. Then I realized she was looking at me with this calm, patient smile, and she… had no clothes on.

My mother was completely naked.

Not a stitch. Bare feet on my carpet, shoulders back, boobs out, like she’d just stepped out of a Renaissance painting. She’d been standing there this entire time, talking to me about the car.

“Why are you naked?”

“So I could wake up Brian.”

She said it so simply. As if it was the most logical thing in the world. As if she’d said, because I needed milk.

“Okay,” I heard myself say.

I walked into my bathroom, closed the door, and leaned against it with my heart pounding.

Okay?

Okay?! My mother was walking around the house naked, at seven in the morning, because my brother wanted her to wake him up. And I’d said okay, only because my brain had locked up like a frozen tab. I hadn’t processed it. I definitely hadn’t agreed with it. Everything inside me was saying no, that isn’t okay, that is wrong, that is so wrong.

I tried to make sense of it. My mother, who wouldn’t answer the front door without a robe on, had just stood naked in my bedroom and explained it with one name: Brian. She’d said it so easily, like a reason that needed no explanation, and that was exactly what bothered me.

Brian? Brian, who still sleeps with a nightlight? Who can’t order at a drive-through without rehearsing? What does Brian have to do with any of this?

It wasn’t just this morning, either. Mom had been off since yesterday. Dad had been weird too. And now this. I couldn’t put my finger on it. It was a lot of small, off things stacked on top of each other, and I didn’t like it.

Okay. Something is going on.

I didn’t know what, not yet. But it was extremely weird, and it had all started around the time Brian and Mom got into that project. I wasn’t going to let it go.

I turned on the shower, got in, and stood under the water until it ran hot.

What is going on?

Is Brian controlling Mom and Dad? That’s insane. But if it’s not Brian, then who? Someone controlling the whole family, Brian included? How would you even do that? Hypnosis? Some kind of drug in the coffee?

Mom, naked in my room like it was nothing. Dad, staring at the wall like somebody had unplugged him. Both of them saying Brian’s name like it explained everything.

Okay. Say it is Brian. What would I do if I could make anybody do anything? Where would I even start? The car. Mom hands me the keys, no speech. Coach Ortega names me official captain of the whole team, not just the first years.

But Brian? What does Brian want? Brian wants everyone to leave him alone. Brian wants Mom to stop nagging him about jobs. Brian wants the girls in his classes who look right through him to look at him, just once.

And if he could make them, he wouldn’t stop at looking. He’d want them waiting for him outside the lecture hall. Carrying his books. Saying his name like it was special. Doing whatever he told them. Every single one of them, lined up.

Lined up in front of him, waiting for the next order. And him in that gamer chair, leaning back like a king. Not even smiling. Just deciding.

Deciding who gets to put her mouth on him first. Who gets bent over his desk. Who has to beg for it, “please, Brian, please”, until he lets her.

And they would. Every one of them. They’d be so wet for him they could barely stand, thighs shaking, mouths open, all of them wanting his cock and none of them allowed to touch it until he said so.

Brian in his gamer chair, giving orders. Everyone doing exactly what they’re told. And I was wet. And it wasn’t the shower.

That’s so sick. That’s so sick. It’s my BROTHER. I’d barely even watched porn, just once, a quick peek to see what the fuss was, and it had been two strangers and a lot of fake moaning. I would never in a million years have watched anything like this. So why is this so hot?

My hand was between my legs before I’d even decided anything. I braced one palm against the cold tile and closed my eyes and went straight back to it. The girls, lined up, every one of them wanting his cock. And Brian not even looking at them, because he was busy. He had Mom bent over his desk, his hands on her hips, fucking her hard while the whole line watched and waited. My strict, perfect mother, moaning into his keyboard. “Yes, Brian. Yes.” I was so wet it was almost embarrassing, my fingers sliding in slow, greedy circles, and I couldn’t have stopped if I’d tried.

And then, off in the corner, Dad. Dad in his work shirt and his loosened tie, watching his son fuck his wife. Not stopping it. Not even trying. Just standing there with wet eyes and one hand in his pocket, watching Mom get dominated, and loving it.

I came so hard my knees buckled, and I had to bite the back of my hand so my mother wouldn’t hear me through the door.

I stood there until the water ran lukewarm, dripping, shaking, my forehead against the tile.

Okay. Okay. I just got off to my dad watching my brother fuck my mom. What is WRONG with me?

Stress. It has to be stress. People get weird when they’re stressed. And whatever Mom and Brian are doing with that project, that’s what’s off, not me. And that thing I said, “if the mas— if Brian said so”? A slip. I was tired.

I turned off the water and decided: I’m going to find out what’s going on in this house. I’m going to get to the bottom of this, whatever it takes.

In the car, Mom drove with both hands on the wheel, spine perfectly straight, in her white blouse and her camel blazer, exactly like any other Friday. She’d put clothes on, which was a relief. It’s hard to have a normal conversation with someone when you’ve just seen their entire body.

I’d had ten minutes to build a plan. Don’t freak out. Don’t accuse. Ask careful, innocent questions. See what she says.

“So,” I said, in the most casual voice I owned, “Dad said Brian’s working on some project with you. Like a YouTube thing?”

“A channel,” Mom said, and her whole face lit up, the way it did at award dinners. “Brian’s Brain. It’s very good, Valerie. He’s extremely talented. Analysis, commentary, some anime, and lately a bit of lifestyle content.”

“Lifestyle content.”

“Like the one I sent you.”

I turned my head, slowly. “The makeup video. That was Brian’s?”

“Of course. It’s his channel.” She glanced at me, pleased. “Wasn’t it wonderful?”

My mouth went dry. The video I’d watched. Twice.

I did a fast check, like running a systems report. Name: Valerie Hartley. Age: eighteen. Hates: the bus, the locker room smell, chlorine in my hair. Still annoyed at Mom? Yes, a little. Anything different? I held still and listened to myself. Nothing. I felt exactly like me. Rested, even, which was weird, considering I’d fallen asleep with my face on my phone.

I ran the rest of the list. Mom walking around naked this morning: weird, obviously. Super weird. Brian deciding how I got to class? That part was normal. Of course he could decide that, he was the one who needed the car. What was weird was that Mom had agreed with him. My mother had never in her life just agreed with somebody.

“And what’s the plan?” I asked, carefully. “With the channel.”

“It’s going to be big,” Mom said, with total certainty. “Your brother is a genius, Valerie.”

Wait. Dad said that. Exactly that. Word for word, same little smile. That’s not normal. Normal people don’t repeat each other like they’re reading off the same card. Okay, I’m officially freaked out.

I tried to keep it together.

“Yeaaah.”

It came out not even a little convincing.

Mom must have thought so too. She turned her head and looked at me, very serious.

“And everyone should help him,” she said, in her teacher voice. “All of us.”

“Okay, Mom, whatever.”

She pulled up to the curb outside my building. I grabbed my bag, trying to keep my face neutral and my brain quiet.

“Have a good day, sweetheart.”

“Bye, Mom.”

I climbed out with my bag and shut the door behind me. She waved, flicked on her blinker for the road to the office, and pulled away.

I stood in the parking lot, the morning sun in my eyes, my hair up in a messy bun, my brain humming. Something was going on with my family, and Brian was in the middle of it. And whatever it was, it hadn’t worked on me. I’d watched his video twice, and I was fine. Totally, completely fine.

Which meant I was the only one who could do something about it.

I was Valerie Hartley. I didn’t lose, and I didn’t get controlled. If something was wrong with my family, it was my job to fix it.