Chapter TWO
ONLY TIANA
Tiana waited until after school. That was how Mei knew she understood the difference between curiosity and trust.
She didn't corner her between classes. She didn't text question marks.
She didn't give her dramatic side-eye at lunch, even though dramatic side-eye was practically Tiana's second language.
At 3:17, when the final bell rang, she only said, "My mom doesn't get off until six. Come over."
Mei checked her phone. No message from Daniel. Yet. "I have to be home by five."
"Then we have time."
Tiana lived six blocks from school in a duplex with pale blue
siding and a porch crowded with plants her mother somehow kept alive through winter. The house always smelled different depending on the day. Sometimes it was vanilla candles. Sometimes hair products. Sometimes whatever Mrs. Brooks had put in the slow cooker before leaving for work.
That afternoon, it smelled like tomato sauce and garlic.
"Shoes," Tiana said, kicking hers off by the door. "My mom has become a dictator about the carpet."
Mei slipped off her sneakers.
"Want something? Chips? Juice? Emotional-support cookies?"
"No."
"That's how I know this is serious."
They went upstairs to Tiana's room. It looked like someone had designed it by asking a twelve-year-old what she liked and accepting every answer. Posters. LED lights. A fuzzy pink chair. A desk covered in lip gloss, chargers, notebooks, and three pens that probably didn't work.
Tiana shut the door.
She did not sit on the bed beside Mei. Instead she took the desk chair, turned it around, and sat facing her.
"You don't have to tell me if you changed your mind," she said.
Mei stared at her own hands. She had imagined telling someone hundreds of times. In every imaginary version, the words came out clean.
My father killed my mother.
In real life, her throat closed around them.
"You remember how my mom died?"
Tiana nodded. "She fell down the basement stairs."
Mei's fingers tightened together.
"That's what everybody thinks."
The room went quiet.
Tiana's face changed slowly.
"Mei."
Mei looked at the floor.
"My dad did it."
Tiana didn't move.
"What do you mean, he did it?"
"They were arguing. He grabbed her. She told him to let go. Then he pushed her toward the stairs."
Her voice began to shake.
"I saw her fall."
Tiana's mouth opened, but no sound came out. Mei kept going because if she stopped she might never start again.
"He went downstairs after. He didn't call 911. I hid in the closet. When he came back up, he wiped the doorknob and fixed a picture that fell. Then later he acted like he found her by accident."
"You saw all that?"
Mei nodded.
"How old were you?"
"Nine."
Tiana stood, then sat back down like her body couldn't decide what to do with the information.
"Oh my God."
Mei wiped quickly under one eye.
"You can't tell anybody."
Tiana stared at her. "Mei—"
"Promise me."
"Your dad killed your mom."
"I know."
"You still live with him."
"I know."
"Then why are you making me promise not to tell?"
Mei looked at her.
Tiana's anger disappeared. Fear replaced it. Not fear of Mei. Fear for her.
"Because if he finds out I know, I don't know what he'll do," Mei whispered. "He doesn't know I saw. That's the only reason I'm safe."
"You don't know that you're safe."
"I know how he is."
"That's exactly my point."
Tiana got up and began pacing.
"Go to the police."
"No."
"Mei."
"I can't."
"Why?"
"Because what if they don't believe me? What if they question him and let him go? What if he comes home?"
Tiana stopped.
Mei's voice cracked. "He knows where I sleep." That silenced the room. Outside, a car drove past with bass vibrating through its doors. Somewhere downstairs, the refrigerator motor clicked on. Life continued with insulting normalcy. Tiana sat beside her now.
"It's not fair," she said quietly. "He killed your mom and gets to just live his life like nothing happened."
Mei nodded, tears slipping free.
"I know."
* * *
Tiana's mother came home twenty minutes after Mei left. Mei knew because Tiana texted her a photo of Mrs. Brooks standing in the kitchen in blue hospital scrubs, holding a wooden spoon like a microphone.
TIANA: she says hi and wants u over for dinner one day MEI: tell her hi
TIANA: also she made enough pasta for an army
MEI: your mom always makes enough food for 40 people TIANA: trauma from church potlucks
Mei smiled at the screen until Daniel entered the living room.
She turned the phone facedown. He noticed.
"Who are you texting?"
"Tiana."
"About?"
"Dinner."
"Her dinner?"
"Yeah."
Daniel stood behind the couch. "Let me see."
The request was casual.
That made it worse. Mei's hand stayed on the phone. "Why?" "Because I asked."
"We weren't talking about anything."
"Then there shouldn't be a problem."
Her heartbeat accelerated.
The screenshots of the unknown number were gone from her
device. Tiana had them. The current thread contained only pasta jokes. Still, giving him the phone felt like opening a door. Mei handed it over. Daniel scrolled. Not one message. Not two. He scrolled back through days.
"Dad."
"Relax."
"That's private."
He looked at her. "Private from who?"
The question sounded almost philosophical.
"From everybody. It's my phone."
"I pay for it."
"That doesn't mean -"
He stopped scrolling.
Mei stopped speaking. Daniel tilted the screen.
"Why did you delete your messages from yesterday?" Her blood went cold.
The thread skipped from two days earlier to the pasta
conversation. She had forgotten that deleting the confessionrelated messages created a gap.
"I clean out my phone."
"You clean out one day?"
"There were memes."
"Memes."
"Yeah."
He handed the phone back.
"You know what bothers me, Mei?"
She did not answer.
"Sneaky behavior."
"I'm not being sneaky."
"Then don't act sneaky."
He walked toward the kitchen, then paused.
"And stop filling Tiana's head with our family business." Mei stared at him.
"What family business?"
Daniel's back remained toward her.
A beat passed.
"Anything that belongs in this house."
He kept walking.
Mei did not move for a full minute. He had not said Grace. He
had not said police. He had not said murder.
But he had answered a question she had not asked.
That night, Mei and Tiana created a code word.
Not because they thought they were spies.
Tiana specifically said they were "too broke for spy technology."
The code was for moments when Mei could not explain what was happening without Daniel overhearing.
RED NOTEBOOK meant call me. brOKEN PENCIL meant call an adult. FIRE DRILL meant call 911.
"Those are obvious," Mei said over FaceTime with the volume low.
"Only if somebody knows we have a code."
"What if I forget?"
"You won't forget fire drill."
"What if I panic?"
Tiana's face softened. "Then send literally anything. A dot. An emoji. My name. I'll know something's wrong." Mei pulled her blanket around her shoulders.
"You shouldn't have to do this."
"Neither should you. Yet here we are."
"Your mom would freak if she knew."
"Correct. Which is why eventually an adult has to know."
Mei sighed.
Tiana leaned closer to the camera. "I'm not breaking my promise tonight. But I need you to hear this: I am your best friend, not your security system. I can't keep you safe from three houses away." The sentence hurt because it was true. Mei looked toward her bedroom door.
"I think he checked my messages because he knows I was at your house."
"How would he know?"
"I don't know. He guessed. Or followed me. Or he was near school. I saw his truck this afternoon."
Tiana's eyes widened. "You left that part out."
"Maybe it was nothing."
"You say that about everything."
"Because sometimes things are nothing."
"And sometimes your dad throws off serial-killer documentary energy."
"Tiana."
"Sorry. Bad joke."
Mei rubbed the edge of the jade pendant beneath her shirt.
"What if I'm making him worse in my head because of what happened?"
"Did what happened happen?"
"Yes."
"Then your head didn't invent the important part."
After they hung up, Mei searched the family phone account from her laptop. Daniel controlled the login, but the browser had saved the password months earlier.
A device list appeared.
Her phone. Daniel's phone. An old tablet.
A smartwatch she no longer used. Location services were not shown there, but something else caught her attention: a second phone line added three weeks earlier.
No contact name. No device nickname. Just a number she did not recognize.
Mei copied it into a note. Then she stopped.
The unknown texts from Tiana's house had come from a number that was supposedly disconnected. Could this be the same one?
She opened Tiana's screenshots and compared the digits.
Different number. Disappointment mixed with relief.
Still, Daniel had a second line. Why? Work, maybe.
A spare. A burner. Mei hated how quickly her mind supplied the darkest answer.
She closed the browser history and cleared the recent-login page.
From the hallway came a floorboard creak.
Her laptop lid snapped shut. Daniel knocked once and opened the door without waiting.
"What are you doing?"
"Homework."
"At midnight?"
Mei glanced at the clock.
11:52.
"Almost midnight."
He looked at the closed laptop.
"You know lying over little things makes people not trust you over big things."
Mei's mouth went dry.
"I'm not lying."
Daniel stepped inside.
"Good."
His gaze traveled to her desk, her backpack, the nightstand, the phone charging beside the bed.
Then he smiled.
"Sleep. You have school."
When the door closed, Mei waited thirty seconds before breathing normally. Her phone lit with a message from Tiana.
TIANA: u good?
Mei typed one word.
MEI: red notebook
Tiana called immediately. Mei let it ring once, then declined exactly what they had agreed would mean I can't talk, but stay awake with me. Five seconds later a message appeared.
TIANA: here
Mei placed the phone beneath her pillow. For the next hour, neither girl said anything. They simply remained connected by the knowledge that one of them was awake.
* * *