"You know, I've been reading about this thing called 'active listening,'" Dad says, eyes glued to the road. "It's where you—"

"Listen actively?" I don't look up from my phone. "Sounds revolutionary."

It's awkward. Painfully awkward.

Not "ran-into-your-least-favorite-teacher-at-the-grocery-store" awkward. Worse. It's "Dad just discovered therapy" awkward. Where he decides he's going to "connect" during the forty-minute drive back to Caldera Heights.

We're only halfway home and he's already gone through the weather (which I mournfully remember I can no longer control), my step-mom's new affinity that helps her bake sourdough bread in five minutes and one disastrous attempt at a heart to heart.

He exhales with a loud sigh. "Just saying, you don't have to keep everything bottled up, Press. You can talk to me."

"What parenting podcast have you been listening to? And can you please unsubscribe?"

"Son." He sighs and glances over, but I ignore him.

He doesn't get to swoop in and act like father of the year when he's been a ghost more than he's been around.

 I'm go back to scrolling my favorite app, PictoGram. Well, it was my favorite app. Three months without a phone has made it feel like a shiny toy I'm not sure I want to play with anymore. My timeline's full of my Vale College friends getting ready for our junior year. You know, wealthy kids flexing new affinity upgrades and enchanted vacations. I scroll past a photo of my friend, Connelly Palmer, on a yacht in Monaco and remember when I thought a vacation meant driving to my grandma's house in Bakersfield. That was before Dad's patents hit and the money came flooding in, sweeping us out of our old life and dropping us in Caldera Heights, where we didn't belong.

Magic is status. Every post on social media is a little reminder that the magical world kept spinning while I was gone.

"Well did you at least enjoy Halcyon?" Dad asks.

I don't look up from phone. What does he think? That's like asking a mouse if it enjoyed the trap.

He's just picked me up from the Halcyon Center, a rehab for emotionally unstable rich kids with dangerous magic and abandonment issues. Three months of group therapy and herbal teas laced with enchantments while talking about our feelings.

I was there because I can't be trusted with magic, apparently. I tend to explode.

My phone buzzes in my hand. 

It's from an unknown number.

Hi to the boy who ruins everything

A chill runs through my body, but I don't let Dad see the expression on my face. I shift my body and phone away from him and keep reading.

Funny. I couldn't find one headline about your garden party explosion...And I looked everywhere. 

So let me give it to you straight. You're not welcome in Caldera Heights anymore. And what a pity it would be if your endorsements and brand deals dried up because of your little magical mishap. Doesn't Vale College have a morality clause?

I believe it says 'Misuse of magic is grounds of immediate expulsion.' Which means your ass is on thin ice.

Who even texts like this? Like some laughable version of a villain. I want to chuckle it off, but one thought sweeps through my mind: am I being blackmailed?

Or is this just some stupid joke?

My throat goes dry and I fiddle with Dad's air conditioning vents as though they can pump more air toward me. Suddenly it's too hot. Too stuffy. I try to steady my breathing like Tate, my counselor at Halcyon, taught me. Inhale on the count of four. Exhale on the count of six.

Who is this????? I text back.

I wait one minute, two, then five.

After no answer, I drop my phone into my lap. My heart feels like it's trying to beat itself right out of my chest. The truth is, besides setting some rose bushes on fire, I don't remember everything that happened the day I ruined the party. Or why I did the things I did.

Vale College is my life, my everything. I only have two years left before I leave those hallowed halls with a Degree in Elementalism. It's all I've ever wanted to do.

I'm also what you might call a mage influencer, but since my magical blowup, I haven't been influencing much. My brand deals are on life support, so this text is the last thing I need right now. One meltdown big enough to make the news and you're instantly canceled. People don't like mages who can't control their magic.

Luckily, Dad kept my "incident" out of the press. I don't even know how much money or how many magical favors it cost him to get videos deleted off people's phones, but whatever he did worked. And my social media manager, Harley, is a genius. She told everyone I was dealing with a "personal health issue." Now all I want is to start making content again and get back out there.

But this text is threatening to take it all away.

Dad eases the Range Rover slowly around a corner like he's allergic to the speed limit and interrupts my inner spiral, "So...how do you feel...about having to live with Mateo for a while?"

The name lands like a punch to the face.

"I don't want to do this with you right now," I say.

"I just thought--"

"I said no."

"Maybe if you'd just talk--"

"Why would you bring him up?" My chest aches even thinking about Mateo. "Let it go."

Mateo. Besides Vale College, he was my other reason for smiling. He never judged me...even when there was so much to judge. But I don't have to worry about him being taken away from me because he's already gone.

Dad keeps his eyes on the road, but the muscles in his jaw twitch. "I'm trying here, Press. Trying to...I don't know...make up for lost time, I guess."

"Try somewhere else."

That shuts him up. I know I'm being cruel, but every time he tries to play the concerned father, I remember the years he wasn't one. The apartment with the water-stained ceiling. Mom crying into her glass of wine after they would fight. Me at ten years old, watching his taillights disappear down our street because we were too much of an inconvenience for him.

I lean my head against the window, watching palm trees smear past. I sneak a look at his profile. Dad's still the professional type, except now there's gray at his temples and deeper lines around his eyes. He looks tired. The thing is, I want to let him in. Some small, stupid part of me still yearns for my dad to show up and fix everything like fathers are supposed to do. But I learned a long time ago that wanting something doesn't make it real. So I keep my walls up. It's safer that way. Tate at Halcyon said my screw-up at that party three months ago was me "crying out for help." Maybe Tate is right. But the help I want isn't from Dad. I gave up on him a long time ago.

The help I want is from Mateo. To be there for me like he used to.

And that's not an option anymore.

The Magical Consortium is the final word on all things magical. They wouldn't let me leave the rehab center without a supervising Arcanist, a doctor who specializes in wayward magic. Dr. Alana Santos volunteered. She's the most powerful Arcanist on the West Coast, practically mage royalty. Her textbooks are required reading at Vale College and there are whole debates on YouBrowse about her magical philosophies. And apparently she's my babysitter now.

Oh yeah, and she's Mateo's mom.

Which means I have to live with her...and the boy who broke my heart.