School. Internship. School. Internship. The days of the week slowly fell into a predictable pattern, but not the kind I was comfortable with.

Somehow, despite how busy I felt, I still had way too much time on my hands to think, and I knew I couldn't trust my brain to reflect freely without wrecking me.

When it did float, it always managed to land in the general area of my mind that I had assigned to a particular writer.

I didn't know what to make of Miles Whitman and the curious looks he gave me. Like he was expecting me to tell him everything or expecting to see something beyond what I allowed him to.

But, more importantly, I also had no clue how to help him through his writing dry spell.

I might have had my own issues with writing if I were to believe my friendly writing professor's feedback, but none of those were that I couldn't bring myself to write. As soon as I pulled out a notepad or my computer, words and style flowed from my fingers and splattered onto the page, enthusiastic at the prospect of finally getting to leave my brain and exist somewhere more stable.

It was all so technical, or at least that's what Mr. Crawford had scribbled about my stories whenever he got a chance. And maybe that was what made it so easy for me.

Being detached was not only safer, but it was apparently also more efficient according to Miles's struggles.

Maybe Mr. Crawford would be a better professor if he could stay detached. But when he spoke about writing, the veins of his forehead bulged to follow the visible strain of his neck.

He had developed an interest in the spot where I sat in his classroom, staring my way as to hint that his lectures were a direct jab at me.

As I worked on my next project for his class, my fingers flew across the keyboard, from one whiny key to the next, not allowing myself to pause and doubt. Sentences filled the page quickly like I had memorized the whole text and was only transmitting back everything as I had learned it.

I didn't stop until the doorbell rang, interrupting my thought process, and I stared at the incomplete sentence, wondering how I had been planning to complete it.

"I swear if it's Crazy Marge again..."

I put my computer down on the center table in no big hurry, wasting as much time as possible in hope that the person who was now knocking on my door would go away.

Deliberately slow, I took a sip out of my cold coffee and pretended that every drop would revitalize my brain cells and make me more fit to keep up a conversation with whoever found such pleasure out of banging on the door as if it was their brand new way of practicing for the marching band.

I hopped to the door, my legs cramped from sitting for so long. Working non-stop without stretching my legs might not have been the best choice, but I was a college student. No one really expected me to be healthy.

Before twisting the knob, I took a second to consciously suck in air to prepare myself to deal with Marge's anecdotes about her living-dead daughter.

But instead, the open door revealed my mother, wearing the classic Rivers scowl on her face, leaning against her suitcase.

A dark blue tag with "Sienna K. Rivers" drawn in calligraphic letters decorated her bags as if she would ever lose anything other than her patience.

Co-founder of a music therapy practice geared towards troubled youth, Mom was always dressed for business, and it showed. I couldn't remember ever seeing her in anything oversized like the t-shirt I was wearing.

Each strand of her red hair remained perfectly within a strict bun that would do no favors to her scalp, while mine laughed in my face as it continued to stick out from every angle of my ponytail.

The hallway was otherwise empty, and there was no sign of her usual partner in crime, Dad.

I held my breath as I waited for whatever frustrated statements usually came out of her when I disappointed her.

But instead of yelling, she simply analyzed me, making a mental note of everything with the quick scan of her skeptical blue eyes.

"Your hair's shorter," she simply said, her voice controlled and calm, another typical Rivers-patented move. "It suits you."

"Not that I'm not ecstatic to see you—I always am, especially when your visits are unexpected—but what are you doing here, Mom? I thought you were on a marketing trip with Dad."

Her face betrayed no sign that she caught the sarcasm. "I thought I'd come and see you since you haven't been calling me back."

I stepped away from the doorway to let her win, every step stained with reluctance that she didn't care to notice.

"I sent you quarterly email updates like I promised to." My bare feet nearly tripped on the rug as I walked backward so that I could keep an eye on her and react fast in case she made a sudden move.

"Impersonal and non-detailed emails were not what we agreed on." She glanced around her at the living room and gave a single approving nod. "I wanted to catch up."

I slid onto the couch. I knew protests would get me nowhere, so I chose to play her game instead. It required less mental effort than resisting and I didn't have enough energy to spare for a battle I knew she would win despite my best efforts.

"How's Dad?" I leaned back and looked up at the ceiling as a distraction. For a second, I wished I hadn't ripped out the star stickers that used to decorate it.

"Old," she replied with no hesitation in her voice, a spontaneous answer I would never have expected from her.

I surprised myself when laughter bubbled out of my lips and kept myself from pointing out that she and Dad were the same age. I might have had no desire to answer her calls but despite her general insensitiveness and disregard for my independence, I did miss my mom's dry humor.

"How's writing going?" she asked and I stopped laughing.

Mom took a seat next to me on the couch, running her fingers over the soft fabric of her beige pencil skirt as she waited for an answer.

"Speaking of writing, Mom, I would prefer it if you would stop calling my professors. As crazy as this may sound to you, I would much rather earn opportunities with hard work."

I had assumed that moving across the country from her would give me the independence I could never have while living under her well-maintained roof.

"You did get the internship, though, didn't you?"

"Not the point. This isn't middle school, Mom. Your constant involvement isn't going to earn me my teachers' affection. I'll be that girl who needs her mommy to defend her. And I'm getting sick of always being that girl."

Mom didn't argue. I didn't know what her trip to the UK had done to transform her, but her nerves no longer seemed to tingle in anticipation of a good fight anymore.

"Noted. But how's writing?" she insisted as her piercing blue eyes formed an ice cage around me she knew I could never escape.

I didn't know why I thought that the slight change of topic I introduced would keep her from realizing I hadn't really answered that.

"I've been writing more, but Mr. Crawford isn't the most supportive person I know. He has vague requirements I don't seem to be meeting."

She acknowledged my answer with a simple nod. A nod was definitely an improvement on her reply the last time we had discussed my writing three years ago. "No offense, darling," she had commented on the last bit of my writing I would ever let her read. "But your writing was a lot more genuine when you were seven and still centered your stories around your pets."

"So, when are you going back to California?" I asked, changing the subject from writing because her supportive nod had become more intolerable than the lack of support that I was used to.

"Well, there was a week and a half left of that trip. I don't have any pressing engagement expecting me back home. So I think I'm going to stay here for a while. And, if you'll allow it, I'd love for us to hang out more. Ace seemed to think it was a good idea."

"The guy also thinks eating fifteen different bowls of ice cream under an hour is a good idea. That kind of makes any further advice from him irrelevant."

She laughed; it was a rare and honest laugh that made me smile though I tried not to.

This wasn't at all what being around her felt like just a few months earlier. There was something different about her that I couldn't pinpoint, and I wasn't sure whether to be impressed or suspicious.

"I know this is going to sound ridiculous coming from me, the ice queen, but it's been too long since we've had a talk like this," she said, and the mention of Dad and I's nickname for her brought back a few memories that weren't all that bad. "It feels like we haven't been as close since..." Her voice trailed off, her gaze getting lost far beyond the walls to an obscure point that I couldn't see.

"College," I said, finishing her sentence for her. "Yeah, I know." I didn't add that it had been by design because I was sure she had understood that already.

"No." She shook her head. "Way before that." For a moment, it felt like we were going to wander into the dangerous and untested territory that we had sworn off long ago. "I missed you. I guess that's what I was trying to say."

The honest reverberation of her words caught me off guard. Mom was not big on being vulnerable. That was the whole point of her nickname. In fact, it was one of the few things we had in common. I didn't understand where all the changes were coming from and I definitely didn't know how to adjust to the new person sitting beside me whose kind words no longer matched the tough exterior she had built.

"I should probably get going," she said, doing that trick I was all too familiar with, where she glanced at her watch without really checking the time. "I think I could still find a good room at a hotel if I leave now."

I saw the exhaustion expressed in the wrinkles around her eyes, deepening any time she spoke. I realized that she was also getting old.

And, because I hated myself and was not quite done ruining my life yet, I heard myself speak up. "You can stay here for a while until Dad gets back from the trip."

"Oh, that's wonderful because I had no backup plan."

The tiny apartment only had one room. I would probably have to sleep in a sleeping bag. I could already feel my muscles ache at the anticipation of the impending discomfort of not sleeping in my bed.

As I showed her to my room, my phone pinged with a notification from my school app.

I pulled up the comments tab for the last short story I had submitted to Mr. Crawford. I recognized the same feedback pattern—it was all too similar to what he had been telling me over the past few weeks.

Though I had decided to ignore his advice last time, I still felt an uncomfortable twinge as I read his notes—none more encouraging than the rest.

I realized that I would have to buy into his difficult game and add the abstract and elusive "heart" component he had been admonishing me about.

Sure, easy was safe.

But easy was not working.