It was Friday, and Ellie had picked up Avery and Talia from school.

In the car, she asked, "How was your day, Avery?"

"Fine," Avery said, annoyed, and Ellie rolled her eyes, because this seemed the only response she would ever get out of him anymore.

"What about you, sweetheart?" she asked Talia.

"Good. Me and Twigger had lucky chawms for bweakfast."

"You and who?"

"Twigger. He spent the night."

Ellie took a moment to compose herself before asking, "Did Leah spend the night, too?"

"Yeah."

Trying to remain calm, Ellie kept her eyes on the road and her hands firmly on the steering wheel, but her thoughts went wild and she wanted to scream out in frustration.

Why, Dylan? I told you not to invite chaos into your life. I told you that you were being selfish. And now you're letting Lake End's most violent child spend the night with your daughter!

Once at the house, Avery asked if he and Talia could please have Nutella with some pretzels, and even though Ellie typically counted that as a dessert and wouldn't allow it for an afternoon snack, she said yes, because she just wanted to occupy the kids at the kitchen counter so she could be alone with her thoughts.

After that, she even let them watch TV, and the whole time, she wondered about what other parents would whisper when they found out that her "stepson" and Leah had become an item. What would Lana and Melanie say? What would she tell Lana in defense? I tried to warn him, Lana. He needs to learn the hard way. He just...he has a big heart. He thinks he can fix things, you know?

She thought about talking to Dylan about it again, but realized she couldn't. He hadn't listened to her the first time, after all, and her attempt at an intervention would just make him angrier than he'd been before, putting them back into that gray territory between friendship and non-friendship they seemed to go sometimes.

Dylan arrived at the house a little later to pick up Talia, with a smile on his face, a skip in his step, and a hint of achievement in his posture.

He'd had sex. Ellie knew this. This was exactly how Clay had begun to act a few weeks prior, when he'd undoubtedly scored with Trina and her fake but impressive breasts.

Besides, Dylan's apartment was only two bedrooms, and Leah and Trigger had both spent the night. Two and two.

Trying to act like her usual self, Ellie instead found herself acting cold towards him.

"Did everything...go okay today?" he asked.

"What? Oh yes; of course. Talia was fine. She always is." Her smile was wide to indicate her pretend sincerity, but she was probably bad at pretending, because she could feel the smile's fakeness, probably as well as he could see it. He smiled back, looking un-fooled and confused as a result, and then he said, "Well, thank you for picking her up. You're awesome."

She nodded and fake-smiled again, and then he and Talia left, with him obviously somewhat perturbed about Ellie's apparent agitation.

Clay got home not long after that. "What are you making for dinner?" he asked, most likely because he'd realized nothing was being prepared, because that's all Ellie was, a preparer of meals, the house chef, the hand that fed him.

"I thought we could go out," she said, trying to make her words agitation-free.

"Great. Where to?"

"You decide."

"Tequila Dons?"

"Tequila Dons it is." Her enthusiasm, though faked, sounded believable to her. Acting, like anything else, just required practice. By the end of the night, Ellie might be a professional.

After they arrived at the restaurant, Ellie ordered a margarita right when the waiter came to introduce himself. She needed to calm her anxiety. Her predicament had put her stomach in knots, almost enough to make her feel nauseous. Luckily, no talk of viruses had surfaced this week, so she felt firm in her belief that her stomach issues resulted exclusively from the Dylan/Leah thing.

The margarita turned out to be a good idea. While Ellie held it, she could pretend: pretend she enjoyed the strength of the tequila flavor, that she had a good time listening to Clay talk about his new projects (truly boring as fuck), and that she didn't want to scream out to the world that Dylan would ruin everything she'd built.

Soon after, the margarita actually started to taste good, so she ordered another one.

Clay squeezed her hand, and she looked at him questioningly. He answered, "I'm glad you're letting loose a little. You deserve to."

Yes, after doing all his administrative work, taking care of and chauffeuring around his child and grandchild, and doing ridiculous amounts of volunteer work—the most recent being planning a new fundraiser for the businesses most recently affected by arson—Ellie did deserve to get loose. Especially after trying to prevent Dylan from imploding his life but failing. The implosion was imminent.

She didn't squeeze Clay's hand back, and she didn't smile, because despite deserving the opportunity to relax, "letting loose" was the opposite of what she was doing right then. Full with emotions, she only intended to keep them from bursting all over the place.

Their meals arrived, and Ellie could hardly touch hers; she had some more chips and salsa, then finished her second margarita.

After Avery and Clay had cleared their plates, Clay paid the check and they left. During the ride home, Ellie felt better, and she remembered why she used to get drunk in high school: because it felt good, made you forget your worries about the future for the night.

Once they were home, Ellie let Clay put Avery to bed while she poured herself a glass of cabernet. Clay came into the kitchen a bit later, saying, "I haven't seen you drink this much since you were in high school." His tone didn't sound optimistic, and she doubted he still felt glad she was "letting loose."

"Three drinks isn't that much," she said defensively.

"Those margaritas were pretty big. I guarantee they had at least two shots each. And you barely ate."

As if his words imparted some sort of dark magic, the room began to spin, and Ellie felt the contents of her stomach churning, ever so slightly, and along with them, the contents of her mind. Even though she'd decided earlier she wouldn't confront Dylan, in the moment, it seemed like a good idea.

"I have to make a phone call," she told Clay, putting her half-finished wine glass on the sink and going into her master closet, shutting herself inside. She dialed Dylan's number, and it rang twice before he answered. "Hey."

"Hey."

"What's up?"

"I thought you were going to stay away from Leah." She felt pretty sure she had come up with an introduction to preface this line, something to ease the two of them into the conversation, but it had apparently escaped her.

"Why does it matter to you?" Dylan finally asked after an extended silence.

"Do you really want to be swapping fluids with a mom who LEPO wants out of the district?"

It was the wrong response, made evident when Dylan said, angrily, "If you still know me, you know I don't give a fuck what other people think, especially parents in LEPO. All those ladies are just a bunch of rich ass moms who've never had to deal with real hardship. Their hardships are stale cookies at bake sales."

Ellie paused before saying, "Lana's husband was just a victim of arson," as if that could convince Dylan that Lana knew real hardship. She continued, "And 'those ladies' have some legitimate points." Her ability to be eloquent had escaped her; she stumbled over the word "legitimate." But onward she pressed. "That kid seriously hurt another kid. He bruised his cheekbone and bit his arm. Can the school really justify endangering the other kids like that? Just to help some kid who seems pretty beyond help at this point?"

"So what, is Trigger just supposed to be kept away from everyone else? He's six fucking years old, Ellie. What, have you lost all of your compassion now that you're a Lake End mom?"

"You deserve so much better, Dylan," she said.

Another silence ensued, before Dylan asked, "Like who?" His tone sounded a bit softer, like maybe hearing what she had to say interested him.

"Someone who can be a good role model for Talia."

"I think Leah's a pretty good role model. She works multiple jobs and is there for her kid."

"Her kid is an asshole."

His aggressive tone came back in full force. "Oh my fucking God, you are such a bitch." He hung up.

Ellie's stomach really didn't feel well after her conversation with Dylan could no longer distract her from the spinning feeling, and it wasn't just regret for her drunken word spillage. She laid down in her bed, where Clay seemed to materialize out of nowhere.

"Everything all right?"

"Yep," she said, but her head was spinning, her stomach churning, and she knew she might need to do that thing, that thing she hated, but she just kept telling herself she wouldn't.

He laid down next to her, rubbing her back. The circular rubbing motions made her even more nauseous, and his body heat didn't help.

"Please don't touch me," she said.

"Is something the matter?"

Before she could answer, she got up, ran into the bathroom, and threw up.

When she'd gotten it all out, she found herself crying—she always cried when she puked. Luckily, drunk puking wasn't nearly as bad as sober, sick puking, and she reminded herself of this as her body began to shake uncontrollably. She turned on the shower, got undressed, and went to stand under the stream of water, letting its heat calm her body down. After, she brushed her teeth and rinsed her mouth with mint-flavored mouthwash three times, put on some pajamas, took some Pepto Bismol, and went to sleep on the living room couch.