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Elliot is six years old lying awake at 3am staring at glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to her ceiling. She’d been awoken by the sound of shouting downstairs from Mamma and Papa.
“Do you think I’m fucking stupid Richard?”
Elliot pushes back the blankets and creeps toward the landing, socked feet silent against the hallway floorboards. From between the bannisters she can only see pieces of them: her father standing beside the counter, her mother pacing barefoot through the living room in a beautiful flowing dress.
“That’s not what I said.”
“Oh please.” Eleanor laughs. “You practically reek of her.”
Elliot frowns, watching her father drag his hand down his face. “For the hundredth time Eleanor, there is no ‘her.’”
“No, of course not. I'm just crazy right. Fucking crazy Eleanor Scott strikes again!”
“Can we not do this tonight?”
“Why?” Eleanor spins toward him. “Because you’re guilty?”
“No. Because Elliot is upstairs.”
Elliot freezes at the sound of her own name. Mamma glances towards the stairs and Elliot quickly ducks behind the pole.
“She’s asleep.”
“She won’t stay asleep with all this yelling. She has school tomorrow, she needs rest.”
“Oh yea there it is. School. School. Fucking school. That's all you give a shit about right?”
She watches mamma lift a glass bowl holding fruit off the counter and fling at papa. She jumps as the glass shatters and the fruits roll on the floor.
“Eleanor!”
“What?” she snaps.
Elliot thinks her papa looks tired. Maybe he needs to get some rest too.
“I can’t keep doing this,” he says quietly.
“You’re leaving.” Mamma sounds scared.
“El—”
“You’re leaving me.”
“No one said that.”
“But you want to.”
Elliot doesn’t understand most of the argument, but she knows her mamma is going to cry.
Her papa moves forward. “Eleanor—”
“Don’t.” She backs away. “Don’t touch me.”
Elliot scurries backward from the stairs before either of them can look up. Heart pounding. Bedroom. Bed. Blankets. If she’s very quiet maybe the house will stop feeling strange.
A few minutes later her bedroom door swings open and she can hear mamma pulling open drawers. “Mamma?” Elliot whispers. “What are you doing?”
Her mother turns toward her with a dazzling smile, blue eyes bright almost electric. “Oh, moonbeam. You and I are going on an adventure.”
“Right now?” Elliot asks, pushing herself up and tugging on her glasses.
“Why not.”
“But…I have school tomorrow. I hafta show Nessa my new shoes.”
“Oh, you can show Nessa when we get back.” She tosses Elliot’s favorite sweater into the bag. “School’s boring. Life is for living.”
At six years old, this feels like the most exciting sentence anybody has ever spoken.
“Okay, mamma,” Elliot says, bouncing up out of the bed.
Mamma beams. “That’s my girl.”
Years later, Elliot won’t remember this moment correctly.
She won’t remember the dirty motel smelling of cigarettes and mildew, the shower running too long in the bathroom at night, covering her mother’s cries. Her father crying on the phone begging mamma to take Elliot home.
What she’ll remember instead: Blanket forts made from motel sheets, music crackling softly through a tiny radio and mamma feeding her ice cream straight from the carton at midnight. Dancing barefoot across ugly patterned carpet while Fleetwood Mac played too loud.
By seven, Elliot knows how to make coffee. It’s watery with too much sugar but Mamma drinks it anyway and always says it’s the nicest coffee she's ever had. Today though, the mug just sits untouched on the bedside table growing cold beside three others. The apartment smells stale. Like nobody’s opened a window in days.
Rain taps against the fire escape outside while Elliot stands in the tiny kitchen staring into the fridge. There’s half a carton of milk, mustard, blueberries gone fuzzy. No bread. No pasta. No real food. Her stomach hurts. She shuts the fridge quietly and reaches for the cereal instead.
The one-bedroom apartment above the laundromat is small and dark, too warm during the day and freezing at night, and the pipes clang loudly. It’s very different from the beach house,
No more twisting staircase, huge windows overlooking the water, music drifting through the rooms as mamma plays the piano. Elliot misses the beach house so much it physically aches sometimes, but mostly she misses who her mamma was inside it.
“Moooonbeam?” Mamma calls from the bedroom.
Elliot sets the cereal down and hurries toward her. The bedroom curtains are still closed even though it’s 4pm. The old lamp beside the bed makes the room look warmer than it is. Mamma lies curled beneath the blankets wearing one of papa's old Harvard sweatshirts.
She looks sad, but still so beautiful, Elliot thinks, with her long blonde ringlets, bright sea blue eyes and rosy cheeks.
Mamma pats the space on the bed beside her and Elliot climbs up to sit beside her feeling the warmth of her mammas arms pulls her close.
“Hi, my baby.”
“You sleepy again today?” Mamma laughs softly against her hair, but there’s something strange underneath the sound.
“Something like that.”
“You hungry? I made cereal.”
“Oh moonbeam.” Mamma kisses the top of her curls. “You’re too good to me.”
Elliot beams at that. Praise from her mother feels better than popsicles on a hot summer day.
“Do you know why Mamma’s been sad lately?”
Elliot shakes her head against her shoulder.
“It’s your Papa. He left us, Elliot.”
Elliot frowns slightly. “But he still calls every night and he takes me to-.” Mamma’s arm tightens around her and Elliot stops.
“He doesn’t love us anymore. That’s why we had to leave the house. He made us.”
Eight-year-old Elliot absorbs this instantly as fact. “Oh.”
Mamma strokes curls back from her face. “But that’s okay moonbeam. We’ve still got each other, right? We don’t need anyone else.”
Elliot nods because she feels like the answer is very important to mamma. “Always,” she says.
Mamma smiles then, brightly. Happier than Elliot has seen her in almost a week and kisses the tip of her nose.
Elliot’s stomach growls loudly enough that both of them hear it. And mamma laughs, “Oops. Mamma has just been so sad she forgot to feed you.”
“Do you think you can make dinner?”
Mamma groans, burying her face into the pillow. “Ugh. Food is so much effort.”
“Maybe we can get pizza?”
“Nooo.” Mamma says, eyes sparkling. “Ice cream’s a much better dinner.”
Elliot bursts into laughter. “Mamma! You can’t eat ice cream for dinner”
“Says who? The government? Don’t tell me you trust Big Vegetable propaganda.”
“What's pop-a-granda?” Mamma laughs at her, looking at her like she’s the only important thing on this earth. For a second she almost looks alive again.
“Doesn’t matter. Let's be crazy and go in our pajamas huh? Maybe put your red rain boots on?”
“To the store?”
“No… To the ends of the earth.”
Elliot grins. “Okay, mamma.”
Elliot’s feet are tucked up beneath her on the passenger seat of papa’s car while she talks nonstop about jellyfish facts she learned at the aquarium yesterday. Papa nods along like every single sentence is critically important information.
“That one was literally glowing,” Elliot says, stretching her hands dramatically through the air. “Like an alien.”
Papa laughs as he pulls up outside the apartment building. “It sure was, bug.”
The building doesn’t feel like home; it's the third apartment she’s lived in in the past year. “You wanna come up?” Elliot asks quickly before he can unbuckle. “I made you something at school.”
“You did?”
“For Father’s Day.” She grins proudly. “But I forgot to bring it with me Friday.”
Papa looks at her with the kindest smile. “Yeah, bug. I’d love to.”
Elliot beams and jumps out of the car before he’s even parked properly. The apartment smells of burnt toast and cigarette smoke when they walk inside. Bowie crackles from the kitchen radio. “Mamma?” Elliot calls. No answer. “She’s probably sleeping.”
He flinches a little at how practiced those words are. Too practiced for an eight year old.
“I’ll go get your picture!” Elliot drops her backpack beside the couch and disappears down the hallway toward her room. Her bedroom is tiny compared to the one in the beach house. But mamma had spent a whole day painting one wall blue and drawing little sea creatures on the wall with stencils, so Elliot tries not to complain about it out loud anymore. She kneels beside her desk digging through piles of sketchbooks and loose papers until she hears voices drifting from the kitchen.
“She’d rather be with you anyway.”
“Eleanor, she is eight years old. You can’t put that on her.”
“Oh please, she’s fine. She has a better head on her shoulders than most of the adults I know.”
“I’m serious, Eleanor.”
“Aren’t you always.”
“Because somebody in her life has to be an adult.”
Mamma starts to cry. “She likes your place better.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is. And why wouldn’t she? You’ve got your perfect little life over there.”
“Christ, Eleanor this needs to stop. This emotional whiplash isn’t right. An eight year old shouldn't be responsible for your emotions.”
“You know what? Fuck you Richard. I love my daughter.”
“You mean OUR daughter Eleanor. Did you know she missed sixty days of school last year? That's not right. She needs consistency. Friends. Routine.”
“School’s fucking bullshit. It trains children to become robots.”
“No, education is important.”
“She’s smart enough already. She reads constantly, she knows more about art, culture and music than most adults.”
“And where will that get her in life? What opportunities will she have?”
“She’s HAPPY.”
“Is she?”
Something in Elliot panics at the sound. She steps out into the hallway clutching the folded drawing tightly against her chest. Both of them turn .
“El?” Papa says. “Did you hear all of that?”
Elliot nods, handing him the picture. She turns around and mamma’s eyes are suddenly shiny.
“You’d rather live with him, wouldn’t you?”
Elliot looks at mamma standing barefoot, beneath flickering candlelight, then at papa, and Elliot knows instantly there’s a right answer here.
“No, mamma,” she says quickly. “Of course I wanna stay with you.”
Mamma pulls her in before she can say anything else, holding on too tight, too long. Elliot melts into the hug. “Oh moonbeam,” Mamma says, “I knew you would.”
“It’s you and me against everyone, isn’t it?” she whispers into her curls. “Maybe I should just homeschool you and keep you with me.”
Elliot nods.
“Absoluetly not. She needs school and friends. She needs a life outside this apartment.”
“She has me.”
“You cannot be her whole world.”
“What do you think moonbeam? Homeschooling? We could do whatever we want. Beach days, record stores, trade fairs, museums? Oh, we could take the train to New York one weekend and see real theatre.”
“We can!?”
“No you can’t.”
Mamma glares at papa and Elliot thinks they’re going to start shouting again. But instead mamma smiles, bright and youthful.
“You know what we need?... A dance party.” Before anyone can answer she spins toward the radio and cranks the volume high enough that the floors and walls vibrate. Cindy Lauper bursts through the apartment.
Elliot gasps delightedly.
“Eleanor—”
“Oh stop being such a boring bastard, Richard.”
Candles flicker gold around the kitchen while mamma grabs Elliot’s hands and spins her barefoot across the tiles. And just like that the apartment transforms into the most magical place on earth.
Warm candlelight, music too loud, laughter and silly dances on top of kitchen worktops.
Magic.
This moment is also altered in Elliot’s memory; years later. She forgot the argument, the exhaustion on Papa's face and his look of terror. All she remembers is mamma singing dramatically into a wooden spoon while records play and the whole kitchen glows gold around them.
Freedom. Love. And the feeling that choosing her mother had been the most important thing Elliot would ever do.
Elliot’s tenth birthday starts with Paradise by the Dashboard Light blasting at full volume and her mother, curls everywhere, sunglasses on despite it being 7 a.m., jumping onto the bed beside her.
“RISE AND SHINE, MY BEAUTIFUL BIRTHDAY GIRL!”
“Mamma!” Elliot dissolves into giggles as her mamma attacks her with kisses. “It’s too early!”
“Incorrect.” she says, squeezing Elliot’s cheeks. “The sun is out which means it is officially PARTY TIME.”
Elliot laughs as her mother drags her out of bed and into a kitchen filled with twinkling fairy lights, party streamers dangling from every light and doorway, the kitchen counters overflowing with sweets.
“My God, I can’t believe you're ten. Double digits moonbeam. You're basically ancient.”
“I’m not ancient, you are.”
“You wound me my child.”
Elliot snorts. Then notices the giant box leaning against the bedroom wall. Her eyes widen.
“Mamma…”
“Open it.”
Elliot practically launches herself across the sofa, ripping at the paper hard enough to send scraps flying everywhere.
A skateboard. Bright red underneath with painted yellow stars across the deck. For one full minute she just stares at it, fingers tracing the pattern and then: “MAMMA,” she says, throwing herself at her so hard they both collapse backward across the sofa laughing.
“I can’t believe you got me a skateboard!”
“Well obviously. What else would I get you, you’re literally the coolest person I know.”
An hour later papa arrives carrying coffee, a bakery box and another wrapped present tucked beneath one arm. “Happy birthday, bug.”
Elliot grins and nearly drags him inside by the sleeve. “You’re late.”
“It’s eight-thirty in the morning.”
“Exactly, late.” Papa laughs and hands over the gift.
Inside is the giant Hogwarts Lego castle Elliot has been staring at in store windows for approximately six months. “Oh. My. GOD.” Her father looks absurdly pleased with himself.
“You like it?”
“Are you fucking kidding dude! It's awesome!”
“Elliot, language!”
“What, it's just a word. Mamma says it's fine. Right mamma?”
“Of course it's fine. She's cool Richard. Plus she has to express herself.”
Papas eyes move to the skateboard leaning against the couch. “Please tell me you bought her a helmet and kneepads for that?”
“God, here we go again. Mr practical. It’s her birthday can’t the kid just have a little fun?”
“Yea, papa it’s my fuckin’ birthday.”
Papa flinches at the words. “Elliot skateboards can be really dangerous if-”
Mamma makes a face and rolls her eyes and Elliot giggles. “Whatever, papa. Why are you always so boring?”
Mamma bursts into delighted laughter and Elliot grins.
An hour later Elliot is outside on the sidewalk clutching the skateboard with two split open knees and a missing tooth while Mamma sits cross-legged on the sidewalk cheering loud enough for the whole block to hear. She’s never been so happy in her whole life.
By four the party has started and mamma throws parties like ordinary people stage theatre productions. It's loud, messy and chaotic.
Nessa arrives carrying friendship bracelets. Kyle pops a balloon and scares himself. Ethan somehow gets frosting on the ceiling. And Tris— quiet little Tris with huge dark eyes and untied shoelaces—follows Elliot around all afternoon like a shadow.
By six mamma’s teaching all of them dramatic dance moves in the kitchen while ACDC plays at full volume.
“Your mom is SO cool,” Nessa whispers at one point while they sit cross-legged eating pizza straight from the box on the floor.
Elliot glows with pride instantly. “I know, dude.”
The party stretches late into the evening.
Candles flickering because the electricity ran out. Mamma saying they can make their own music handing the kids pots, pans and wooden spoons, all screaming out lyrics to songs they barely know and laughing.
By eleven everyone tells Elliot she looks exactly like her mother. She beams with pride every time. She does too, she has her same blonde curly hair, bright electric blue eyes, sharp wit, an ever growing collection of vintage band tees and chipped black nail polish paired with dramatic eyerolls.
One morning Mamma had said, “you my little moonbeam are the most magical person on the planet.”
Elliot grins. “Like Harry Potter?”
“No, like Hermione Granger of course, she’s a badass and smart just like you.”
Today however the apartment smells like coffee, incense and the ocean air drifting through cracked windows. The company soundtrack hums softly from the kitchen radio while Elliot carries a bowl of cereal toward the bedroom.
“Mamma?” she says, nudging the door open with her foot. The curtains are still closed. It’s almost noon.
Mamma is lying curled beneath blankets and staring blankly at the wall, makeup from four days ago still on and smudged beneath her eyes.
“Mamma, you need to eat. It's been like four days.”
“Hm?”
“I brought cereal.”
“Oh.” she blinks slowly like waking from underwater. “Thanks moonbeam.”
Elliot sets the bowl carefully on the bedside table beside the 6 still full mugs of now cold coffee, an untouched sandwich and a bowl of hardened pasta.
“Are you getting up today?”
“Maybe later.”
Elliot nods like it’s normal, because it is. Some mornings her mother wakes up electric, music blasting, dance parties in the kitchen or sudden trips to Santa Cruz because “the ocean looked lonely.” Other days she disappears into the mattress entirely. Elliot has stopped trying to predict which version she’ll get.
“You know what sounds awful?” Mamma says sitting up suddenly.
“School?” Elliot guesses.
“School.” Mamma says pointing at her, grinning.
Elliot laughs, shaking her head.
“I was thinking,” mamma continues, voice brighter now, “what if instead we drove up the coast today?”
Elliot hesitates. “On a Wednesday?”
“Exactly. Very rebellious.”
“I have a math test.”
“You also have a soul, and a keen sense of adventure and a life to live!”
By eleven Elliots missed enough school that teachers stop asking where she was when she disappears for days at a time. Papa sounds surprised every single time though. Which Elliot finds exhausting.
“You know He called yesterday,” Mamma says lightly while stirring cereal around without eating it. “Wanted to know why you weren’t answering your phone.”
Elliot shrugs. “Didn’t feel like talking.”
“Good,” mamma says. “He doesn’t get us anyway.”
The ‘us’ settles warmly in Elliot’s chest. A team, her and mamma always.
By the afternoon they’re driving north, windows down, everything from Metallica to Les Mis blasting through the speakers loud enough to rattle the car doors. Mamma singing dramatically into a french fry while Elliot laughs so hard soda comes out her nose.
At a gas station somewhere outside Half Moon Bay, Mamma buys her a secondhand leather jacket three sizes too big because: “You have the energy of a girl who should own mysterious boots and ride a motorcycle.”
Elliot wears it immediately. That night they eat pancakes at midnight in a diner lit entirely by flickering neon while mamma sketches ridiculous tattoo ideas on napkins and tells Elliot she was born for bigger things than classrooms and routines.
“Most people are asleep their whole lives,” she says seriously over coffee she definitely shouldn’t still be drinking at two a.m. “Promise me you won’t become one of those boring assholes Elliot.”
“Obviously, fuckin’ not momma.” Elliot says, rolling her eyes flicking cream onto her mammas nose.
They return home three days later to find three missed calls from papa.
Mamma’s whole mood shifts, like sunlight disappearing behind clouds. “God he’s fucking relentless.”
“I think he’s just worried.”
Mamma scoffs. “Moonbeam,” she says, kneeling in front of her. “Your father doesn’t worry about people. He worries about control.”
Elliot frowns slightly.
“He left us.” The words come out sadly enough that guilt blooms in Elliot’s stomach for even questioning it. “And now he wants to swoop in acting like he cares because it makes him feel better about abandoning us.”
Eleven-year-old Elliot doesn’t fully understand adult relationships. But what she does understand is mamma gets sad whenever papa appears. So he must be the problem.
The next day mamma stays in bed again. She doesn’t reply when Elliot tries to wake her, so Elliot stays home again. She does the laundry, walks to the store for groceries, makes boxed mac and cheese lights a candle and listens to her mammas Pat Benatar record.
Because by eleven Elliot already knows which bills are overdue, how to stretch milk another day and how to tell when her mothers sadness will erupt in anger or not. But, she also knows exactly how to make her laugh again. That part feels more important.
Later, Elliot curls into her mother in the bed while rain taps softly against the windows.
“You know,” Mamma murmurs sleepily, fingers brushing through Elliot’s curls, “I love you more than the whole wide world moonbeam. You are the only reason I am still here in this shitty world.”
And because she’s eleven, and doesn’t understand that children aren’t supposed to feel responsible for keeping their mothers alive, she says, “I love you too mamma.”
By thirteen, Elliot smells permanently of weed and bubblegum vape smoke.
Teachers stop trying with her sometime around eighth grade. She skips more classes than she attends anyway.
Most mornings she wakes up late, pulls on yesterday’s clothes from the floor and heads straight for the kitchen to assess the damage of dirty dishes, beer bottles, empty fridge and to see if Mamma’s having an awake day or not. Sometimes she is. Mostly she isn’t.
The apartment feels permanently dim now curtains permanently closed and old Broadway soundtracks crackling softly through speakers while mamma lies curled beneath blankets barely touching the food Elliot leaves beside the bed. She’s skin and bone but still somehow the most beautiful woman Elliot has ever seen. And even sick, people still fall in love with her instantly. Elliot inherited that from her, people look at her like she's dangerous and fascinating all at once.
By now Elliot has discovered that alcohol is just as effective as weed at blocking out inner voice and unwanted thoughts. So she drinks, mostly vodka stolen from older boys at skateparks, sometimes whiskey from the back of kitchen cabinets during parties while Disturbed screams through blown speakers and thirty teenagers destroy her home.
Mamma never stops the parties. Most of the time she joins them. Barefoot in silk robes dancing through clouds of smoke while Elliot’s friends stare at her like she’s some kind of mythical angel.
“Your mom is insane,” Kyle says once, awed.
Elliot grins proudly. “I know, she’s amazing.”
Kyle kisses her twenty minutes later in the bathroom while somebody throws up in the sink downstairs. He’s sweet. He’s asked her out four times now. Elliot always laughs.
“Absolutely fuckin’ not, dude.”
“Why not?”
“‘Cause relationships are fake,” Elliot says, lighting another cigarette. “People just fuckin’ trap each other till they’re miserable or die.”
“God, you’re like really fuckin’ sad dude.”
Elliot almost punches him for saying it. Instead, she kisses him again hard enough to shut him up.
Because she’s not sad. She refuses to be sad. Mamma says sadness kills people. Alive people stay moving, stay free. Alive people never let anybody own them.
***
The social worker comes first and gets completely ignored.
Then Richard. By the time Elliot gets home from the corner store carrying grocery bags, he is already inside the apartment arguing with mamma. Their voices crash through the hallway before she even opens the door fully.
“She’s THIRTEEN!”
“And?”
“AND… What do you mean ‘and’ Eleanor, she’s drunk in half these photos!”
“Oh, for fuck sake, Richard. Teenagers drink. Alert the fucking media.”
“She looks sick.”
That makes Elliot pause. Mamma is sitting cross-legged on the kitchen counter, wearing one of Elliot’s old hoodies, joint balanced between skeletal fingers. Richard stands opposite her, holding printed Instagram photos in shaking hands.
Elliot recognizes them instantly. Her at a party last weekend: smudged eyeliner, pink bikini, vodka bottle raised toward the camera, Kyle’s hands on her waist.
“What the actual fuck!” She snaps, slamming the grocery bags onto the counter. “Are you stalking my social media now?”
Richard turns towards her, and all Elliot can see on his face is fear.
“Jesus, bug.” His voice cracks slightly. “Look at you.”
“Fuck off.”
“You’re thirteen.”
“And?”
“You’re drinking and smoking and partying and-”
“So are most teens in San Francisco.”
“El—”
“No. You don’t get to come in here acting like you suddenly fuckin’ care dude.”
“I have ALWAYS cared, Elliot.”
“Bull-fuckin’-shit.”
“El—”
“No. This is your fault. You left us!”
Elliot takes the joint from her mother's shaky hand, takes a drag, and hands it back.
“Okay. No. That’s enough. Pack a bag. NOW.”
“What?”
“You’re coming with me.”
“What the fuck, no,” Elliot says.
“This isn’t up for discussion. Pack a bag; we are leaving.”
“You can’t just take me.”
“Yes, actually, I can.”
Elliot sees her mama's face harden as she calmly slides off the counter and walks towards the kitchen drawer.
Elliot’s stomach drops. “Mamma?”
She lifts the carving knife and holds it at her neck just inches away from marking her skin.
Richard goes white. “Eleanor.”
She presses the blade a tiny bit more. “Take her away then,” she says softly.
Elliot stops breathing. “Mamma!”
“Go on, Richard.” Her eyes never leave him. “Take her.” A tiny, sad smile twists across her mouth. “And then you can explain to your daughter why her mamma killed herself because she couldn’t stand living without her.”
“Christ,” Richard whispers.
“Mamma!” Elliot says, rushing across the kitchen, grabbing at Mamma’s wrist desperately. “I’m not going anywhere,” she says frantically. “Okay? Mamma, look at me… I’m staying.”
Richard looks shattered. “El—”
“You and me forever, remember?” Elliot says desperately, tears streaming now. “It’s us against everybody.”
She finally looks down at her. And smiles. “Of course, moonbeam.” She drops the knife and pulls Elliot into a hug.
At fifteen, Elliot’s been expelled from two schools. The first one had technically been an accident. The second one definitely wasn't.
Richard calls it acting out of grief. Elliot calls it having hobbies.
Every adult in her life seems determined to convince her she's falling apart. Therapists.
Guidance counselors. Teachers. School principals. Social workers. They all sit across from her with the same concerned expression.
And every single one asks some variation of the same question. "How are you feeling, Elliot?"
Like she's going to suddenly burst into tears and confess all her secrets. Instead, she usually tells them to fuck off. Or one time she said: “Well, my mother killed herself, and I feel like I’m partially to blame, but mostly I just blame Richard, who I am now forced to live with in a house that just reminds me of my mother every single fucking second. And he’s being annoyingly fucking kind and concerned and looks at me like I’m about to fuckin’ explode on him. So I’m actually fucking fantastic, Sandra. How are you?” To a therapist who looked like they were ready to quit on the spot, Elliot had grinned, stood up, and walked out of the office.
Three months after that, she gets caught drinking herself, literally unconscious, at a house party. Richard gets her into the car the next morning and refuses to say where they are going.
The entire journey is silent. Richard grips the steering wheel hard enough for his knuckles to whiten.
When they finally pull into the driveway, Elliot looks up. A large wooden sign sits beside a winding road.
HARMONY HILLS CENTER FOR HEALING AND RECOVERY
Elliot stares at it. Then at Richard.
"Oh, my God. You can’t be fuckin’ serious. You’re sending me to a cult!?”
"It's not a cult."
"It literally has Harmony in the name.”
"Elliot."
"A healing center?" She gestures wildly at the sign. "That's exactly what cults call themselves before they steal your organs."
Richard sighs heavily. For one second, she almost sees a smile, but it's gone too quickly.
Inside is worse. Everything smells weird. The staff smile too much. People keep asking her name. One woman named Eliza speaks so calmly that Elliot wants to slap her.
There are gardens, actual gardens, a vegetable patch, a yoga studio, a little duck pond, and a bridge. Somewhere in the distance, somebody is playing acoustic guitar. "Oh yeah," Elliot mutters. "Definitely a cult."
****
Her first night is torture; she has a roommate called Rosie who is entirely too quiet and too nice for Elliot.
The first full day is worse. Group therapy is hell, people crying and oversharing, she wants to barf. Then dinner arrives, and Elliot sits staring at the pale lump on her plate.
"What the fuck is that?"
A girl across the table tilts her head at her, "It's.. mashed potatoes."
"I don't care what it is." Elliot points at it accusingly. "It looks vile!"
"It's literally potatoes."
"Potatoes are eaten fried or not at all.”
The girl shrugs and goes back to eating.
Elliot folds her arms. "I'm not eating this."
The nurse smiles politely. "Okay." Elliot narrows her eyes, that wasn't the response she expected. When dinner ends, Elliot stands, and the nurse looks at her. “No one leaves until all the food on their plate has been eaten.”
So Elliot remains exactly where she is, and the potatoes remain exactly where they are. An hour passes. Then two. Then four. A different nurse takes over. By midnight, Elliot is running entirely on spite. By one am she hates mashed potatoes more than she hates Richard. By two, she's considering death. At three in the morning, the final nurse of the night sets down a fresh cup of water and gives her a sympathetic look.
"You know you're not winning this, right?"
"Neither are you."
The nurse laughs.
Elliot stares at the potatoes, and the potatoes stare back. She sighs and grabs the spoon. The nurse wisely says nothing.
One bite, then another. The texture is horrifying. She swallows dramatically like somebody forcing poison down her throat.
The nurse looks unbearably pleased, and Elliot regrets giving in.
By the time she's marching back toward the dormitories ten hours after the start of dinner, she's exhausted, furious, and close enough to tears that everything just comes out as rage instead. "This place is fucking bullshit!" she yells, kicking doors as she goes.
A nurse follows several steps behind. "Elliot, enough."
"You're all insane! This place is a cult!"
The nurse pinches the bridge of her nose. Elliot kicks the wall as she passes. Then another wall. Then a trash can. By the time she reaches her room she's crying and yelling simultaneously. She slams the door hard enough to shake the frame.
For a long time, she lies awake staring at the ceiling. Angry, lonely, and homesick for a person who no longer exists.
“It gets easier. I promise.” Rosie says.
“Whatever,” Elliot says. Rolling over and swearing, tomorrow she will escape.
***
Turns out, much to Elliot's immense irritation, Rosie had been right. It did get easier. Not overnight. Jesus Christ, no.
The first month is still awful, and Elliot spends most of it convinced Harmony Hills is a cult and several members of staff are personally conspiring against her.
She refuses group discussions, art therapy, music therapy, yoga, and, most importantly, mashed potatoes.
The nurses begin greeting her every morning with the cautious expressions usually reserved for wild animals. One afternoon, she tells Nurse Taylor that if she says "healing journey" one more time, she's gonna throw herself into the duck pond. She stares at her deadpan and says, “Meh, get some new material; you’ve made that threat four times already.”
By week four, the withdrawal symptoms finally settle, the shaking stops, and the headaches fade. The constant craving for alcohol and anything else that might quiet her brain eases enough for her to sleep properly. But unfortunately, it leaves something worse behind. Feelings. Turns out when you stop numbing yourself, everything's still there waiting for you.
***
Family sessions with Richard start as forty-five minutes of silence. Elliot sits with her arms tightly folded and a scowl on her face, and Richard sits poker-straight, staring at the floor, while the therapist slowly questions every career choice that led them here.
By week four, the silence turns into arguments. By week six, they're arguing so consistently that the therapist begins keeping aspirin in her desk drawer.
By week ten, something changes. It’s not forgiveness, more like mutual exhaustion. Elliot still blames him, and he still blames himself. It appears that no amount of therapy can change either fact. But eventually they learn how to sit in the same room without trying to wound each other, which honestly feels as close to peace as Elliot ever expected.
There are things Elliot learns about her mother, too, in private therapy and group. Things she's spent years refusing to look at directly. She can acknowledge those things inside her own head now, but only inside her own head, because saying them out loud still feels like betrayal.
***
Week ten, Rosie goes home, and Elliot sobs. Rosie hugs her and says, “Thanks for being my friend here, Elliot.”
Elliot laughs wetly. "You literally watched me threaten a nurse with a dinner fork."
"Yeah."
"You watched me get banned from pottery."
"Also true."
"You watched me scream at mashed potatoes."
Rosie smiles. "My point stands."
Elliot hugs her one last time. "Thanks for not making fun of me when I cried at night."
Rosie's expression softens. "Anytime."
***
By week fourteen, Elliot feels healthier than she can ever remember feeling. Her skin has color again, and the permanent exhaustion is gone. She eats actual meals now, like ones containing vegetables. Meals that consist of more than just caffeine, sugar, and grease.
She spends most afternoons in the gardens with her skateboard, still with no helmet because she is her mamma’s daughter. The California winter surrounds her while she practices kickflips on cracked pathways. For the first time in years, existing doesn't feel quite so difficult.
***
Week sixteen brings yet another family therapy. But at this point, Elliot and Richard have developed a system. Elliot rolls her eyes, Richard apologizes for things that aren't entirely his fault, and the therapist nods meaningfully at both of them. Everyone goes home exhausted. Progress.
Today's session ends with Richard saying he's proud of her. Which is deeply uncomfortable for everyone involved. "See you next week, bug."
"Yeah."
"Take care of yourself."
"Don't get weird, please."
Richard laughs despite himself.
Elliot leaves before either of them can accidentally have a genuine emotional moment.
The hallway outside is quiet, and sunlight spills through the windows overlooking the gardens.
For a second, she considers stealing one of the golf carts and making a break for freedom, not because she actually wants to leave anymore. Mostly for the story, she swings her skateboard beneath one arm and heads back toward the dormitories.
When she opens the bedroom door, someone is already inside. Ah, so her new roommate has finally arrived. Taylor had said she was called Abigail. Elliot had snorted and said, “Abigail. Gross. So my new roommate’s gonna be some stuck-up Malibu Barbie with a shopping addiction.”
Elliot looks at her for a moment. Long red hair threaded with pink streaks. Oversized clothes hanging from a frame far too small for them, standing beside the window, staring out at the grounds with the expression of somebody actively plotting an escape route. Definitely not Malibu Barbie.
The girl turns, and Elliot notices three things.
The first: She’s very pretty.
The second: She’s absolutely fuckin’ miserable.
And the third: Jesus Christ, she’s thin.
Elliot's eyes catch briefly on hollow cheeks, black circles, narrow wrists, sharp collarbones, fingers that look fragile. Something uncomfortable twists low in her chest as, for one split second, she sees another set of fragile hands, another set of visible bones. No. This is not her mamma; this girl is different.
The girl is staring at her now, waiting.
"Hey! You must be Abigail."
The girl visibly winces. Interesting. "Actually, it's Abby."
"Cool. I'm Elliot."
She drops her board against the wall and kicks the door shut behind her. The room suddenly feels less empty, maybe because somebody else is here again or maybe because, for the first time in sixteen weeks, Elliot looks at another patient and thinks: I know exactly how much this place is gonna suck for you. And for reasons she can't quite explain, she decides she likes her.
***
Everyone seems to hold their breath when the plate of dinner is set in front of Abby, her first day in the canteen. Probably because she was the last ‘new girl’ and look at how smashingly that dinner had gone. But Abby just stares at the plate in front of her like someone has handed her a bomb.
She calmly lifts her fork, takes a bite - the tiniest bite Elliot has ever seen- chews it for at least 5 minutes, swallows, visibly gags, and repeats. The movements are almost mechanical. With every swallow, her fingers dig harder into her thighs beneath the table. Knuckles whitening. Shoulders tightening.
Elliot watches her through the rest of dinner and then through mandatory rec time afterward. Elliot’s hanging upside down on the sofa, talking to Henry as he draws her, but her eyes never leave Abby, who is getting progressively paler as the minutes pass. She knows the look, it's blank and terrifying, it's the face of someone who is disappearing in real time while insisting they are fine.
As soon as Eliza dismisses them, Abby is on her feet, walking quickly- but not quick enough to draw suspicion- towards the door. “You gonna follow her?” Henry says, eyes not leaving his sketchbook. Elliot nods and runs the second she’s in the corridor.
When Elliot enters the room, the bathroom door is shut, as predicted. She hovers outside for a second just in case she's wrong, but when she hears the retching, she opens it from the outside and walks in, closing it behind her.
Abby looks up at her with swollen, red-rimmed, terrified eyes. Elliot wets a towel with cold water, sinks to the floor beside Abby, and hands it to her. She takes it with shaky hands.
“You know I gotta report it if you do that, right? Roommate code. We protect each other. ”
“Then go report it. I’m fine anyway. I don't need this place I just— ”
Elliot sighs and moves so they are hip to hip. “You know my first meal here was chicken, broccoli, and mashed potatoes.” Abby doesn’t react. “I’d never seen mashed potatoes before, and I thought someone handed me vomit on a plate.”
Abby frowns. “How’d you never see mashed potatoes?”
“Let’s just say my childhood wasn’t exactly traditional, but anyway. The point is I refused to eat it.”
Abby’s head snaps up. “You can refuse; they said you had to eat it.”
“No, you can’t refuse. So I sat there on that bench, looking at this plate of mashed potatoes with more hatred than I've ever felt in my life, for ten hours.” Abby’s eyebrows raise. “Yeah, I'm serious. Ten fuckin’ hours, dude. Then I walked back to this room, kicking and screaming the whole way. Honestly, it was like I was being exorcised or something. Two nurses quit after my first night here.”
Abby laughs weakly and looks at her. “You don’t seem like the type.”
“I’ve evolved. That's what I’m saying, dude. I told you yesterday this place works, but only if you let it.” She grabs Abby's hand.
"So this bathroom bullshit?" Elliot says, holding her gaze. "It stops. Now. Got it?"
Abby's smile fades slightly. "Are you gonna report me?"
"No." Elliot squeezes her hand once. "Not this time. But I won’t cover for you again. Got it.” Abby nods. “Okay, dude, get up and brush your teeth; you wreak.”
Abby laughs as Elliot pulls her to her feet. “Okay.”
The room was dark besides the small lamp switched on at the side of Elliot’s bed as she reads some ridiculous vampire book.
She’s about to turn off the light when she hears it, the soft, muffled sound of someone crying. Abby’s lying in her bed sheets, moving with the unmistakable tremor of someone trying—and failing—not to cry.
Abby’s gotten a lot better over the past eight weeks. She’s started opening up, talking about her home, her family, her friends… Max, who genuinely seems like a serious clusterfuck of catastrophe wrapped up in the package of a devastatingly stunning girl. Not that she would ever tell Abby that, it's clear Abby still worships her, no matter what she says. Maybe she should introduce her to Tris when they get outta here. They’d be great for her: stable, supportive, kind… not even slightly dramatic.
She crawls over to the bed, lifts the blankets, and slides in behind Abby.
“Wh-What are you doing, El?” Abby asks, voice low and scratchy.
“Cuddling,” Elliot says, wrapping her arms around her waist.
“Why?”
"I don’t know; it used to help my mamma when she was crying."
"Oh." For a second, Abby stays stiff, but then slowly she relaxes backward into her with a tiny sigh.
Elliot smiles into the darkness. See? Still magic.
Neither of them speaks for a while; they just lie there, listening to the wind, nurses chatting in the corridor, a toilet flush.
Then Abby says quietly. “Your mom. What happened?”
Elliot's smile slips, and the practiced answer comes tumbling from her mouth. “She killed herself. Took an overdose. I was at a party, and came home the next morning and found her lying on the kitchen floor surrounded by empty pill bottles and a half-drunk bottle of whiskey while November rain played on the speakers.”
“Shit.” Abby says, “Elliot… that’s… Shit, I'm so sorry you had to see that.”
“Yeah, well, what can you do?”
Abby shifts so she’s facing her, heads resting on the same pillow. “What was she like?” Elliot laughs. Abby frowns. “What?”
“Nothing,” Elliot says, still laughing. “It’s just not usually the question people ask.”
“What do people usually ask?”
“Oh, you know, some variation of ‘And how does that make you feel, Elliot’.”
“Well, you're here, so I guessed your answer to that would be… ‘Pretty fuckin’ shitty, dude’.” Elliot laughs at Abby’s attempt to impersonate her. “What I don’t know is who she was.”
Elliot feels her whole chest crack open. No one has ever asked her that. No one asks, ‘And who was Eleanor? ’ It's always, ‘What was wrong with Eleanor?’ or ‘How was your relationship with Eleanor, Elliot? '
“She was magic.” Elliot starts, and then she can’t stop; she tells Abby about the music, the dance parties, the spontaneous road trips, the candles, the record stores. The way she could turn literally any day into an adventure, how she knew every word to every musical ever written, and how she'd cry every single time she listened to Being Alive, and how she would tell Elliot that's all she wanted for her, to have that feeling of ‘being fully alive.’ How she'd sing while cooking, cleaning, driving, anywhere, anytime. How beautiful she was, how funny and how impossible to ignore.
By the end, Abby is smiling. "She sounds amazing."
Yea… She really was."
“I wish my parents were more like that.” She scrunches her nose. “They’re pretty…. Education-focused. I kinda think I wanna go to art school-”
“You should definitely go to art school; you're insanely talented.”
“Thanks," Abby says, blushing. “But I don’t think my parents would be happy with that, honestly, well actually...” She says, frowning, “Maybe Mom would be okay with it now, actually; she said she just wants me to be happy, so… And Dad, honestly, I don’t think he actually gives a shit anymore, so… yeah.”
Elliot sighs. “You don’t want parents like mine,” she says so quietly she’s surprised Abby actually hears it. But she does, given the raised eyebrow.
"My mamma used to keep me home from school for weeks. Told me school didn't matter, but really it was just because she never wanted me out of her sight. Same when I would go to papa’s for the weekend, I would come home, and she would cry for days and tell me I left her alone and I didn’t love her anymore.” The words feel strange as they leave her mouth. "I was basically running our apartment by the time I was eleven. Making food, doing laundry, buying groceries, paying bills."
Abby doesn't interrupt. So Elliot keeps going.
She talks about the missed meals, canceled plans, days spent in bed, the fights with Richard, and the pressure and responsibility. The guilt. The knife. The threats. The anger. All the things she's spent years refusing to say out loud. When she finally stops speaking, her throat hurts, and the pillow under her head is soaked with tears. She laughs. “And the crazy thing is, Abs, I still think she was the most magical person on earth. And I still think she was the most incredible mamma I could've wanted.”
Abby reaches up and wipes the tears from under her eyes. “I think that's okay.” Elliot looks at her. “I think sometimes we forget our parents are people too and get shit wrong and have the same shit in their heads that we do, you know.”
Elliot nods and pulls Abby into a tight hug.
“Your mamma wasn’t perfect, Elliot,” Abby whispers against her shoulder. “But she was yours.”
And somehow this moment and those words seem to stitch into Elliot’s chest more than any therapy or words ever have.
“Thank you, Abs.”
At twenty-six, Elliot works reception at a tattoo shop. Well, that's her official job. Unofficially, she functions as a receptionist, customer service representative, emotional support animal, therapist, crisis negotiator, and occasional referee.
Henry insists she talks enough for both of them; he’s probably right. Most afternoons follow the same pattern: customers come in feeling something they are trying to hide with hundreds of dollars worth of ink. Elliot asks what they're getting and, somehow, five minutes later, knows their entire life story, while Henry sits quietly, inking, and pretends he isn't listening.
"Do you have any boundaries?" He asks one afternoon.
"No. What’s the fun in that?”
He rolls his eyes. Elliot grins. Yeah, she loves it here. The smell of disinfectant and ink, the music, the regulars, the walls covered in artwork.
Kyle still appears randomly. Usually at inconvenient times, sometimes for coffee, sometimes for sex. But mostly because he "just happened to be in the area," which is a lie, since he lives 45 minutes away.
Elliot pretends not to notice. She's pretty sure she's in love with him, not that she has any intention of ever admitting that out loud. Ever.
Abby, that tiny girl from therapy. Turns out she's Elliot’s best friend, even though she abandoned her and moved to New York over the summer, with Tris too. Elliot had been right; they are great together, but it’s abundantly clear to her that Abby is still in love with Max. When Abby had called panicked about meeting Max again in New York. Elliot hadn’t hesitated to tell her to go for it, get to know her again. Because sometimes you just gotta be honest with yourself.
She is honest with herself now. She talks about her mamma in therapy openly, not idealised but the truth. She talks to strangers and kids in schools who are going through some shit. She’s even visited Harmony Hills a few times just to see the nurses and thank them for giving her a chance at life. She still thinks her mamma was incredible, but she also knows she was human.
Things with Richard are… well, honestly, better than she ever predicted they would be. They are pretty neutral; they check in with each other once a month, send birthday and Christmas cards, and now go to Mamma’s grave together every year, on anniversaries and birthdays. They eat pizza on the roof of his car and listen to music. Not dramatic, not perfect, just two people trying to heal from a whole world of hurt.
One evening, she closes the shop and starts the walk home, music blaring through her headphones. Her phone buzzes in her pocket constantly, headphones announcing each one. A text from Abby, a voice note from Kyle, a photo from Henry of a tattoo he’d been designing for her.
Elliot smiles to herself. This is her life, messy, complicated, ordinary, and entirely wonderful.
Over the years, Mamma had listened to the company soundtrack over and over and told Elliot all she wanted was to have that feeling of ‘Being alive.’ For years, Elliot spent so much time trying to prove she was that she missed the point entirely.
Being alive was never about running away or never needing anyone. It was about the people. The ones who stayed. The ones she loves. The life she built with her own two hands in a city filled with history and hurt, art and music, love and hope.
And somehow, she thinks, Mamma would've liked that.
She would've been proud.