All four of them look up at me, real grave. Althea looks down and Missy looks at Althea and Violet looks at me with helplessness in her eyes and I know that at least she has been defending me.

“Hello, Beth,” says Susan, all grim and self-important. “Would you please take a seat?”

I throw myself down into the ratty recliner and cross my legs. I fling my arms wide over the armrests. If this is it then this is it. I’m not dead and the full possibility of that fact alone moves through me like a speedball, nauseating and thrilling. I’ll miss this place. This has been my home. But I’m not about to grovel to someone who knows me so little that she insists on calling me Beth.

“You know I like you, Beth, but you have committed some very serious infractions here. Do you have an explanation for why you stayed out all night, violating your curfew and making your friends sick with worry? I’ve already called the police and reported you as a missing person.”

“Not far off the mark, I guess. But I hope to find myself soon.”

Susan Schmidt rears up in her seat like an angry cobra. She has been dragged, at dawn, out of her cozy bed in her swanky home bought with her family money and now I, a soon-to-be homeless, half-crazy, knocked-up, gas-huffing skank, am being cryptic with her. It offends her sense of hierarchy.

“In light of the position you’re in, it may be wise to drop the defensive cleverness and try to have an authentic conversation.”

This conversation, authentic or not, is totally pointless. I know well that there is no saving myself at Serenity and I am not about to hash this all out on the coffee table with Susan Schmidt. Plus, she’s right. I pushed the boundaries a little too far and broke them. It appears as if it’s time to leave.

I look at Violet. Fat, silent tears snake down her cheeks.

“Well, kids,” I say. “It’s been fun.”

“Why are you so defiant?” Susan asks.

“Bebes, please. Please,” says Violet. “We have to talk about this. You can’t leave. Where are you going to go?”

I stand, pivot, and head upstairs to pack my stuff. There isn’t much of it and it’s fit in the Honda before.

“Wait, Beth,” Susan calls after me, scurrying to the foot of the stairs. “I think you owe it to yourself and to your housemates to process this situation with honesty and closure. We have to make a plan for you. We’re concerned about your well-being. We don’t want you just to run out onto the street.”

Susan’s entreaties echo through the hallways but don’t follow me upstairs. When I get to my room, everything looks neater than I left it, which is a sure sign they’ve gone through my shit.

I look around the room at Violet’s goth goodies, at the dust along the top of the moldings, at the place where the window doesn’t close exactly right, at the precious guitar leaning against the side of the dresser. I’ve lain in my bed here many hours just looking around, unable to get up and actually do anything. I know every crack in this ceiling.

I take my shirts out of the closet and fold them neatly into my duffel bag, thinking about a lunch I had with Jake. Two months ago, Jake and I were languishing in the same apathy: trying to not drink and to figure out a way that living in this world might suck a little less. Maybe wild success, maybe a good fuck, maybe saintly spiritual devotion, maybe a package of onion rings, maybe a trip to the Grand Canyon in a trailer or to Peru in a goat caravan or something. Sitting over black and white shakes at the 101 Cafe, we mused about it. The next junked car he had his eye on fixing up. His next doomed straight job. My soon-to-be career at a fancy Beverly Hills salon.

Afterward we went to Griffith Park and hiked up one of the trails to an overlook called Dante’s Peak. We both thought that was really funny. When we turned back, there was this particularly steep stretch that he ran down with his feet barely touching the ground and his arms out to the sides and I swear he was almost flying. That’s what this leaving is. It seems like a steep downhill, but maybe I’m just about ready to take off. That’s the thought that keeps me packing.

Violet wakes Buck, and Buck helps me carry my bags down the stairs. The three of us walk out into a bright, cool spring morning. My graduation day. As I walk out the door of the sober living, a curtain closes behind me. I am moving, but I don’t know in which direction. Susan hovers in the doorway as I hug my friends good-bye. The sincerely concerned look on her face surprises me. Have I been right about anything?

“Where’re you going? You want I should come with you?” asks Buck, but she’s still in her robe.

“I’m going to school early today. Because my hair is fucked.”

From the look on Vi’s face, I think I probably said that last part out loud.