After school, Addie follows her mother’s instruction to come straight home and takes the bus because she has no bike and is not allowed to drive yet. On the ride and walk home, Addie thinks about Hudson, who now has a beat-up car and once promised to drive her to school when they were still close. Seeing that Hudson now includes Kenzie instead of her reinforces how completely their friendship has broken down.

When Addie reaches home, her mother opens the door immediately, showing she has been anxiously waiting and watching for her. Addie answers her mother’s questions with sarcasm, but her mother keeps pressing, especially about whether Addie made any friends and whether Hudson spoke to her. Addie refuses to explain what happened with Hudson and quickly shuts down her mother’s offer to call his family, because Addie knows the real reason for the estrangement and is determined to keep it hidden.

Addie reflects that her family dynamic changed after her father, once the volatile drinker in the house, was gone; now her mother has become overprotective and hovering. When her mother asks whether Arthur Tuttle was at school, Addie says he is gone, having been fired or forced out. Her mother is visibly relieved, which reminds Addie that even her own mother never fully believed that nothing happened between Addie and Tuttle. Although Addie insists she told her mother, the principal, and the police the truth, she privately admits she did not tell them everything.