‘Raleigh, get up. It’s after two o’clock.’ She hates the edge she hears in her voice, but she expends so much energy trying to get this boy out of bed every day, it’s hard not to resent it.

He doesn’t so much as twitch. She stands there looking down at him, feeling a complicated mix of love and frustration. He’s a good boy. A smart but unmotivated student. Completely lovable. He’s just lazy – not only will he not get out of bed on his own, but he doesn’t do his homework, and he doesn’t help with chores around the house without endless nagging. He tells her he hates her nagging. Well, she hates it, too. She tells him that if he did what she asked the first time, she wouldn’t have to repeat herself, but he doesn’t seem to get it. She puts it down to his being sixteen. Sixteen-year-old boys are murder. She hopes that by the time he’s eighteen or nineteen, his prefrontal cortex will be more developed, and he will have better executive function and start being more responsible.

‘Raleigh! Come on, get up.’ He still doesn’t move, doesn’t acknowledge her existence, not even with a grunt. She sees his cell phone lying face up on his bedside table. If he won’t get up, fine, she’ll confiscate his cell phone. She imagines his hand flailing around, reaching for it before he even takes the covers off his head. She snatches the phone and leaves the room, slamming the door behind her. He’ll be furious, but so is she.

She returns to the kitchen and puts his phone down on the counter. It pings. A text message has popped up. She has never snooped in her son’s phone or computer. She doesn’t know his passwords. And she completely trusts him. But this message is right there in front of her, and she looks at it.

Did you break in last night?

 

She freezes. What the hell does that mean?

Another ping.

Get anything good?

 

Her stomach flips.

Text me when ur up

 

She picks up the phone and stares at it, waiting for another message, but nothing comes. She tries to open his phone, but, of course, it’s password protected.

Her son was out last night. He said he’d gone to a movie. With a friend. He didn’t say who.

She asks herself what she should do. Should she wait for his father to get back from the hardware store? Or should she confront her son first? She feels terribly uneasy. Is it possible Raleigh could be up to no good? She can’t believe it. He’s lazy, but he’s not the kind of kid to get into trouble. He’s never been in any trouble before. He has a good home, a comfortable life, and two parents who love him. He can’t possibly …

If this is what it looks like, his father will be furious, too. Maybe she’d better talk to Raleigh first.

She climbs the stairs, the earlier love and frustration shoved abruptly aside by an even more complicated mix of rage and fear. She barges into his room with his phone in her fist and yanks the covers off his head. He opens his eyes blearily; he looks angry, like a wakened bear. But she’s angry, too. She holds his cell phone in front of him.

‘What were you up to last night, Raleigh? And don’t say you were at the movies, because I’m not buying it. You’d better tell me everything before your father gets home.’ Her heart is pounding with anxiety. What has he done?

Raleigh looks up at his mom. She’s standing over him with his cell phone in her hand. What the hell is she doing with his cell phone? What is she blathering on about? He’s annoyed, but he’s still half asleep. He doesn’t wake up just like that; it’s an adjustment.

‘What?’ he manages to say. He’s pissed off at her for barging in here when he’s asleep. She’s always trying to wake him up. She always wants everyone on her schedule. Everyone knows his mom’s a bit of a control freak. She should learn to chill. But now she looks really mad. She’s glaring at him in a way he’s never seen before. He suddenly wonders what time it is. He turns to look at his clock radio. It’s two fifteen. Big deal. Nobody died.

‘What the hell have you been up to?’ she demands, holding his phone out like an accusation.

His heart seems to skip a beat, and he holds his breath. What does she know? Has she got into his phone? But then he remembers that she doesn’t know the passcode, and he starts to breathe again.

‘I just happened to be glancing at your phone when a text came in,’ his mom says.

Raleigh struggles to sit up, his mind going blank. Shit. What did she see?

‘Have a look,’ she says, and tosses the phone at him.

He thumbs the phone and sees the damning texts from Mark. He sits there staring at them, wondering how to spin this. He’s afraid to look his mother in the face.

‘Raleigh, look at me,’ she says.

She always says that when she’s mad. Slowly he looks up at her. He’s wide awake now.

‘What do those texts mean?’

‘What texts?’ he says stupidly, playing for time. But he knows he’s busted. The texts are pretty fucking clear. How could Mark be so stupid? He looks back down at the phone again; it’s easier than looking at his mother’s face. Did you break in last night? Get anything good?

He starts to panic. His brain can’t come up with anything fast enough to satisfy his mother. All he can think of is a desperate, ‘It’s not what it looks like!’

‘Oh, that’s good to hear,’ his mom says in her most sarcastic voice. ‘Because it looks like you’ve been up to a bit of breaking and entering!’

He sees an opening. ‘It’s not like that. I wasn’t stealing.’

She gives him an enraged look and says, ‘You’d better tell me everything, Raleigh. No bullshit.’

He knows he can’t get out of this by denying it. He’s caught like a rat in a trap, and now all he can do is damage control. ‘I did sneak into somebody’s house, but I wasn’t stealing. It was more like – just looking around,’ he mutters.

‘You actually broke into someone’s house last night?’ his mother says, aghast. ‘I can’t believe this! Raleigh, what were you thinking?’ She throws her hands up. ‘Why on earth would you even do that?’

He sits there on his bed, speechless, because he doesn’t know how to explain. He does it because it’s a kick, a thrill. He likes to get into other people’s houses and hack into their computers. He doesn’t dare tell her that. She should be glad he’s not doing drugs.

‘Whose house was it?’ she demands now.

His mind seizes. He can’t answer that. If he tells her whose house he was in last night, she’ll completely lose it. He can’t bear to think of what the consequences of that might be.

‘I don’t know,’ he lies.

‘Well, where was it?’

‘I can’t remember. What difference does it make? I didn’t take anything! They won’t even know I was there.’

His mom leans her face in toward him and says, ‘Oh, they’ll know all right.’

He looks at her in fear. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You’re going to get dressed, and then you’re going to show me the house you broke into, and then you’re going to knock on the door and apologize.’

‘I can’t,’ he says desperately.