Farah Rishi - I Hope You Get This Message

She turned the corner of Folsom, and the Citizens for a Safer World office came into view. Tonight, the lights in the windows were off, but the sidewalk was still littered with anti-alien protest signs from an earlier demonstration.

Earth First , most of the signs screamed.

Love Is Not an Alien Concept , a lone counterprotest sign retorted.

She’d been so caught up preparing for the party that she hadn’t even registered the sounds of the demonstration, hadn’t even known it happened. She’d been so stupidly filled with hope for tonight. For her first—

She stopped walking. She’d had her first kiss. She touched her fingers to her lips. Did she feel different?

A little bit.

Maybe. But she was probably imagining it. Just like she’d imagined sad-puppy Jake.

Her house emerged over the lip of a steep hill, a tiny slice of building smashed between other narrow homes. Cate and her mom rented the bottom floor of a traditional single-family home, remarkable only for its lurid flamingo-pink paint, which always flaunted itself from a distance. Tonight, however, as Cate approached the house, number fourteen lit up different shades of red and blue, red and blue, flashing staccato in the rotating sweep of police lights.

Police.

Guilt squeezed at her lungs with an icy grip, leaving her breathless.

She should never have left her mom alone. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

She ran.

The slamming of car doors resounded in the quiet night air; two police officers in dark uniforms emerged from the police cars. Her mom, still in her pastel blue pajamas, was hailing the cops from the front porch as if they were arrivals on some cross-oceanic ship.

“Mom!” Cate gasped, finally reaching the front yard. She was always struck by how effortlessly gorgeous her mom was: sand-and-sunbeam-flecked hair, glimmering green eyes—neither of which Cate had inherited—and laugh lines like memories of happier times etched in her skin. But now Mom looked sickly pale, like she was straining beneath some invisible weight. She tilted her head, squinting, as though she didn’t recognize her daughter.

And maybe she didn’t. More and more often, Cate’s strong and beautiful mom felt tucked away somewhere. More and more often, Cate came home to Molly.

No. That wasn’t right. Dr. Michel had told Cate that different sides didn’t split her mom into different people, that everyone had different sides to them, and that didn’t make them any less whole. But Cate, she hated to admit, still caught herself calling this stranger by Mom’s given name whenever she appeared: Molly, a stranger she found unpredictable, even frightening at times, someone who didn’t respond when spoken to, or spoke in rhyming phrases and nonsense words. Someone who dumped pills in the toilet because the voices told her to. Someone who saw cameras hidden in the lo mein.

But no, Mom was Mom, full stop. She would always and only ever be Mom.

Even if, in the dark corners of Cate’s mind, it sometimes didn’t feel like it.

The two police officers turned at the same time. “This your mother?”

“What does it look like?” Cate snapped. She had to stay calm, she knew that—but sweat trickled down her back. She dodged the cops and leaped the porch steps, grabbing her mom by the elbow.

“Are you okay?” Cate asked in a low voice. “Are you hurt?”

Her mom shook her head, even as she began to sway. “Not yet. Not yet. But soon,” she said dreamily. “The police know .”

“ You called the police?” She could only imagine what Mom had said to them on the phone.

“Your mother called to report some kind of home invasion,” one of the police officers said. “Dispatch had trouble getting the story.”

Cate pushed down another surge of nausea. Her mom had been worried for weeks about an invasion—but not the kind they meant.

“It’s okay, we’ll put your alarm on, all right, Mom?” she replied, keeping her voice as steady as possible. They had no alarm system, but whenever her mom was upset, the idea of an alarm had seemed to pull her back. “It’s my fault. I didn’t set the alarm. No one’s going to get in.” Cate clenched her mom’s hand, pulsing it steadily one, two, three times. Again, one, two, three, just like Dr. Michel had told her. Thankfully, her mom started to squeeze back. That was a good sign. Cate turned back to the cops, flashing them a big smile. “We moved from a bad area. Lots of home invasions. My mom gets nervous.”

The police officers exchanged a look. One of them cleared his throat. “So there was no burglary?”

Invasions and burglaries: Mom thought Kepler-88a had infiltrated Earth long ago. Sometimes she thought the aliens were snatching babies, stealing secrets, lifting thoughts, even from inside people’s heads.

“I—I’m so sorry,” Cate said quickly, pivoting toward a new lie, a new explanation. “There’s been a misunderstanding. See, what she told dispatch was probably that we moved from our last home because of a burglary. But she was calling this time because I snuck out without telling her and she was worried.” She spoke in a fluid rush, hoping the police officers would miss the gaps in her story. “But I’m here! I’m fine. Everything’s fine, see?” It was only a matter of time before one of the neighbors noticed the commotion. Cate had lost count of all the times she’d had to explain why Mom was wandering outside at odd hours: she was just forgetful, she’d had one too many mimosas, she’d chased off a raccoon. Her mom’s behavior had made Cate a deft liar; she’d had more than enough practice for the inevitable day that cops would show up.

Finally, the second officer, a kind-faced woman whose badge read Rodriguez , sighed. “Just do me a favor and don’t give your mom a heart attack, all right? That’s what cell phones are for. You gonna be out late, you call her.”

“I will,” Cate said. “I promise.”

She stayed there, holding her breath, until the cops had returned to their car. Only after their taillights had disappeared over the hill did she realize how badly she was shaking.

She let go of her mom, wiping her wet palms on her jeans, sick with relief and with terror at how close they had come.

“Come inside, Mom,” she said.

“Why did you let the officers go?” Her mom’s voice was sharp, escalating. Across the way, Cate thought she saw the neighbor’s curtains twitch.

“They’ll come back later. They’re going to patrol for…” She couldn’t bring herself to say “aliens.” “They’re doing a neighborhood patrol. They said to get inside. Let’s stay inside and turn on the alarm, okay?”

She whipped her keys out of her jacket pocket with trembling, still sweaty hands and approached the front door. The tiny blackbird key chain her mom had given her, before the schizophrenia took an aggressive hold five years ago, thwacked against the door as she turned the handle. She had once truly liked her blackbird. Her dad had carved it by hand and given it to Mom when they’d first met. It reminded her of Mom’s first story about Dad: that he was a shape-shifter who transformed into a bird and flew somewhere far away. But one day, he’d fly back home, she had promised. Now the key chain was a reminder. A reminder that her dad, whoever he was, would not come back. A reminder that the stories she’d loved as a kid were just signs of Mom’s early delusions.

A reminder never to rely on anyone but herself.

She sat her mom on her reading chair in the family room before racing into the kitchen to find the pills she’d been drying out on a paper towel. After checking her phone again—Ivy still hadn’t texted her back—she made the mistake of glancing up and catching her reflection in the mirror above the sink, bleary-eyed, her concealer faded to reveal the stress zits she’d painstakingly hidden. But at least she was home, and that meant Mom was safe now. That meant Cate could breathe. She could deal with smudged eyeliner later.