The next morning started with burned toast and good intentions.
I yanked the pan off the stove, flapped a dish towel under the smoke detector, and tried to ignore how my phone kept buzzing against the sugar jar. The laundromat downstairs exhaled warm detergent through the floorboards, wrapping the kitchen in a fake-clean smell that didn’t match the crumbs and sticky juice rings on the table.
Theo hunched over his cereal, spoon clinking against the bowl in a sleepy, angry rhythm. He’d stayed up too late pretending to read comics and actually scrolling comments, the way ten-year-olds in 2023 interpreted “lights out.”
“No hoodie,” I said, sliding a less-charred piece of toast onto a plate. “They’ll yell about the dress code again.”
“It’s freezing,” he muttered.
I glanced out the window over the sink. The sky over Crescent Bay was a flat gray smear, the cliffs a darker line beyond the church steeple. I could taste salt when the wind gusted, sneaking through the warped window frame.
“Zip your jacket all the way and you’ll live,” I said. “You want jelly?”
He shrugged without looking up. Milk dribbled down his chin; he wiped it with his sleeve before I could hand him a napkin.
My laptop was open on the other end of the table, the Glass Roses dashboard a mess of numbers and angry usernames. Overnight, the unedited episode had cemented itself at the top of the charts in my category. It had also attracted a fresh crop of comments accusing me of selling out, of “defanging” the story. One had written, If you can’t stomach the truth, step aside and let real investigators finish it.
I closed the tab before Theo could lean over and read anything.
“You gonna do more of those?” he asked, eyes still on his cereal.
“More what?”
“The kind where you talk without the intro song,” he said. “You sounded… different.”
I stacked empty bowls in the sink to buy a second. “Maybe,” I said. “Did you listen to the whole thing?”
“Just part,” he said. “I had to finish my math.”
The lie sat between us, thin and obvious. I decided not to pick it up.
“Grab your backpack,” I said instead. “We’re leaving in five.”
By the time we got downstairs, the morning had sharpened. Cold air slapped my cheeks. Cars clicked past on the street, damp tires on asphalt. The liquor store’s neon sign still glowed faintly from the night, buzzing over a stray glass beer bottle in the gutter.
“Dad’s weekend starts Friday, right?” Theo asked, adjusting the straps of his backpack.
“Yeah,” I said. The word tasted like aspirin. “We’ll talk about that later.”
He kicked a pebble ahead of him and jogged to catch up. At the corner, where the brick gave way to a row of maples and PTA-approved lawn signs, we stopped.
“Text me when you get to school,” I said, squeezing his shoulder. “I mean it. Every day.”
“I know,” he said. His eyes flicked past me toward the distant line of the bay. “Bye.”
He started down the sidewalk toward Crescent Bay Elementary, head bowed, hands shoved into his pockets. I watched until he turned at the next block, the same way he always did. The town smelled like wet leaves and someone’s too-strong hair spray drifting from an open salon door down the street. Somewhere closer to the water, a bass line boomed faintly from a car, a leftover pump-up track from somebody’s early-morning workout.
He’s fine, I told myself. You taught him the route. You taught him to avoid cars, and strangers, and cliffs.
I went back upstairs, poured myself coffee that had gone tepid, and opened my laptop again.
Fifteen minutes later, my phone rang.
I snatched it up, half-expecting Luz’s name. The caller ID said: CRESCENT BAY ELEMENTARY.
My stomach dropped so fast I heard my own breath leave my body.
“Hello?” My voice cracked on the second syllable.
“Ms. Lane?” The secretary’s voice came through crisp and professional, underscored by the faint echo of kids in a hallway. “This is Ms. O’Reilly at the front office. Is Theo home sick today?”
Every nerve in my body sparked.
“No,” I said. “No, I walked him out fifteen, twenty minutes ago. He should be there.”
A pause. Papers rustled. “He hasn’t checked in with his teacher, and he’s not in the nurse’s office,” she said carefully. “We called in case there was a mix-up.”
Coffee sloshed onto my hand; heat barely registered. The kitchen spun for a second, walls drawing in.
“Call the principal and lock the doors,” I said. “I’m calling the police.”
I hung up before she could say “I’m sure it’s nothing.”
My hands shook so badly I hit Luz’s voicemail twice before my thumb landed right.
“Pick up, pick up, pick up,” I whispered.
“Navarro.”
“Theo’s not at school,” I said. The words came out too fast. “He left the house, he never made it. The office just called.”
Silence. Then a curse under her breath.
“You’re at home?” she asked, voice flattening into something sharp and working.
“Yeah.”
“Stay there,” she said. “I’m calling it in as a missing juvenile. We’ll canvass the route. Try his phone again.”
I fumbled for Theo’s contact. It went straight to voicemail—his half-mumbled greeting about “leave a message, unless you’re my mom, then just text.”
My fingers dug into the edge of the counter, hard enough that my nails bent. Breath roared in my ears. Images shot through my brain in jagged flashes: Theo’s sneakers on wet pavement, a dark car pulling up beside him, the steep line of the cliffs no longer a thin far-off suggestion but right there, waiting.
Ten minutes later, Luz’s unmarked sedan and a black-and-white patrol car pulled up in front of the building in a wash of blue light. Siren off, just the lights. Even that felt too loud.
I flew down the stairs. The world narrowed to the patch of sidewalk between me and them.
Luz stepped out already talking into her radio, dark hair pulled back, jaw tight. When she saw me, her expression softened for half a second before hardening again.
“We’ve got units covering the school route, the park, and the arcade by the waterfront,” she said. “Any place he’s gone alone before that we don’t know about?”
“The library,” I said. My voice shook. “The bodega on Elm. The stupid claw machine by the marina. He likes to watch the boats. And—”
And the overlook, my brain supplied. The cliffs, where the rock shelf crouched under the postcard view, waiting to break anything that fell.
I had never taken him there.
“We’ll start with the route to school and those spots,” Luz said. “You ride with me. Officer Harris will circle the marina.”
The patrol officer nodded, already moving.
In the car, the seatbelt cut into my shoulder. I twisted my fingers around it anyway, grounding myself in the pressure.
“He wouldn’t run away,” I said. “He’s mad at me, but he wouldn’t just… disappear.”
“Kids don’t have to be trying to disappear to get in trouble,” Luz said. Her voice stayed even, but her knuckles were white on the wheel. “Sometimes they’re just curious.”
We crawled the route to school first, scanning every hedge, bus stop, front step. Parents shepherded younger kids into SUVs; a dog barked itself hoarse at a passing skateboard. The normalcy scratched at my skin.
“Theo!” I yelled out the open window at one point, throat raw. A woman raking leaves across the street straightened and stared, ponytail swinging. I ignored her.
He wasn’t at the park. The swings creaked in an empty line, damp chains rattling. A half-deflated soccer ball sat in the middle of the field, abandoned. No small boy in a blue jacket.
He wasn’t at the library. The coffee smell and printer hum made my eyes sting. The librarian shook her head, worried pinch in her mouth.
He wasn’t at the arcade or the marina claw machine, just a teenage couple making out behind the prize counter and a cluster of men in windbreakers talking about the next regatta.
Back in the car, my heart hammered so hard my vision fuzzed at the edges. I pressed my palms against my thighs until I felt the sting through denim.
“We should check the apartment,” Luz said quietly. “In case he doubled back. See if there’s anything that tells us where he’d go if he didn’t want to be found right away.”
The words if he’s still in town tried to push through. I shoved them down.
Back in my kitchen, the toast smell had turned stale, sour. The glass rose watched from the counter, its petals catching daylight now. I screamed his name through the apartment, flinging open the bathroom door, the closet, even the tiny space where we kept the vacuum.
“Theo, this isn’t funny!” I yelled. My voice bounced off the low ceiling.
Luz stood in the doorway to his room, eyes scanning the posters, the unmade bed, the pile of LEGOs on the floor.
“He draws, right?” she asked. “He maps things for you sometimes?”
I blinked. “Yeah. He likes diagrams. Why?”
She nodded at his desk. “Take a look at his notebooks.”
I lunged. Math worksheets, doodles of dragons, a half-finished comic about a superhero podcaster. Underneath those, in the corner of a composition book page, I saw it.
A little sketch, in pencil, nearly rubbed out: a line for the road, a square for “school,” a rough curve labeled “cliffs.” Squiggly lines for waves. An X right at the edge.
Underneath, in his cramped printing: WHERE JULIET FELL.
My mouth went dry. My fingertips had trouble gripping the paper.
“He hasn’t seen that phrase anywhere in our house,” I said. The words scraped my throat. “I don’t use that with him. I say ‘where the accident happened,’ ‘where Juliet was hurt.’”
Luz’s eyes met mine. “Then he got it from someone else.”
The room tilted for a second, then snapped back.
“We have to go,” I said. “Now.”
The drive up to the overlook felt like climbing toward the top of a roller coaster that had no brakes. Houses grew bigger and farther apart. Lawns widened, edged in perfect hedges. I recognized surnames on brass plaques near driveways—the same ones on school donor walls and old police rosters.
The closer we got to the cliffs, the more the air changed. Salt sharpened, clean and cold. Wind cut through the seams of the car, whistling. In my memory, the prom-night music from the gym echoed up here too, muffled bass floating past kids sneaking cigarettes by the fence. Today, only the wash of waves rose to meet us.
Luz killed the siren a quarter mile out. The patrol car behind us followed suit.
“If he’s there, we don’t want to scare him into moving in the wrong direction,” she said.
Every cell in my body wanted to scream anyway.
The parking lot at the overlook was half full: an older couple in matching windbreakers, a jogger stretching by the low wall, two moms with strollers exchanging PTA gossip in crisp jackets. None of them knew my son was missing. None of them knew the last time I’d walked this path it had been in the dark with a recorder in my hand and fear buzzing under my skin.
Luz touched my elbow. “Let us take point.”
I nodded and then ignored her, moving ahead along the path.
The fence came into view: waist-high metal railing, rust blooming at the seams where the salt air gnawed it. Beyond it, the drop. The rock shelf sat far below, the same ugly gray teeth I remembered from that night in the wind, water slamming into them and frothing into white.
And there, ten feet from the fence, perched on a rock like a bird, was Theo.
He had squeezed through a gap where the rail bent away from the stone and was sitting cross-legged closer to the edge than any ten-year-old had the right to be. My old phone was propped in his hands, lens pointed down at the waves. His hair whipped around his face in the wind.
“Theo.” The word scraped out of me as a raw sound. “Theo, don’t move.”
His head jerked. He looked back, eyes widening. For a heartbeat that stretched into a lifetime, he wobbled, sneaker sliding on gravel.
Luz swore and reached for my arm. “Slow,” she said. “Talk him in.”
My knees made the decision for me. I dropped to all fours and crawled toward the gap, hands grinding into damp grit.
“Hey,” I said, fighting to keep my voice even. “Buddy. Stay seated, okay? Stay exactly where you are.”
He blinked, then nodded. “I’m fine, Mom.”
“I need you to scoot back toward me on your butt,” I said. “Tiny scoots. You can keep holding the phone. Just… back, toward the fence.”
His face crumpled in confusion, then concentration. He turned his body sideways and did what I’d asked, awkward but controlled. Gravel shifted. A few pebbles skittered over the edge, clicking against rock on the way down. My stomach lurched at each one.
When he got close enough, I reached under the bottom rail, grabbed the back of his jacket, and hauled. Luz grabbed his arm. Between us, we dragged him through the gap and onto the safe side in an undignified sprawl.
For a second, none of us breathed.
Then I was on him.
I pulled him into my chest so hard he wheezed. My whole body shook. I smelled his shampoo, that fake apple scent he insisted on, mixed with sweat and salt and mud.
“What were you doing?” I asked into his hair. My voice broke apart. “What the hell were you doing?”
He squirmed a little, then sagged, realizing I wasn’t letting go. “I was making a video.”
I pushed him back enough to see his face. His cheeks were pink from the wind. His eyes were big, more puzzled than repentant.
“Of what,” I said, each word sharp as glass.
“The waves,” he said. “Where Juliet fell. For my project.”
“What project?” Luz asked, steady but tight.
“For class,” he said. “We’re doing, like, local history stuff. I was gonna show Mrs. K how the rocks look. So she’d know how far it is.”
Anger and nausea tangled in my chest.
“You could have died,” I said. “You could have slipped. You were not supposed to be here alone. Ever. I never brought you here on purpose.”
“I know,” he said, lower. “That’s why I didn’t tell you.”
That admission hit me in a place deeper than my bones.
“How did you even know where this was?” I asked. “You don’t know the path.”
“Of course I do,” he said, frowning. “Everyone does. Mia showed me the way on her phone at recess. Her brother took pictures here at Prom Throwback and said this is where Juliet’s head hit the rock shelf and it sounded like a watermelon. He said that’s why the cops lied. Because the blood went…” He trailed off, noticing my expression for the first time.
I grabbed his shoulders, gentler than I wanted to. “Theo. Look at me.”
He looked.
“I did not tell you that,” I said. “I never described what happened to Juliet here in those words. That is not how I talk to you. You know that.”
He swallowed. “I know.”
“So you’re hearing that from other kids,” I said. “From older brothers. From people who listen to my show or think they know more than they do.”
Behind us, a wave smashed against the rocks, sending spray high enough that fine mist dusted our faces. In the distance, down by the yacht club, the faint thump of music floated up—someone testing speakers for another fundraiser, probably, another night of grown-ups in 90s dresses pretending prom stories were harmless nostalgia.
Luz shifted beside me. “We should get him away from the edge,” she said quietly. “Then we can talk logistics.”
I stood, legs unsteady, and pulled Theo up with me. I didn’t let go of his hand. We walked back toward the parking lot, my grip too tight. He didn’t complain.
Over my shoulder, I caught one last glimpse of the rock shelf. The water chewed at it over and over, implacable. For a second, I saw an overlay in my mind: Juliet’s glass rose centerpieces arranged on that stone, then shattering under the waves, fragments catching light before sinking out of sight.
Theo squeezed my fingers. “Are you mad at me?” he asked in a small voice.
“I’m…” The word knotted in my throat. My chest ached with relief so fierce it hurt, rage that had nowhere safe to land, and a guilt that sat in my gut like wet sand. “I’m scared,” I said. “You scared me.”
His chin trembled. “I just wanted to see where your story started.”
My story. His story. Juliet’s.
Luz’s phone crackled; she stepped aside to murmur into it, eyes scanning the horizon, always cataloging threats I couldn’t see.
I looked down at my son, at the phone he still clutched with a shaky grip, the screen showing a frozen frame of churning water and gray rock. My reflection faintly hovered on the glass.
Someone at school had handed him a more graphic version of Juliet’s death than I’d ever planned for him. Someone had pointed him toward the cliffs while I was busy trying to control narratives online.
“We’re going home,” I said. “Then I’m calling your school. And probably half this town.”
Theo nodded, confused and tired.
As we walked toward the cars, wind pushing at our backs, I couldn’t shake one question that dug its hooks deep and refused to let go:
If I couldn’t even keep the worst parts of this story from my own kid, how was I supposed to keep the story itself from dragging him over the edge with me?