It's 3:13am, and we're finally home. The warmth of familiarity buds in me like a shy spring seedling, but for the first time ever, I don't know what waits behind my front door. 

I imagine Mum's face – her rich, red hair; her thin brows – but it's blank. Her peach lips are straight and unmoving; her eyes are... empty. I haven't a clue how she'll react.

"You're gonna have to open it at some point, kid," Jerome says, eyeing me as I study the doorknob.

"Right, yeah, of course," I say, forcing myself to take hold of it. Walt's put the key in. Rather symbolically, he's left it for me to open.

The light from the front room floods onto the welcome mat, and I can't help my smile when the first face I see is August's. It might just be my mind, but she's grown since a week ago – her face is slimmer, freckles bolder.

She's sat on the stairs in her pyjamas, and when our eyes meet, hers light up. Her mouth opens instinctively as she jerks, like she'd run and throw her arms around me if she could. But she sits back on the step timidly. Her gaze darts left into the living room, then falls to her lap.

That must be where Mum is.

Everyone's stopped, waiting for me to make the move, and the dead silence of 3am makes for a heavy knell. I'll have to face her eventually. 

I slyly trace an infinity sign on the back of my hand – it's the secret 'everything's okay' signal Aug and I made up when we were kids for when we were in trouble with Mum or Dad – and one corner of her mouth lifts into a soft smile as she signals back. I don't really know if everything is okay – signalling it doesn't make my heart beat any slower – but Aug's smile gives me the courage I need. Walt and Jerome stay in the foyer, and with a deep breath and a dry mouth, I walk in.

"Mum? ... Mum?"

If she can hear me, she isn't showing it. Sat on the arm of the recliner, she's hunched, and facing away from us. I haven't seen her face yet – not a bleary eye, or nostril flared in rage. But I can hear her. She's crying.

"...Mum?"

"Y'know," she sniffles as she begins, her back still turned to me, "I've been sat here for the better part of 5 hours. Walking up and down, staring at the bloody clock – even had a cig." Her narrow shoulders jolt with the humourless laugh. She hasn't had a cigarette since she quit smoking last year.

"I've had all this time... and I still haven't figured it out." She finally turns towards me, and she looks utterly out of sorts.

Her hair's haphazardly bundled in a bun atop her head, as though she tied it up in a rush, and her emerald eyes - the eyes I'd thought of the whole journey home, the eyes I thought I could read - are as blank as my worst nightmare imagined them to be. Her gaze is intensely vacant and wordless as she stares in front of her, at nothing in particular. But the smooth, damp, mascara-stained trail of her tears is deafeningly loud.

"Perhaps you could help me, Evangeline," she says, wiping her rouged nose on the sleeve of her sweater, "maybe you can help me figure it out."

"F-figure out what, Mum?"

"Where I went wrong!" Mum blurts, and her whole body turns suddenly towards me as she clutches her chest. "What I did to cause this!"

I do my best not to roll my eyes outright. I'm on the backfoot here, I know that, but she's using words like 'wrong' and 'cause', like Eric and I are some product of little Angie's mommy issues, and tonight more than ever, I am sick to death of being treated like a child.

"You didn't cause anything, Mum," I say, slowly and purposefully, in the hope that things won't get too ugly, "this isn't some big calamity or mistake that you could have caused."

"Then why did you lie to me about it, Evangeline!" She's stood from the chair now, and shouts in the most thunderous voice she can muster. Any and all taciturnity's out the window. So, I shout too.

"Because of this!" I jerk an outstretched arm at her. "Because I knew that you wouldn't even try to understand, that you would act like it was some big, horrible, dramatic... thing! When really it's just-"

"Just what?"

"Just love!"

She lets out a heavy and contemptuous breath,

"Jesus Christ, love! Yeah," she nods over exaggeratedly, "love with a 30-year-old teaching assistant. I wonder if 'love' is the same word he'd use for it."

"He's 25," I snap, "not 30. Why are you doing this?"

"Excuse me? Doing what?"

"Acting like I'm some naive idiot! You're the one that's always saying how mature I am,"

As soon as I drop the m-word she rolls her eyes, throwing a furious sneer over her shoulder. I'm using her words against her, and she can't stand it.

"...and how I'm basically an adult already! Why does that suddenly change just because you don't like the choice I made?"

"For Christ's sake, Evangeline, this is not about maturity!"

"What the fuck is it about then!"

Her eyes widen with a slow intensity that makes me bite my tongue.

"Do not curse at me," she glares. "You have lied to me. You have gone behind my back. You have crossed the clear boundaries put in place to protect you from exploitation!"

I'm wrought with disgust as I shake my head, cringing at the sound of it. She doesn't understand. 'Exploitation' is the furthest possible thing from what Eric and I have, but it's all anyone wants to see or think, and I'm tired of it.

"Exploitation! Oh, give me a break, Mum."

"Give you a break! Because I don't want my daughter taken advantage of?!"

Walt's hovering behind me cautiously now that voices are raised, ready to jump in and break us up If he has to, and in the midst of my indignation, I wonder how it all came to this. 

"Jesus, Mum, spare me 'did you consent; was it against your will' – Walt's already done that bit, and it was insulting enough from him."

I don't know at what point this became a level playing field – on any other day, in any other argument, I'd never dream at firing back at Mum, but on this hill, for the sake of defending Eric & I, I can't give in. I won't.

For a moment, Mum stops. She looks at me like she doesn't recognise me, frozen in in incredulity. "This isn't a joke, Evangeline."

"I never said it was!"

"This is a grown man flinging with girls almost half his age!"

"I am not half his bloody age!" I scream, and it seems the silliest point to insist on, but all my rage is bubbling and spilling over, and I can't control the direction it flows in. I don't know when they started, but hot, fast tears are streaming down my face, and I can't control them either. "And it's not 'girls', it's not 'flinging', it's me, and it's love!"

Astounded, Mum tosses an arm in my direction, looking back performatively, as though there's someone behind her whose just as shocked and appalled as she is.

"'It's not flinging'?! He calls you over once a week, no strings attached, and then you go off to university, and he doesn't have to deal with any consequences or responsibilities – what exactly would you call that, then?"

I fold my arms over my chest. Mostly because I'm angry. Partly because I'm embarrassed. This isn't exactly how I imagined I'd tell Mum, but I suppose now's as good a time as any.

"I'm not going to university," I sniffle petulantly, "I'm staying here. With him."

When Mum sinks back down into the chair, her eyes never leave me, and her mouth's agape in disbelief. "My God," she whispers.

Now that there's a moment of still, I almost feel bad to see her so disorientated, so lost... until her bafflement turns bitter, and she scoffs something, too quietly for me to hear. Her gaze hardens in an instant, and suddenly, she's delirious with anger as she storms.

"If it isn't already abundantly clear, you're done with him. Finished."

"Oh, my God."

"If I have to walk you to that school myself every bloody day until university, I will. You're never seeing him again. Never," she stresses, powered by certainty and rage. No more confusion, or quiet questioning. She's putting her tiny foot down.

"As if you could tell me what to do!" I exclaim. "I'm not a goddamn child!"

"Oh, no?" Mum barks a laugh. "Says who? You're a child according to the law. According to the state. According to the school where that predator took advantage of you!"

"Don't."

I spit the word out tersely, with a sharp and pointed finger. "Don't call him that. You don't get to insult the person I love, just because you're angry that he knows me better than you do!"

"Is that really what you think this is ab-!" Mum's en route to a fit, but she cuts herself off before she gets there, lowering her flailing arms with intention. "You know what, Evangeline, you're right."

I am? 

Her words disarm me, and I let down my folded arms to listen.

"Maybe he does know you better than I do," she continues, "because I thought I knew my daughter. But my daughter would never go behind my back. My daughter would never betray my trust. My daughter would not lie to me, day after day, without feeling an ounce of shame. So maybe you're right and I'm wrong. Maybe I don't know you at all."

I let out a shaky huff and force my gaze up to stop any unwanted tears falling. It's my point exactly, but when it comes from her likes this, it sounds so much worse.

I feel her staring at me – waiting, studying. In our tamer arguments, this would be when I apologise, or give in in some way. But tonight, I don't. Mum shakes her head.

"You're grounded. Give me your phone," she says, standing and extending an outstretched hand, "now, Evangeline."

"What?"

"You heard me. Give me your phone."

"What, so just because you're mad at me, boundaries stop being a thing?"

It's a hundred-to-one shot and I doubt it'll work, but I'm angry and upset and nothing makes sense.

"Boundaries are for teenagers who don't run off to the Cotswolds with their teacher and lie about it – teenagers who can be trusted." She claps her fingers against her palm. "Clearly, you can't, so give me your phone. I won't say it again."

"Ugh!" I fish my phone out of my coat pocket as aggressively as I can, and chuck it at the sofa behind her, before marching out and up the stairs to my room.

How did she even know about the Cotswolds?

And since when do I get 'grounded'? What does that even mean?

My bleary gaze is fixed straight ahead of me, but as I storm past August, my peripheral catches her raise her hand to trace our sign. I want to stop. I want to tell her everything's okay again. But I can't lie to her, not now. I can't let someone else down, too. So, I shut the door behind me and hold my breath, hoping it'll keep the tears quiet as they stream.