“REFRIGERATOR, what are you trying to tell me?” I ask. It’s five days later. It’s also 4 a.m. I’ve been listening to the refrigerator’s cycle of whines and moans for hours now. Since other methods of quieting it have failed, I talk to it. My hand grazes the white door. “I can’t help you unless you tell me what’s wrong.” It sputters. “Fine, be that way.” I turn over, curling into a question mark on my sleeping bag. I’m lying on the kitchen floor in my Carter Academy T-shirt and granny panties I’ve had since eighth grade. I thought they’d be comforting, but they aren’t.

I’ve been trying to fall asleep for five hours. I’ve breathed according to a pocket-size book about meditation, read the People magazine I bought near the bus stop in Pasadena, memorized half of a Shakespearean sonnet, and flipped the pillow to the cool side, but nothing has worked. I’d hoped that tonight’s sleep would be long and deep and give me a new perspective in the morning, because right now the challenges ahead seem to await me like the pack of wolves that I imagine are prowling outside the door of this Hollywood apartment building. The building is named the Chateau Bronson. The only castle-y things about it are the majestic font on the building’s sign and the odd drawbridge-inspired door.

At 4:17, I decide to get up and finish cleaning my new apartment. Maybe scrubbing this place until it gleams will get my spirits up. A single bird chirps somewhere outside. I kick myself out of the sleeping bag that still smells vaguely like a camping trip I took as part of the junior year science program, the one where Alex and I first kissed. Why does everything have to remind me of him? And why does it take five whole business days for 1-800-GET-A-BED to deliver a twin bed to a major US city?

I turn on the halogen lamp that I found on the sidewalk yesterday. It leans a little to the left, but it works. I almost took the mattress that was next to it—it looked brand-new, but in a flash I could see my mom’s face grimacing in disgust, and I didn’t touch it. I blink for a second against the light and look around at my new place. I’d shut the curtains, but I don’t have any. I pull on my pajama bottoms, tie up my hair in a ponytail, and get to work.

The apartment is one room, about the size of my bedroom back home, with a wooden floor that’s covered in a thick layer of brown paint. The kitchenette is off to the right. There’s my friend the fridge, whining and pitched slightly forward, a mustard-yellow 1970s oven, and a small sink. It could be depressing, but the nook by the window has potential. I narrow my eyes and picture curtains, a bunch of wildflowers in a mason jar, a steaming cup of tea. I can fix this up, I think, instagramming it in my mind.

I open a kitchen cabinet that has a strange metal interior. I don’t know what it’s for, but I feel like Alex would, because he just knows stuff—like that the raised stones on the cobblestone streets in Beacon Hill were used by ladies to step into their horse-drawn carriages. Or that when people say something is “neither here nor there” they’re quoting Shakespeare without knowing it.

My heart lurches at the thought of him up at Stanford, where he’s probably started his classes. Did we really break up? How is it possible that just a week ago we were in Texas, dancing in a country bar, laughing and getting stepped on because we were the only ones who didn’t know the moves? How have we not spoken since he dropped me at Vivian’s? I feel a sharp pain in my gut, like a thumbtack is being stuck into a vital organ. What the hell happened?

I’ve gone over our conversation a hundred times at least, trying to remember every detail in order to make sense of it, and it doesn’t add up. How does a person just cut another person off like that with no warning? Was he just having a pre-college freak-out? That’s got to be it. He had a similar freak-out the summer after junior year, before he headed to Maine. He broke up with me saying that he wanted space, but called me the next day practically in tears and invited me up for the Fourth of July. This is probably just a more exaggerated version of that.

And anyway, he didn’t actually say he wanted to break up. He said he wanted to “take a beat,” which is a totally different thing. I was the one who said the words break up. He’s obviously in denial. It’s not possible that I can just be erased. Right? I’m not calling him first, though; there’s no way. He’s the one who messed up. I have to let him figure that out on his own.

Be present, I think, fishing up a bit of wisdom from the mini meditation book. Be where you are. I grab the cleaning spray and paper towels from the weird metal cabinet and open up all the windows. I lean out of one and inhale the predawn air, looking for the bird with the continuous, high-pitched chirp. The streetlights illuminate the treetops, telephone wires, other apartment buildings, and the sidewalk below. A subtle breeze washes over me. There is the faint smell of jasmine, which I only recognize because of the tea my mom drinks by the gallon back home.

A few streets over there’s some kind of palace. The grand, gold-tipped turrets stand high above the dingy rooftops crawling with satellite dishes. What is that place? A temple? An embassy? A movie star’s home?

I hold the windowsill and feel the grime like soft sand on my fingertips. I pull my hand away—it’s gray. This place is so dirty. I’d better tackle the bathroom before I lose all my courage. It’s like Mom always said: do the hardest homework first while you have the energy. I take in one more lungful of morning air and get down to business.

The bathroom looks like it hasn’t been updated…ever. There’s black mold in the corners of the shower, mysterious yellowy-brown spots on the ceiling, and an all-over film of filth. I admit it: for a moment I think about going back to Boston, but there’s no chance in hell. I’m not going back east until I prove that everyone is wrong to feel sorry for me for not getting accepted into college. It was all so unfair. I was suspended for skipping school to go to a secret daytime concert at Cambridge Comics. A bunch of us did it, but I was the only one who got caught, and I wouldn’t name names. It turns out that one black mark on my school record was enough for college admissions people to put me in the reject pile. It makes me so mad to think about it. I’m not leaving this place without a victory.

I can do this, I tell myself as I spray the bathroom mirror and wipe it down. I already am doing this. I smile at my reflection. Even though Mom didn’t want me to go, even though she wants me to do something practical and résumé-building, or as she puts it “creative and practical,” I can’t help but think that on some level, if she could see me right now with this adventurous spirit flickering behind my tired eyes, she’d be proud.

“So can I ask your advice about something?” I ask Mom a few minutes later on FaceTime. I’m still in the bathroom cleaning, but I hold the phone close to my face so that she can’t get a good look at my surroundings until I’ve had some time to explain. She’s going to be pissed. I was thinking I would wait until the just-right moment to tell her, but the state of this bathroom is an emergency. I’ve doused the tub with several blasts of All-Natural Multipurpose Cleaner but can’t make any headway with the stains.

“Sure, honey. What is it?” Mom blinks back at me from our kitchen, where I watch her pour hot water into a mug. “Wait, what time is it there?”

“Four thirty, I think.”

She almost chokes on her tea. “What are you doing up?”

“I never went to sleep.”

“Why?” Mom asks. I drop the soaked paper towel in a grocery bag, which I’m using as the trash, and head into the main room. The faintest light is seeping into the sky. If I had a comfy sofa, I’d flop on it. Instead, I sit back down on my sleeping bag and lean against the wall. Noticing the background for the first time, Mom asks, “Where are you?”

“Before you freak out, I want you to know that I’m safe,” I say.

“Jesus. Where’s Vivian?” Mom asks, trying to see behind me.

“Probably at her place in Pasadena?” I say, and I brace myself.

I was supposed to stay with Vivian until I got a job to support my acting dreams in LA. Mom was hoping for some sort of 9-to-5 office-job-with-potential, even though I explained I needed something more flexible for auditions, like waitressing. But Pasadena felt almost worse than Boston, where my failure followed me like a stinky fart. Vivian’s condo complex was full of what she calls “young professionals,” but what I call “middle-aged squares.” There were literally no sidewalks within a two-mile radius, so I couldn’t go anywhere except the condo complex gym, and she made her point of view on my situation abundantly clear. (“Acting is a total waste of time. Hardly anyone makes it. You’re just going to wake up when you’re my age and realize that you’re five years behind everyone else! Quit now and focus on getting your shit together.”)

“You’ve lost me, Becca,” Mom says, her brow pinched with concern.

“I’m not exactly at Vivian’s anymore,” I say, gritting my teeth.

“What?” Mom yells. “Becca Harrington, where are you?”

“I couldn’t stay there. Vivian’s energy was really getting me down. She’s not a feminist, Mom. She told me I needed to get married on ‘the right side of twenty-five.’ Can you believe it?”

“I want answers,” Mom says in her sternest voice.

“I found a place in Hollywood. It’s a studio in a vintage building. It’s cute. See?” I pull the phone back to give her a narrow view of my place.

“No, no, no. This was not our deal. Our deal was that you were supposed to find a job before you left Vivian’s—if you left Vivian’s at all.”

“I’ll find some sort of way to pay my rent. Bartending or babysitting or something.”

“Babysitting?” The vein in Mom’s right temple pops out. “How is that going to look on your college applications? Don’t you know how important this year is?”

“I’m going to put my acting work on my applications,” I say, regretting this phone call with my entire being. “That’s the whole point of being here!”

“We agreed that you’d find something résumé-building to do out there while you auditioned. You can do two things at once, you know. We had a plan—”

“I never agreed to that part of the plan, remember? The only thing I officially agreed to was reapplying to college, and that I’d come home after a year if I didn’t get in anywhere. That’s what we shook on.” She sighs. “It’s just one year, Mom. If I’m going to do this, I have to really do it, you know? I can’t hide out in a condo in Pasadena.”

Mom closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.

“Where is this apartment?” she asks. She looks as tired as I feel. Mom had me when she was only twenty. I was the result of a one-night stand she had on Martha’s Vineyard. My dad, some guy who could speak French fluently and who had awesome cheekbones, was never in the picture. This was right after her sophomore year of college, so she’s much younger than my friends’ moms. Her dream was to be a marine biologist. She’d just declared her major when she learned I was on the way. She promises me that she doesn’t regret a single moment of my existence, but I know being a pharmaceutical sales rep was not what she had in mind for herself. I swear, sometimes she could pass for a teenager, especially when she does stuff like sit on the floor in bookstores. But right now, she looks older than her age, and I don’t like it.

“I’m near the Hollywood Hills. That’s where the movie stars live.” I say. “See?” I hold the phone so that she can see the Hollywood sign in the distance. I have to hang out the window a bit and twist my body to the left to get a view of the whole thing, but it’s worth it for the inspiration.

“That is kind of cool,” Mom says, her voice a little softer now. I turn the phone back to face me and see in her eyes that light I’ve been waiting for. “But is this neighborhood safe?”

“Would movie stars live somewhere unsafe?” I ask, glancing at the sidewalk below. A skinny guy talks to himself as he searches through garbage cans. I smile back at Mom, and she raises an eyebrow. She’s not exactly buying this pitch. “It’s really cute, Mom. There are cafés and a used bookstore and a supermarket all within walking distance. You’d love it.”

“You know you can always come home, right?”

“I know.”

We stare at each other for a second. She’s sensing something’s off. I can tell by the way she’s searching my eyes. I study the floor.

“What does Alex think of all this?” she asks.

Damn! She’s good.

“Actually, we’re…taking a beat,” I say, and hold my breath.

“A what? A beep?”

“A beat. Like a rest. As in…not permanent,” I say.

“That doesn’t sound good, Becca,” Mom says. “Are you okay?” I nod, still holding my breath. “I want to talk to you about this, but I’m already running late. Why didn’t you call me earlier?”

“Because I’m fine and he’s just having a panic attack. Please, trust me, okay?”

“I’m trying,” she says, lines gathering in the corners of her eyes as she squints. “I’m trying. Bye, sweetie. And remember you can always come home.”

“Wait, wait, Mom! What about the advice?”

“Oh yeah. What is it?”

“The bathroom is a little…nasty. I need to know how to get rid of mold and rust.” Her eyes widen in horror. “Mom, deep breath. It’s fine, really. It just needs some freshening up. Please.”

“What have you been using?” she asks.

I hold up the All-Natural Multipurpose Cleaner.

“You need bleach,” she says, shaking her head. “And Lime Out for the rust.” Then she tells me how to put a rag on the end of the broom to get the corners of the shower. “And please wear gloves.”

“Should I really use stuff that toxic?” I ask.

“You know what’s toxic? Mold. Call me tonight. I love you, Becca.”

“Love you, too,” I say. “Mom?” I’m waiting for her to tell me that she loves me to the sky, to which I always reply “and back.” It’s our thing. But it’s too late. She’s already hung up.