The phone rang before I could continue beating myself to death with guilt. I practically knocked the phone to the floor in my eagerness to get it, though I dreaded hearing a menacing voice on the other end telling me they had my mother. The caller ID said the call was from the Hilton, but that didn’t calm my fears.

“Mom?” I half-shouted into the phone, crossing my fingers like I actually thought that would have an effect.

“Hi, honey,” she said, as if she hadn’t just scared ten years off my life.

I sank down onto the bed, one hand clutching my chest while I willed my heart to calm its frantic thumping.

“What took you so long?” I asked. “You scared me half to death!”

“Checkin time isn’t until three, so my room wasn’t ready yet. I’m sorry. I should have called from the lobby to tell you.”

I squinched my eyes shut and bit my tongue to keep myself from saying something I would regret. Because if there’s one thing I’d learned in years of living with my mom, it was that drunks lie. And she was lying right now.

How did I know? Because I could hear the alcohol in her voice. She didn’t slur or have trouble forming words like drunks on TV do—she had a lot of practice talking while impaired, so it took a lot of booze to make it obvious to the casual observer. But I wasn’t a casual observer, and I was way too familiar with the signs.

When my mom is drunk, she talks a lot slower than when she’s not. Plus, there’s this kind of sleepy tone to her voice, like she’d just woken up in the middle of the night. That’s exactly how she sounded now. All the warm fuzzy feelings I’d been having since I found out she’d come after me drained away.

“You just couldn’t wait to start drinking, could you?” I asked, my own voice tight with anger. “As soon as you knew I wasn’t dead, you ran for that bottle without a second thought, even though you knew I was waiting for you to call.”

“I resent that implication!” she snapped. “I have not been drinking.”

Ah, the other classic Mom behavior that made me want to pull my hair out. If she was just sitting around the house watching TV, she’d admit to being “a bit tipsy.” But if she’d been drinking instead of doing something she was supposed to, she would never, ever admit it. Even when her breath reeked of alcohol, she’d swear she hadn’t had a drop, and there was a perfectly good excuse for why she’d forgotten to buy groceries, or hadn’t made it to that parent-teacher meeting, or hadn’t called the gas company to clear up that little misunderstanding about the bill. Whatever.

It all came back to me in a rush, the reason I’d run away from home in the first place. All my fears about my future were forgotten in the swell of anger and hurt that overwhelmed me. How could I stand to listen to the lies and excuses anymore? How could I keep my frustration from turning me into a screaming maniac? How could I watch her continue to destroy herself one brain cell at a time?

“I have not been drinking!” my mom repeated more loudly when I didn’t answer.

How could I have allowed myself to hope even for a moment that my running away might finally convince her it was time to clean up her act? And yet, the ache now forming in my chest and throat proved I’d let that hope grow despite knowing better.

“Why can’t you just admit it? You know I know, so why can’t you just say you’re drunk?” Don’t ask me why, but somehow, I couldn’t help thinking I’d feel better if she’d just confess the truth, stop acting like I was so stupid I couldn’t tell.

“We are not having this conversation, Dana. I have worried myself sick over you and flown halfway across the world to come find you, and this is the thanks I get?”

Then, naturally, the waterworks started.

When I was younger, I’d start feeling guilty right on cue when she started crying. Now it just made me madder. I didn’t say anything, just sat there with my teeth gritted and my eyes closed, waiting for her to wise up to the fact that her tears weren’t moving me.

Eventually, she stopped blubbering, and I heard her blow her nose noisily. I’m pretty sure I also heard the slosh of a bottle being tipped.

“Are you okay, honey?” she asked, as if none of the previous conversation had happened.

I tried to play the same game, but it was hard to force the words through my aching throat. “Yeah. I’m fine. Dad is taking real good care of me.”

“Of course he is. Your father is not a bad man. It was never him I wanted to protect you from. It was … this place.”

“I like Avalon,” I found myself saying, just to be contrary.

Mom didn’t immediately know what to say to that. Alcohol and witty dialogue do not go together.

“That bodyguard said there had been attempts on your life,” she finally remembered, and, oh no, off she went again. “My poor baby.” Blubber, blubber. “I tried to warn you. I tried to make you see.” Sniffle, snort. “We have to get you out of here and get you home.”

Amazing how little time I had to spend on the phone with my mother before “home” became a four-letter word. I didn’t want to go home with Mom, and I didn’t want to stay in Avalon with Dad. If only I could think of a third choice. (Other than getting killed by one of the Faerie Queens, that is.)

I tried to wait out my mom’s current fit of hysterics. But if I had to listen to her cry for another minute, I was going to go postal. “I can’t deal with this right now,” I told her in my flattest, coldest voice. “Call me back when you’re sober, and we’ll talk.”