Chapter 4

The restaurant was the kind of place that didn’t list prices on the menu—white tablecloths, crystal glasses, a sommelier who looked at you like he was judging your soul. Malia had been to places like this before, always with her mother, always because Julia’s job demanded it. She knew to keep her napkin in her lap, to use the right fork, to smile when Alex Sterling told stories about quarterly earnings like they were adventures.

But she’d never been here with Kylie.

They were seated at a round table near the windows, downtown LA spread beneath them like a constellation of light. Alex had chosen the spot, of course—Alex chose everything, from the wine to the conversation topics to the way the evening would unfold. Julia sat to his right, smiling her professional smile, the one that didn’t reach her eyes. Ivory was on Malia’s left, already scrolling through her phone under the table, bored and obvious.

And Kylie—

Kylie was across from Malia, dressed in a black button-down she’d clearly borrowed from her father’s closet, sleeves rolled to her elbows, silver rings catching the candlelight. She looked uncomfortable. Restless. Her leg bounced under the table, vibrating the water glasses.

“You look nice, Kylie,” Julia said, breaking the silence that had settled since they’d ordered. “That shirt suits you.”

“It’s Dad’s,” Kylie said flatly. “I don’t own anything ‘nice.'”

Alex laughed, but it was the wrong kind of laugh—sharp, performative, edged with something that made Malia’s stomach clench. “Kylie has a very specific aesthetic. Ripped jeans and attitude. Very collegiate.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my aesthetic,” Kylie shot back.

“Of course not.” Alex’s smile didn’t falter. He turned to Julia, spreading his hands expansively. “You know, Julia, I keep telling her she should consider a more polished look. Business school interviews are coming up. First impressions matter.”

“Kylie’s first impressions are just fine,” Malia said quietly, surprising herself. She felt Kylie’s eyes on her, warm and grateful, and ducked her head.

“See?” Alex said, as if Malia had proven his point. “Even Malia agrees you need polish. Sweet girl, Malia. Very—” he searched for the word, “—compliant.”

Kylie’s jaw tightened. “Don’t talk about her like that.”

“Like what? I’m complimenting her. She’s well-behaved. Quiet. Obedient.” Alex took a sip of his wine, watching his daughter over the rim. “Not like some people I know.”

The waiter arrived with their appetizers, a brief interruption that did nothing to dispel the tension coiling at the table. Malia picked at her burrata, appetite already gone, her anxiety a living thing in her chest, clawing at her ribs.

“So,” Julia said, her voice too bright, “how’s everyone liking the new semester? Ivory, how’s dance?”

“Fine,” Ivory mumbled, not looking up from her phone.

“Kylie? Classes going well?”

Kylie’s laugh was bitter. “Sure. If you consider failing Advanced Accounting ‘going well.'”

The table went still.

Alex set down his wine glass with deliberate precision. “You’re what?”

“I failed, Dad. Fucked it up completely. Too busy skating, I guess. Too busy being ‘unpolished.'” Kylie’s voice was loud, defiant, but Malia could see her hands shaking where they gripped her fork. “I was going to tell you. Eventually. When you stopped being a CEO long enough to be a father.”

“Watch your tone,” Alex said, very quietly. Very dangerously.

“Or what? You’ll cut me off? Take away the black card? Ground me?” Kylie leaned forward, her mullet falling across her forehead, her eyes blazing. “I’m twenty-one, Dad. You can’t control me anymore. You never could. That’s why you hate me.”

“I don’t hate you,” Alex said, but his voice was cold, controlled, the voice he used in boardrooms when he was dismantling someone’s career. “I’m disappointed in you. There’s a difference. I built this company from nothing, Julia can tell you—”

“Julia can tell me what a great man you are?” Kylie laughed, sharp and ugly. “Julia’s your secretary, Dad. She has to say that. She needs this job. We all need this job, don’t we? That’s why we’re here, right? Not because we’re friends. Because you’re showing off. Because you want to prove you can buy people’s loyalty.”

“Kylie,” Julia whispered, stricken. “That’s not—”

“Isn’t it?” Kylie stood up, her chair scraping loudly against the floor. Several tables turned to look. She didn’t care. She never cared. “You work for him, Julia. You answer his calls at midnight. You reschedule your daughters’ lives around his meetings. And for what? So he can sit here and judge me? So he can tell me how much of a disappointment I am?”

“Sit down,” Alex commanded.

“No.”

“Kylie Cantrall, I said sit down.”

“And I said no.” Kylie grabbed her jacket from the back of her chair, shoving her arms into it with violent motions. “I’m done. I’m fucking done with this. With you. With all of it.”

She turned, and for a moment her eyes found Malia’s—desperate, apologetic, blazing with a rage that Malia had never seen directed at her but still felt like a physical blow. Then Kylie was gone, striding through the restaurant, past the sommelier and the maître d’ and the staring diners, the revolving doors swallowing her like a mouth.

Silence.

Malia’s hands were shaking. Her whole body was shaking. The anxiety that had been clawing at her ribs was now tearing through them, shredding her lungs, making it impossible to breathe. The restaurant was too loud, too bright, too full of eyes that had watched Kylie explode and were now watching the aftermath, watching her, watching Julia’s frozen smile and Ivory’s wide eyes and Alex’s cold, composed fury.

“I should—” Malia started, but her voice came out wrong, high and thin and wrong. She stood up, knocking her water glass. It didn’t break, just tipped, water spreading across the white tablecloth like a stain. “Bathroom. I need—”

She didn’t wait for permission. She walked, then ran, past the staring faces, down the hallway marked with elegant script, into a marble bathroom that smelled like roses and disinfectant. She made it to the last stall, locked it, and threw up until her stomach was empty and her throat burned and tears streamed down her face.

She sat on the bathroom floor, back against the stall door, and tried to breathe.

In. Out. In. Out.

Her therapist’s voice, distant and calm: Ground yourself, Malia. Five things you can see. Four things you can touch.

She saw marble. Gold fixtures. Her own shaking hands. The hem of Kylie’s hoodie, which she was still wearing, which smelled like vanilla and now like vomit.

She touched the cold floor. The stall door. Her phone, buzzing in her pocket. Again and again and again.

She didn’t look.

“Malia?” Julia’s voice, muffled through the door. “Baby, are you okay?”

Malia couldn’t answer. Her throat was closed, her voice gone, her body curled in on itself like a question mark.

“Malia, please. Let me in.”

She unlocked the stall. Julia knelt on the marble floor in her expensive dress, not caring about the stain, and pulled Malia into her arms. Malia buried her face in her mother’s shoulder and shook.

“She didn’t mean it,” Julia whispered, rocking her. “Kylie didn’t mean any of it. She’s angry at her father, not at you. Not at us.”

“She was so loud,” Malia managed, the words broken and small. “She was so—Mom, she was scary. I’ve never seen her like that. I’ve never—”

“I know, baby. I know.”

“She looked at me. Before she left. She looked at me like—” Malia broke off, another wave of nausea rolling through her. “What if she looks at me like that again? What if she’s always like that? What if that’s who she really is?”

Julia held her tighter. “That’s not who she is. That’s her father’s daughter, fighting her father’s battles. The Kylie you know—the one who calls you at 3 AM and buys you boba and looks at you like you’re the only person in the world—that’s the real Kylie.”

“But what if—”

“Shh.” Julia stroked her hair, the way she had when Malia was small, when the world was simpler and fears were smaller. “You don’t have to decide anything right now. You just have to breathe. Can you do that for me? Just breathe?”

Malia breathed.

Eventually, she let Julia help her up, rinse her mouth, wipe her face. Ivory was waiting outside the bathroom, phone forgotten, looking younger than fifteen and more frightened than Malia had ever seen her.

“Are you dying?” Ivory asked, which was her way of asking if Malia was okay.

“Not dying,” Malia said, her voice rough.

“Good. Because I need you to kill Kylie first. For making you cry.” But Ivory’s voice wobbled, and she hugged Malia hard, her small frame surprisingly strong.

They went back to the table. Alex was still there, composed, finishing his wine like nothing had happened. He apologized for his daughter’s behavior with the smoothness of someone who had apologized for her many times before. He paid the bill. He offered to drive them home, and Julia declined, her voice polite but firm.

The ride home was silent. Malia stared out the window, watching the city blur past, Kylie’s hoodie pulled tight around her like armor.

Her phone buzzed.

Kylie: malia
im sorry
fuck im so sorry
i didnt mean to scare you
i didnt mean any of it
please answer me
She turned the screen face-down.

It buzzed again. And again. Calls, texts, a flood of notifications that she couldn’t look at, couldn’t process, couldn’t face.

“Malia,” Julia said gently, from the driver’s seat. “Maybe you should talk to her. Let her explain.”

Malia shook her head. Pressed her face against the window. Watched her own reflection, pale and ghostly, superimposed over the city lights.

She didn’t answer.

That night, she lay in bed with the lights off, Kylie’s hoodie balled up in the corner where she’d thrown it. Her phone sat on her nightstand, screen occasionally lighting up with another call, another text, another voicemail she couldn’t bring herself to listen to.

Kylie: malia please
im begging you
just tell me youre okay
tell me i didnt ruin everything
i love you
i know its too soon
i know i fucked up
but i love you
and im so scared
that youll never talk to me again

Malia read the messages until her eyes burned. Until the words blurred together. Until she couldn’t tell where Kylie’s fear ended and her own began.

She turned off her phone.

And in the darkness, alone and shaking and more lost than she’d been in years, Malia Baker cried herself to sleep.