Chapter 1Mother Knows Best

On the very first day of lectures, a notification popped up on my phone.

It was a text from Mom.

[Class is 45 minutes long. You’ve been scrolling TikTok for 31 minutes and 56 seconds! Is this how you repay me for sending you to college?]

A split second later, my professor’s phone rang.

She put it on speaker, and the whole lecture hall heard my mother’s banshee shriek.

"My daughter is playing on her phone instead of studying! Professor, confiscate it immediately!"

My professor, looking exhausted, replied, "Ma'am, Chloe is a college student. Parents really shouldn't be micromanaging at this level."

My classmates snickered, whispering about the pathetic girl who couldn't cut the umbilical cord.

But I was frozen, staring at the new message flashing on my screen.

[You are forbidden from eating that spicy takeout for lunch. Or else.]

Mom was a thousand miles away. How did she know my exact screen time?

And how the hell did she know I had just ordered spicy noodles?

* * *

[That spicy trash is full of chemicals. I’m giving you three minutes to cancel the order.]

Another text.

I jerked my head up, scanning the room frantically.

The snickering had stopped; everyone was back on their own devices. The professor was droning on about syllabus policies.

No sign of Mom. No suspicious figures watching me.

My brain was short-circuiting. I couldn't figure out how she knew my every move.

My fingers trembled as I typed back.

[Mom, how do you know what I’m doing?]

Her reply was instant.

[I can know whatever I want.]

[Chloe, don’t make Mommy unhappy.]

[You have 2 minutes and 12 seconds left.]

[2 minutes, 7 seconds.]

Buzz. Buzz.

My phone vibrated relentlessly, counting down like a bomb.

The numbers dropped too fast.

It felt like a giant hand was wrapping around my throat, squeezing the air out of me.

In my panic, I hallucinated Mom standing there with a stopwatch, her eyes dark and heavy.

"You didn't brush your teeth for the full three minutes. Do it again!"

"School is two miles away. It took you twenty minutes. Did you stop to play on the way home?"

"You took 12 minutes on this worksheet. That’s 18 seconds slower than last time. No sleep tonight. Do it again!"

Ever since the divorce when I was twelve, Mom poured her entire existence into me.

She was determined to raise the perfect daughter, to prove she didn't need Dad.

When I slept, what I ate, when I woke up—everything followed her script.

I tried to rebel once. I locked my bedroom door on a Saturday to sleep in.

Mom hacked the door down with a meat cleaver.

"Why are you locking the door?! Are you doing something dirty inside?!"

"Time is life! Get up and study!"

We went through a dozen locks. eventually, I stopped locking the door. I stopped struggling.

I let her pilot my life.

No password on my phone. No lock on my diary.

My clothes, my sheets, even my phone case—everything had to be pink.

"Girls use pink. You like black? Black represents evil! It means your mind is twisted!"

She threw away my black hoodies and forced me to keep my hair long, demanding I "look like a lady."

She denied my taste, my choices, my autonomy.

Every time I pushed back, she would give me that heartbroken look.

"You're too young, you don't understand. Mommy is doing this for your own good."

"With a personality like yours, you'd never survive without me."

"I do all of this because I love you!"

Middle school through high school—six years of living in her shadow.

I thought getting accepted into a university across the country was my escape ticket.

But...

[Time remaining: 1 minute, 11 seconds.]

Her messages were flooding in.

I quickly checked her Facebook.

She posted selfies from her Zumba class every day. She had posted one fifteen minutes ago.

She was definitely back home, not here in the city.

I played the part of the good daughter.

[Okay, Mom. I canceled the order.]

The countdown stopped instantly.

Maybe she just guessed I’d order the spicy noodles? It was my favorite, after all.

But the screen time... I couldn't explain that.

Just to be safe, I turned off every privacy permission for my video apps. Then I checked my food delivery app.

She wasn't here. I was an adult. She wasn't going to control my lunch.