It was much harder to leave the hospital than Fallon expected. A part of her felt like she was betraying Jada by leaving so soon. Before the visit, they had been good friends, but now Fallon felt much closer to her riding buddy. They had shared something based on mutual suffering, and in a town like Destiny City, that was incredibly significant. They both had scars, internal and external, but they both had also made the conscious decision to look on the bright side in spite of it. It was a decision every citizen had to make: live in fear or live for happiness.

After giving Jada a series of consolatory hugs, Fallon slipped into the wheelchair her mother insisted on and let herself be taken from the hospital. There was a rental car waiting. Fallon had to grip the door handle as if her life depended on it to keep from bumping her bandaged stitches against the hard plastic of the seat belt from her mother's bad driving. Her mother chattered away the entire time about how nice Jada was, how beautiful Szelem was, how lovely Audrey and Marlo were. She spent a good chunk of the move from the car to her rented hotel room going on about the debutante ball and how she would need to go out first thing in the morning to find a dress suitable for her. She didn't know what Fallon was wearing, but she insisted on approving it before Szelem caught a glimpse. Not that she didn't trust Fallon, she said, just that she wanted to be certain that their family gave off the right impression.

Somewhere between giving Fallon her pain medication and selecting The Wedding Date from the hotel's provided list of films, Iva broached the subject Fallon hoped she'd avoid. In French, no less. "Perhaps we can convince Szelem and Jada to come out to France this summer to visit us? We can show them the countryside. You and Jada could go riding on the Montague Estate. Felicity still asks about you, you know. She said she was very happy to hear that you would be returning home soon."

"I'm not going." Fallon's voice was cool, but full of defiance.

Iva frowned. It didn't sit well on the face of a woman who spent her life avoiding unpleasantness. "My dear, I'm afraid you do not have a choice in the matter." She punched the 'play' button on the remote matter-of-factly.

The opening credits lit the screen in blue, illuminating the couch. Fallon fought to maintain her composure, but her mother had the nasty habit of rankling her more than anyone else. "It was my decision to come here in the first place. It should also be my decision to stay." She kept her eyes focused on the television, as if knowing who the casting director was had some vast appeal.

Iva stopped the movie and turned to face Fallon. She broke from the French, slipping back into her native English tongue. "Fallon. No. I let you come here, and you ended up abducted and almost killed. We battled it out then too, or do you not remember?" Iva pursed her lips in the same way that Fallon did, a trait inherited by parental modeling.

Fallon did remember. After waking up in the hospital, Fallon cried with her family for the first day. The next, they were already making plans to return to France. She cried harder, begged to stay. At the time, Fallon had too many unanswered questions to run away. She was afraid that leaving Destiny City would mean abandoning any hope of understanding what happened to her, or why. It was her father who caved then, resting a hand on her forehead and promising he would let her choose. Her parents spent the next three days speaking sternly to each other. It was just another wedge ripping their marriage apart at the seams.

But Bertrand was not their to save his daughter from Iva, not this time.

"If Dad was here--"

"If your father was here, then you would still be listening to me." Her voice was sharp, whip-fast. It stung with a burn that she attempted to hide from most people, a nagging tone she used on her husband and daughter almost exclusively. "He was the one who let his fifteen-year-old daughter call the shots of her life. If he hadn't of done that, then you would have been back and France and would have never ended up in that damn hospital bed again." Indigo eyes blazed with pent-up words. It was clear Iva had more to say.

Fallon didn't give her that chance. "He is not responsible for what happened to me. It was a freak occurrence."

"A freak occurrence that only happens in Destiny City. Or do you not watch the news?"

"And what do you call tsunamis and bombings and car accidents? Death happens everywhere. Going to France will not change that. It will only make me miserable."

Iva furrowed her brow. "Because being with your family makes you miserable?"

Yes. The word hung on Fallon's lips, unspoken. The crumbling state of her parents' marriage was something that they had never discussed. Everyone acted like it was okay, all of them. It was like the three of them were in on some secret plot that involved hiding a secret they all knew from each other. It didn't make sense. A lot of things about her parents didn't make sense to Fallon.

Knitting her hands in her lap, Fallon stared down at the deep lines. The silvery traces of cuts were still visible, nearly healed completely. "If I go back to France, everything will go back to the way it was. I will become the person I was then. I will..." Fallon straightened. "I will kill myself."

She wasn't serious. They both knew that. It was her age showing, the illogical rambling of a melodramatic teenager being denied what she wanted most. It didn't mean Iva would excuse it. She slapped Fallon on the arm, hard. The girl winced. "Don't you ever say that again, Fallon. That is not funny. That is not a threat to throw around to try and scare me." Her scowl deepened.

Iva rose to her feet, ballooning up to her full height, still an inch shy of her daughter. It never failed to make Fallon back down. "I am the adult. I make this decision. If you continue to defy me, I will take everything from you: money, clothes, Taillevent. If you make me, I can give you as much discipline as you want." She punctuated this by stabbing a painted nail into the palm of her hand. "Do not bother running to your father. We already decided that it is my turn to make the decisions for you."

Tossing the remote to the couch beside her daughter, Iva folded her arms across her chest. "I don't want to watch a movie anymore. You watch it. You watch it and try to remember how lucky you are to have a parent who cares so much about your well-being to have this fight over and over. You think about those people in this city who don't have parents like me." She waggled a warning finger at her daughter and then disappeared into the next room, shutting the door with a slam.

Fallon stared down at the remote beside her. Injured or not, she knew her mother would show no mercy. That did not mean this fight was over. Fallon was tenacious and focused. She had already decided that, come Hell or high water, she would not leave Destiny City. Now she only needed to figure out how to force her mother to see it her way too.