Lena's POV

Just as I drop the laundry basket onto my bed, I hear a knock on my bedroom door. Intuitively, I already know that it was either Callie or Jude. Stef wouldn't have bothered knocking and the other kids' knocks are usually much louder… unless they were in trouble for something.

"Come in," I offer as I start to fold the clothes and take a seat on my bed. The second I glance up, I see Callie's body slowly entering the room and I could tell by her expression that she was worried about something, "What's up?" I ask her in the most upbeat way that the situation would allow.

She glances around the room as if she was looking for someone and then stares down at that ground.

"Is something bothering you, bug?" I ask her, and she lifts up her head to meet my gaze. After a slight hesitation, she barely nods her head yes. "Come on in," I wave her forward and stop folding the clothes.

She walks inside and slowly closes the door behind her, and I know that if it's something she doesn't want anyone overhearing, that it can't be good.

I pat the bed so that she could sit and reluctantly she does, but doesn't say anything, so I know that I should probably lead the conversation, "Do you want to talk about —"

Before I'm able to finish the question, she opens her mouth, "Is Stef going to be mad at me?"

"What?" I ask in confusion.

"…For Lux running away… I knew I shouldn't have said anything," she says as she shakes her head and her gaze moves toward the floor.

"No, honey, that wasn't your fault," I try to tell her as I offer her a smile. It was a forced smile because I had my own guilt eating me up.

"Of course it was," she answers in disbelief. "One second she was fine and the next she was gone."

"No, that was… if anyone's to blame than it'd probably be me. Not you."

"What? If I would've never told you then—"

"She left because of something I said, Callie."

"What did you say?"

I take a deep breath before answering, "…I said something without thinking. I mentioned the fact that you and Jude didn't feel safe with Lux being here to your mom, and it seems as if Lux overheard and left… So this is not your fault," I reassure her again.

"So, wait…that's why she left?" Callie asks in a surprised tone.

"Yes... Why?"

Callie looks away from me as if she was trying to mentally assess the situation in her head. "No, it's nothing," she tries to answer, hoping that I'd believe her. Meanwhile, I can tell that she has a thousand thoughts running though her mind.

"Are you sure it's nothing?" I ask unconvinced.

"Yeah," she answers, and I decide to let it go for now. If it wasn't something she wanted to talk about, I didn't want to push her, regardless of how curious I was.

"Okay," I answer as I give her a reassuring smile.

Stef' POV

By the time I got home, I could tell that the kids were probably all sleeping because all the hallway and bedroom lights were off except for my own. The second I open my bedroom door, Lena practically leaps out of the bed. "Is she here?" she asks anxiously.

"No. She's staying at Mike's tonight," I answer flatly, mainly because I was both exhausted from the long day I had, and also because I was still a little upset about the situation, even though we all agreed to try and make things work.

"I'm sorry," Lena says as she looks at me desperately, and I can tell that she means it.

"It's fine, love. She's fine," I try to assure her.

"It's not fine, Stef. I had a lot of time to think things through and I should've gone with you to apologize. Maybe if I did, she would've come back here and—"

"No," I interrupt her. "Mike was right. It was too soon to bring her here and I should've listened. She wasn't ready and we're all going to try to take things a little easier this time around. I don't want to overwhelm her with all of this again."

Lena nods her head and walks back to the bed, while I grab our laptop from the dresser.

"Was I the reason she didn't want to come back?" Lena asks after an awkward pause, and I can tell she feels guilty.

I take a seat on my side of the bed and open up the laptop, "No, honey. I think she was upset way before that. And I think that what you said was just the tip of the iceberg… It wasn't your fault.

"Well, it feels like it is," Lena answers as she pulls the covers over her body.

"It's not," I assure her again as I start to pull up the Safari app on the computer.

"What are you searching for?" Lena asks in confusion.

"I don't even know…" I answer as I let out a frustrated breath. I honestly had no idea what I was looking for.

She gives me a skeptical look and I attempt to explain myself better, "When we all were at the diner, Lux went to the bathroom and…"

"Okay?" Lena smiles as if it didn't seem like anything serious. But maybe it wasn't?

"And when I got in there, she started to wash her hands with hot water, like really hot water, like so hot that her hands were turning bright red and I could see the steam coming up from the sink. And she stayed there for a really long time and…I don't know. I just got a bad feeling about it. Is that normal?"

"That she washed her hands with hot water?" Lena asks with her eyebrows raised, and I could tell that she thought I was probably exaggerating a bit.

"She wasn't even washing her hands though. She hadn't used any soap until a few minutes afterwards. It was like she was trying to burn herself on purpose."

"Uhuh," Lena mumbled and I could tell that she knew something I didn't.

"What?" I ask worriedly.

She looks at me hesitantly before asking the next question, "Did anything happen before this?"

"What do you mean?"

"Did you guys get into a fight or—"

"She was upset, yes… Why?" I ask again.

"I'm not sure about anything…" she warns.

"What is it?"

"Well, I learned about something about this in college. I may be wrong, but… it sounds to me like some sort of self-harm—"

"What like cutting?" I ask in a louder tone than I intended. The words "self harm" just didn't sit well with me.

"Yes. It sounds like it… If she was upset about something, she may be using the pain she felt from the hot water as some sort of release valve. It could be a way to cope with her feelings."

"So, what do you mean? …Could this be dangerous?" I ask as the thought came to mind.

"I'm not sure. We're not even sure that was the reason she was doing it or if she was trying to intentionally hurt herself, but maybe it hasn't gotten to that extreme yet."

"Yet?"

"Well, there's other ways people can self harm in this category and we're not sure how serious it is. For people who cut to deal with their emotions, it's just cutting. But for people who burn themselves like this, the levels vary. They could be using scorching hot water, fire from a candle, a lighter, cigarettes, flatirons, pretty much anything… and depending on which method is used, it's difficult to predict if it's dangerous. Some may leave marks, while others don't. Which is why it's so hard to tell sometimes. And if it gets serious, burns are more likely to get infected than cuts so…"

"So, what she we do?"

"Well, we can't do much right now. We don't even know if she has a problem… And if she was willing to do it in front of you, she might not even realize that it is self-harm. And if she is burning herself, we don't know how bad it is… I guess for now, we can tell Mike to keep an eye out for anything suspicious. Maybe do some more research even…"

"I hope I'm wrong about this… We're all trying so hard to make this work and if this escalates and we try to tell her what to do, then…"

"You're right. Let's not jump to any conclusions until we know exactly what we're dealing with here, okay?"

"Okay," I agree, even though this conversation just made me feel even worse, and I couldn't get the picture of Lux burning herself in the diner's bathroom out of my mind…