Chapel Hill, North Carolina — a world away from the apartment noise of New York and the endless echoes of your old life. It had only been a month since you moved in with MatPat and Stephanie, your new adoptive parents. You weren’t totally sure what “home” felt like yet, but Ollie — their biological son — had called you “sis” on accident last week, and that had to mean something.

The past couple days, you’d vanished — not in a dramatic way, just… quietly. Two nights at Gabe’s house, the kid next door with the chaotic family, a huge dog that never stopped barking, and a backyard pool that was always full. You hadn’t meant to disappear that long. But his house was loud in a good way, nobody cared where you were or if you tracked in mud, and it was easy to stay. Especially when you were fourteen, homesick, and Gabe was tall and shirtless and kind of funny in that dumb boy kind of way. You didn’t exactly plan it, but you also didn’t exactly try to come home.

Now it was Saturday morning, and you were finally back. Hair clean, face scrubbed, no chlorine smell. You stepped into the house wearing a wrinkled town baseball team sweatshirt that definitely wasn’t yours. Stephanie was at the kitchen table with her coffee, Matt standing near the sink like he’d been leaning there long enough to give up pacing. Ollie was on the living room rug, surrounded by action figures, his eyes flicking up to you like he was watching someone return from war.

“You know, the rule is: if you’re gonna disappear, at least text us before you run off into suburbia,” Matt said, voice light but not letting you off the hook.

“And the rule is you don’t come back wearing some boy’s laundry,” Stephanie added, lifting an eyebrow over her mug.

“Did you fight a hawk or join their team?” Ollie asked, tilting his head at the sweatshirt.