Page 26 of Liam

The lanterns are for my mom. Whenever we have a special occasion, we each get one, light them, and set them free, let them rise to the heavens where she waits for us. I’m not positive that heaven is real, but I’d hate to think of an alternative. Every time we do it, we all silently send her a message through thoselanterns. My older siblings take longer with the whole message thing. Me? I never really know what to say.

I square my shoulders, refusing to answer her. Besides, if anyone should be asking questions, it’s me. And so I ask her the one thing that’s plagued my mind since the last time we spoke. “Where the hell have you been, Adelaide?”

She rears back slightly, her eyebrows pulled. “What?”

Unwilling to back down, I sit taller and force myself to meet her eyes. “The other day, you said they couldn’t find your family, so… where have you been the past five years?”

It takes a moment for her to answer. “Roman didn’t tell you?”

“Maybe he told my brothers.” I shrug. “But… no one really tells me anything.” Not that I really give them the opportunity. At least, in person. Linc’s the only one I see regularly now, but that doesn’t excuse this little thing called technology. You know… phone calls, text messages, emails.

“I’ve been in Raleigh…” Addie answers. “In foster care.”

Whatever reaction comes over me has her shaking her head, waving her hand out between us. “No, it wasn’t, like, a horrible group home or anything. I moved into anactualhome with my foster mom and dad, and they’re… they’re great. They still let me live with them.”

I nod slowly, taking a second to replay her words. I guess I didn’t realize until right this moment that her parents weregone, gone. That night, when the cops told me they’d arrested her brother and they needed to find her parents, I assumed they were on vacation or something. I didn’t know, and maybe that’s the missing detail to help me make sense of it all. “Where are your parents?”

Adelaide turns away, crossing her arms. “I need to get back to work.”

I stop the boat completely.

“You’re kidding,” she almost scoffs, glaring right at me.

“You can’t light the match, then run away from the blaze. Look…” I match her stance, cross my arms, too. “For years, I’ve tried to put a timeline together, so I can figure out why you did what you did to me. I’ve gone through every interaction we’ve ever had, trying to pinpoint the exact moment I did something to make you hate me so much. Because,surely,it can’t be something so insignificant as finding you hiding out here when we wereten. But the next day, I get to school and… everything changed.”

She doesn’t react to my words. Doesn’t even blink. And it only frustrates me more.

“You made my life hell, Adelaide, and I’ve spent years trying to figure out why. I think I deserve an explanation, and I think you owe me as much.”

10

Addie

Three pivotal moments have defined my life’s path, and oddly enough, my parents ditching me isn’t one of them.

It was what came after.

I’ll never forget the look on Roman’s face when I told him I hadn’t seen my parents in days or the tears in his eyes when he saw my teeth marks deeply indented in the still unopened can of spaghetti. Until that point, I’d always seen Roman as the toughest, most fearless man in the world. I thought I’d broken him, and I wasn’t quite sure why. After making sure I was fed, washed, and taken care of, he spent the entire night scrubbing the trailer clean, removing the stains of the past and the evidence of my parents’ ominous adventures into nowhereland. The next morning, before school, he removed a ribbon from one of my dresses and fumbled through a video tutorial on how to braid hair. The first ribbon he ever weaved through the strands was bright orange.

He gripped my hand tight as he walked me to school, and I swear, I’d never felt safer. I remember looking up at him, myeyes clear of dread and heartache. “Why did you braid my hair?” I’d asked.

He’d shrugged. “I want you tolooktaken care of, Addie. Because that’s exactly what I’m going to do. No one has to know how you’ve been living, okay?”

The second pivotal moment in my life is the car accident.

And the third? The third happened a few weeks into my junior year of high school. I was perched in the bleachers of the local college’s softball field, where my foster dad coached. The season hadn’t started yet, but he was running evening drills in the lead-up to tryouts. My arm was still in a cast from the car wreck, but the bandage on my head was gone. I could tell he knew I was watching, but he didn’t acknowledge me until it was over.

He climbed the bleacher steps two at a time and sat down beside me. For a long moment, neither of us spoke.

When I first moved in with them, Griffin confided he was a man of very few words, and not to take it personally. I told him it was fine, because I was the same. I wasn’t. Or, at least, I hadn’t been. Not until then. I chose not to speak, not to share every internal battle. Thankfully, our lack of constant conversation didn’t deter us from forming a bond.

All it took was me throwing a softball.

With his help, training and encouragement, I tried out for the JV team and got in. The following year, I made varsity. Putting on that uniform, the cleats and gloves… it was the closest I’d felt to my brother since we’d been apart.

“You’ve had quite the month,” he said, breaking the quiet. He gently tapped my cast, reiterating his point.

I stared ahead, too lost in my own thoughts. I was pissed. For so many reasons. And not only at myself, but at the situation I’d found myself in. My goal, as well as Griffin’s, was to earn a spot on his team and play under him. My broken arm wasn’t doingme any favors. Neither was the possible long-term head trauma the doctors warned them about.

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