It was May 13th, 1996, Taurus season, someone would have said if anyone in Evergreen kept track of stars when bills and bruises already mapped the constellations. The sky hung low and heavy, sodium streetlamps smearing the gravel in bare, rust-colored islands. Somewhere two lots over, a television poured canned laughter into the heat. On the Smith porch, a cardboard beer box sat crooked beside the door, a grease-stained flannel tucked around a red-faced newborn who had run out of tears hours ago and slept from the exhaustion of it.

Auggie was drunk enough to mistake luck for providence. He'd stumbled out onto the porch for air that didn't smell like his own breath and just about kicked the box. He stared at the squirming bundle, blinked like the night had played a trick, and grunted something that could have been a prayer if it hadn't sounded like a curse. He scooped the baby up all wrong, one hand, careless as if she were a six-pack, and shoved the door with his shoulder.

"Some bitch left me a problem," He announced to no one.

The living room was a landscape of empty bottles and a recliner that had forgotten how to recline. Chris, fifteen and long-limbed, looked up from the floor where he slept with a blanket over his head to block out the TV's flicker. He thought it was a dream at first, the way dreams borrow real faces and turn them sideways, until the baby let out a thin gasp of a cry and then nothing, as if even the crying had to earn permission here.

Auggie squinted at the infant's face.

"Name's Scottie," He said, like he'd plucked it from the air.

He tossed the flannel onto the couch and dropped the baby onto it, a clumsy placement that made Chris lurch to his feet so fast the blanket tangled his ankles. The air smelled like old beer and motor oil, rust and sweat. The baby's skin looked too thin for the world.

"Dad," Chris said, throat dry, "Where'd he come from?"

"The doorstep. Where you think?" Auggie was already bored of the miracle, "Go back to sleep. He'll figure it out or he won't."

That was the sum of it: a baby on a couch, a boy half-awake, and the kind of man who could call both of them trouble and put his feet up. The TV laughed again. The baby didn't. She lay there with her fists curled, as if ready to fight even sleep.

It was a miracle she lived through the night. The house's thin walls traded heat for cold whenever the wind shifted, and the only blanket around her was that flannel, sour with sweat. Chris lay awake and listened to the tiny sound of breath in, breath out, counting like it was a job only he could do. He rolled off the floor twice, once to tuck the flannel closer under her chin and once to tilt the cushion so she didn't slide. On the third time, he gave up on pretending to sleep. He sat cross-legged on the linoleum, back to the couch, head tilted so he could catch every hitch of her breathing.

He had already named every fear a kid could have. Monsters in closets. Monsters you knew. He added a new one now: quiet so complete it made him afraid he'd stopped existing, too.

Morning arrived with the gritty light that came through blinds missing half their slats. The baby woke it, didn't just mark its arrival but made it happen, with a thin, insistent cry that sounded like a question no one would answer. Auggie groaned from the bedroom and then barked from the doorway, "Chris! Shut that thing up."

Chris was already there, hands awkward and soft. He slid his arms under the baby's head and hips the way he'd seen on TV and discovered it was nothing like TV because everything mattered: how warm his palms were, how fast his heart went. The baby smelled like old flannel and something sweet, like the inside of a hospital he barely remembered from a broken wrist. He carried her to the sink and pulled a dish towel clean enough from a pile, then paused, unsure.

"He's noisy," Auggie said, stumbling in, scratching his chest, "Fix it."

"I think he's hungry," Chris said.

He had no idea. Hunger was the explanation for most sins in the trailer, so it seemed a good place to start.

"In the cupboard. Powder. Left over from you," Auggie said, waving a hand as if that settled everything forever. He popped a beer and watched.

Chris found the tin and the bottle and guessed the ratios. He shook the bottle like he'd seen women do in grocery store aisles, then tested the temperature on his wrist as if instinct knew something he didn't. When he brought the nipple to the baby's mouth, she latched like she'd been waiting her whole life for it. He felt that small tug down in his bones.

"Scottie," Auggie said, pleased with himself for remembering the name he'd given in the dark, "Stop making a fuss."

Chris looked down at the baby's face.

"Scottie?" He repeated, testing it, then frowned.

There was something he hadn't done yet, something basic. He set the bottle aside, laid the dish towel over the couch cushion, and peeled back the flannel. The diaper safety pin caught his thumb and he cursed under his breath, then held his breath for reasons that weren't about pain at all.

"Dad," He said carefully, "Uh. She's a girl."

Auggie's eyes narrowed like the room had insulted him, "What?"

"A girl," Chris said again, because saying it twice might make it real enough that the man wouldn't pretend it wasn't. The baby kicked and flailed, unimpressed by the politics of pronouns.

Auggie stared at the tiny proof and snorted, "Name's still Scottie."

"That's a boy's name," Chris said, too fast. Courage came out of him like a hiccup and startled him that it existed, "Can I... can I pick a new one?"

"Name's Scottie," Auggie said again, louder. Final, "You deaf?"

The baby made a soft, hungry sound. Chris swallowed the rest of his protest with it.

"Okay," He murmured to the little face under his shadow, "Okay, Scottie."

From that moment, the map of his world redrew itself. He wasn't just a boy in Auggie's house anymore; he was a boy with a baby sister. The title wrapped itself around his ribs like armor and an ache at once. He finished the bottle with her and changed the diaper after fifteen minutes of swearing and one emergency substitution with duct tape. When Auggie laughed at the tape, Chris found a way to laugh, too, because laughter seemed safer than anything that might come after.

He learned her rhythms like songs. Two ounces meant the quiet after; four meant sleep. The slow hiccup that required a gentle pat on her back, the gasp that scared him into standing at the window in case he needed to run to the neighbor and ask how to save a life.

He took her outside when the afternoons baked the air inside until the house smelled like a hot pan. He sat on the concrete stoop and let her doze in the shade of his bent knees. He held her so her soft hair tickled his forearm, and he told her about the things beyond the lot: the creek with the rope swing he'd never risked, the good gas station that sold popsicles even in winter, the school where he made D's and the teacher who frowned like she'd tasted him and found him bitter.

"First steps are gonna be on me," He told her, "Not him."

The "him" didn't require a name.

The first time she laughed, it was at a stupid face he made, cross-eyed with his tongue out until his cheeks hurt. The sound shot through him like he'd discovered electricity. He did it again until Auggie told him to shut up or take it outside, and then he took it outside because the laugh made the air lighter.

Her first steps came a year later, when summer had set the park on low boil. The window A/C rattled without cooling unless you stood right in front of it and priest-blessed yourself with the dripping condensation. Chris made a ring of couch cushions on the floor because the last thing he wanted was to explain a busted tooth. Scottie pulled herself up on the couch, turned with her hands still in the air like she was balancing invisible plates, and looked at him like she wanted courage and also dared him to doubt her.

"You got it," He said, both hands out, "I'm right here."

She went. One step where her knee wobbled. A second that found the cushion. A third so fast she surprised herself and pitched forward into his chest, a soft crash that knocked him flat on his back. He whooped and she squealed and Auggie shouted from the kitchen, "Shut up!" but even his voice couldn't snuff it out. Chris pressed his palm over the back of her head, a touch so gentle it might have been worship.

"See?" He whispered into her hair, "Told you."

Her first word chose a morning when he was running late for school. His backpack strap had torn again and he was knotting it with a shoelace while hopping into one sneaker. He pointed at the cereal bowl he'd set on the floor for her entertainment and said, "Stay," like she was a puppy who knew commands. She slapped both hands on the cracked linoleum and crowed, "Kiss!"

He froze, sneaker only halfway on.

"What?"

He turned around so fast he nearly tripped over his untied lace.

She beamed, as pleased with the sound as with him catching it.

"Kiss," She said again, the "r" swallowed up by baby physics that didn't allow for such sharp edges yet.

"Chris," He corrected gently, even though the mistake lit something stupidly tender in him. "Chris."

"Cwiss," She tried, and he decided it was perfect, the way a bent nail was perfect when you needed to hang a picture anyway.

Auggie claimed no pride. When Scottie tottered into the room, he glanced up once, then back at whatever he was feeding into his ears that day. He called her "girl" like an accusation and "Scottie" like a bet he was trying to lose. He made remarks about her dark hair and darker eyes as if they'd stolen something from him.

"Look at that," He'd say, grimacing, "All that dark in a house that was fine without it."

Chris learned to step in front of remarks with jokes that didn't sound like jokes. He made faces at Scottie until she giggled; he made other faces at Auggie when the giggles didn't work. He absorbed the edge of the man's words, turned them, dulled them, then hid them with errands: formula runs and diaper dashes and the sacred duty of picking up a secondhand stroller from a neighbor who didn't ask questions because she knew too many answers.

He took jobs he wasn't old enough for and lied about the math of it. He mowed lawns with a mower that needed more encouragement than the grass. He stocked shelves overnight until his knees learned how to ache like they belonged to someone older. With what he made, he bought formula that came in tins with shiny lids and a tiny soft blanket from the thrift store that smelled like someone else's house. He washed it twice in the sink and wrung it out by hand. When he covered Scottie with it that night, she sighed like the world had given up fighting her for a minute.

He learned the precise geometry of keeping a baby out of a man's line of fire. He learned where to put a crib so a slammed door wouldn't rattle it. He learned to tuck her favorite spoon into his pocket before Auggie's temper found a reason to go looking for something small to break.

On the days when the universe felt like the inside of a fist, he made a fort out of the kitchen table and a sheet and crawled under it with Scottie and a flashlight. He told her stories about heroic things with dumb names: Captain Pancake, whose only power was never letting anyone go hungry; the Great Chair, who let him sleep even when he was too tired to climb into bed. He sang hair-metal ballads as lullabies because those were the only lyrics he knew all the way through, and she drifted off to men wailing about love on arenas instead of stars.

Sometimes Auggie would stand in the doorway and watch, something like suspicion in the set of his mouth.

"Don't make her soft like you," He'd say, as if softness were a disease caught by touch.

Chris would tuck the blanket higher under Scottie's chin and say, "Not soft. Stubborn."

He didn't know Taurus from T-ball, but he knew there was something of the bull in her, the way she set her jaw at the bottle if it came too slow, the way her tiny hand clamped his finger and refused surrender. She had been left in a box to either fail or prove the world wrong; she had chosen the second and then made it a habit.

By the time she was three, she'd learned to climb onto the couch like it was Everest and launch herself toward Chris as if gravity had made a personal pact with them. He caught her every time. Every single time. He memorized the weight of her, what it did to his arms, how it steadied his center. He organized his day around return: school, job, the sprint home before her nap ended because the sound she made when she woke, bewildered, small, broke the part of him he hadn't yet built walls around.

"Hey, Scottie-girl," He'd say, picking her up, spinning once until the world blurred and she shrieked as if delight were the first language. Auggie hated the nickname; that made it sweeter, "You miss me?"

"Cwiss," She'd confirm, and plant a damp kiss on his cheek like a stamp.

He was there when her legs grew surer and her hands big enough to throw a ball and then frustrated that it didn't go where she wanted. He showed her how to set her feet, how to look where she meant for it to land. He was there when she said "no" for the first time with a ferocity that startled both of them and then made him laugh because he recognized that sound, it was the sound you made when the world tried to name you something you didn't choose.

Auggie remained an absence shaped like a man even when he was in the room. He taught Chris to shoot and sneered when Chris flinched. He refused to teach Scottie anything, because why waste bullets on a girl? That refusal burned a brand onto her face that didn't fade when she slept. Chris watched that mark and committed his days to writing something else over it: a chorus of firsts he could give her because their father would not. First steps. First word. First tossed ball that landed where she aimed.

On the night she turned four, the cake was a stale store cupcake Chris bought with quarters, icing crushed on one side from the bus ride home. He stuck a candle in it and used a lighter Auggie kept by the sink. The flame leaned like it wanted in on the prayer. Scottie clapped. Auggie left. Chris held his hand over the little fire long enough to feel the heat and then held the cupcake for her, steady.

"Make a wish," He said.

She looked at him instead of the candle, as if the wish had always been this: him, here, always. She blew, missed, tried again, succeeded. Wax dripped. He scraped it away with a fingernail and handed her the cupcake, then licked the frosting off his knuckle because wasting sweetness here felt like sin.

Later, when she slept, he sat on the stoop again with his knees pulled up and looked at the strip of sky the trees allowed. He imagined lines between the stars that weren't there and gave them names that were. He didn't know who had left her or why, and the question made a hole he couldn't fill. But there she was, alive, within arm's reach. He wrapped his arms around his shins and rested his chin there, and the night answered with crickets and far-off tires and the knowledge that come morning, she would reach for him and say his name like it was the only one that meant safe.

He went back inside. The door squealed like always. He stepped through the landmines of bottle caps and crumbs and every petty mess a man could make. He stood by the couch and watched her sleep, one fist open on the blanket like she had finally decided to let the world keep one thing without a fight. He put two fingers lightly on her back and felt the rise and fall.

"Scottie," He whispered, because if Auggie could name her like a dare, then Chris could say it like a promise, "I got you."

She slept on. The promise hung there anyway, stubborn as a bull, solid as a boy who had decided that if love was a job, he'd work it until the bones in him learned the hours. And morning would come, and Auggie would grunt, and the world would ask too much, but before all that, there would be this simple thing: a girl who had survived the first night and a brother who had turned himself into a wall she could lean on until she didn't need walls at all.

—

The house smelled like cigarettes and hot metal that night. Auggie had been tinkering with one of his guns at the kitchen table, the sharp scent of oil hanging in the air. Scottie was five, small enough that her feet still didn't touch the ground when she sat on the couch, a doll with a missing arm clutched in her hands. She hummed quietly to herself, rocking the broken toy as though it were whole.

Chris, twenty now, sat beside her, trying to keep her distracted. He'd learned the rhythm of survival in Auggie's house, stay quiet when Auggie was drinking, laugh at his jokes even if they cut, and always, always keep Scottie out of his sight. Tonight, though, luck betrayed them.

Auggie looked up from the gun, eyes bleary but sharp with a mean edge.

"What the hell you hummin' for?" He barked, words slurred but heavy.

Scottie froze, humming cut off mid-note. She tucked the doll close to her chest and whispered, "Nothin', Daddy."

The word slipped out, automatic, and Chris's stomach twisted. She never called him that unless she was scared.

Auggie stood, pushing his chair back so hard it scraped the linoleum, "Don't lie to me, girl."

Chris shifted immediately, putting his body between Auggie and Scottie, "She wasn't doin' nothin'. Just playin'. Leave her be."

The moment the words left his mouth, he knew he'd made a mistake. Auggie's face darkened, that familiar rage flooding up from the cracks in him like oil seeping through ground.

"You talkin' back to me, boy?"

Chris tried to steady his breathing, "I ain't--"

But Auggie was already moving. He shoved Chris hard into the bathroom door. Scottie screamed, scrambling off the couch, her doll hitting the floor.

"Don't hurt him!" She cried, tears springing fast, her little voice breaking with panic.

Chris shoved himself upright, ready to take the hit, but Auggie's hand came down on her first, fingers fisting in her dark hair, yanking so hard her small body jerked backward. Her scream tore through the narrow hallway.

"Stop!" Chris shouted, lunging forward.

He grabbed for Auggie's wrist, trying to pry him off her, but his father was stronger, meaner, practiced in cruelty. Auggie swung with his free hand, the blow cracking against Chris's jaw with enough force to slam him into the wall. His head hit the plaster with a dull thunk, lights exploding in his vision.

Chris crumpled to the bathroom floor, dazed, blood slicking his lip.

Scottie shrieked his name, trying to crawl toward him, but Auggie yanked her back by her hair.

"Shut your mouth!" He roared, dragging her down the hallway like she was nothing more than trash he meant to throw out.

Her small fists beat against his arm, her screams echoing through the home, "Chris! Chrisss!"

The sound pierced through the haze of pain in Chris's head. He tried to get up, arms shaking, but his body betrayed him. The bathroom floor was cool under his cheek as the world tilted sideways.

Auggie threw Scottie into her room and slammed the door, locking it from the outside with the bolt he'd installed years before.

"You stay in there!" He spat through the thin wood, "You wanna act like a little brat, you can stay locked up till you learn!"

Her sobs bled through the door.

Chris forced himself upright, holding onto the sink until the room stopped spinning. He pressed a hand to his temple, breathing hard. Every instinct screamed at him to go after her, to tear the lock off the door, to get her out. But he knew what happened when you pushed Auggie too far. You had to pick your battles, live to fight another day.

So he slid down against the bathroom wall, tasting blood, listening to his baby sister cry herself hoarse. And he whispered, voice cracked and quiet: "I'm here, Scottie-girl. I'm here."

Five years later, she was ten.

By then, she spoke to Auggie only when she had to. No more humming, no more seeking his attention. She lived in a quiet orbit around Chris, and Chris alone. Auggie had succeeded at one thing: Scottie didn't love him. She feared him.

The day it happened, Chris had just come home from work, his boots heavy with mud from a construction site, his back sore. He found Scottie curled up on the couch, knees tucked to her chest, crying into her arms. Panic stabbed through him instantly.

"Hey," He said gently, dropping to his knees in front of her, "Scottie-girl, what's wrong?"

She lifted her face, blotchy and streaked with tears.

"I–I think I'm dying," She whispered.

Chris's heart jumped into his throat, "What?!"

She shifted, showing him the dark stain on her shorts. His brain scrambled, tried to piece together what he was seeing. Then it hit him. Oh. Oh, shit.

"Uh. Uh--" Chris stammered, completely out of his depth, "You're not dying. I think... I think this is... uh..."

Scottie cried harder, "I don't know what to do!"

Chris's hands fluttered uselessly in the air. He was twenty-five, old enough to have bedded plenty of women, but that didn't mean he knew a damn thing about this. His girlfriends never invited him into that part of their lives. Hell, Auggie had raised him to think periods were something to be laughed at, ignored, or shamed. And now his little sister, the person he loved most in the world, was crumpled in front of him, terrified.

"Okay. Okay. Don't cry, Scottie. We'll figure this out. I got you," He said, though his voice shook. He grabbed his keys, "Stay here. I'll be right back."

He drove to the store like a man possessed. He didn't know what aisle to even start in. He ended up filling a basket with everything, pads, tampons, wipes, heating pads, Midol, three kinds of chocolate bars, even a stuffed animal from the clearance shelf. The cashier, a bored teenager, raised an eyebrow. Chris snapped, "It's for my sister," which somehow made it weirder.

Back at the house, he dumped the haul onto the couch.

"See? Options," He said, as though he hadn't just blacked out in the feminine hygiene aisle.

Scottie sniffled through her tears, "You're so dumb."

He grinned sheepishly, relief loosening his chest, "Yeah, but I'm your dumb brother. So. C'mon, let's figure this out."

Between awkward explanations and a few frantic phone calls to female coworkers, they got through it. Chris hovered like a nervous parent, handing her chocolate when she scowled and water when she sniffled.

That night, he decided she needed a distraction. Something fun. Something that said: you're still a kid, even if today felt scary.

So he piled her into his beat-up car and drove them to the local drive-in, neon lights buzzing in the warm summer dark. He bought them greasy burgers and popcorn and let her pick the movie. She pointed to The Devil Wears Prada, eyes still red from crying but shining a little.

"Seriously?" He muttered, looking at the poster, "That's the one?"

"Yes," She said stubbornly.

He sighed, but when the film started, he found himself drawn in. He laughed in the dark when Stanley Tucci cracked a joke, felt his chest tighten when Anne Hathaway stood up for herself. By the end, he clapped along with everyone else, though he made sure to roll his eyes so Scottie wouldn't think he'd actually enjoyed it.

Scottie leaned against his shoulder, munching popcorn, smiling for the first time all day.

Chris glanced down at her, warmth softening his expression. He'd never admit it to anyone, least of all Auggie, but he thought the movie was great.

For the first time in a long time, sitting there under the glow of the screen, he felt like maybe he was doing something right.

"Thanks, Chris," Scottie whispered.

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

"Always, Scottie-girl," He said.

And he meant it.

—

Chris's apartment was small, barely two rooms, with walls that smelled faintly of cigarettes from the last tenant, but to Scottie, it was a sanctuary. She was thirteen now, long-legged but still wiry, her hair dark and stubborn as the frown she wore whenever Auggie so much as looked her way. Home was still a battlefield, one where she survived by silence and avoidance. But here, in Chris's place, she could breathe.

He let her crash on his couch whenever she needed to. Sometimes she brought her backpack under the excuse of "homework," but they both knew she just didn't want to go back to the house. Chris never asked questions, just handed her the spare blanket and made her popcorn, like this had always been their life and not some fragile detour away from Auggie's grip.

That night, she sat cross-legged at his desk, her algebra book open, while Chris sat on the couch strumming a guitar he'd picked up at a pawn shop. He wasn't good, not really, but he could manage the chords to old 80s songs, and it filled the silence with something softer than shouting.

"Hey, Chris?" She said, trying to make the equation in front of her make sense.

"Mm?" He plucked at the strings.

"You ever actually use algebra? Like, in real life?"

He barked a laugh, "Hell no. Waste of time. Unless you plan on building bombs or somethin'."

She snorted, "Maybe I will."

He set the guitar aside and leaned back, grinning, "Yeah? You'd be the scariest bomb-maker ever. You'd make 'em with glitter and stickers on the casing."

"Shut up," She said, but she smiled. He was her favorite person in the world, even when he was being a dumbass.

Scottie turned back to the screen of his old computer, fingers hovering over the keyboard. She was halfway through typing her assignment when she noticed an icon on the desktop: a minimized window she hadn't seen before. Curiosity tugged harder than the math problem did, so she clicked.

The page blinked open to an online dating profile. Chris's name wasn't on it, he'd chosen something stupid like MetalHead79, but his photo was there, unmistakable. The profile settings scrolled down the side, listing interests (rock music, working out, "keeping the peace") and preferences. Her eyes snagged on the one line that made her stomach flip: Interested in: Men and Women.

She blinked. Read it again. And again.

"Uh, Chris?" She called carefully.

He hummed in response, distracted, reaching for his beer can.

"Why does your dating profile say you're into both guys and girls?"

The sound of the can hitting the table was louder than it needed to be. His head snapped up, his face already tight, "What?"

She turned the monitor toward him, "This. You're bi?"

His face went red immediately, not the warm kind but the sharp, furious flush of panic.

"The hell are you doin' snoopin' through my stuff?" He snapped, voice rising too fast.

"I wasn't snooping!" She shot back, startled but holding her ground, "It just popped up while I was doing homework. Chill out!"

"Don't tell me to chill out!" His voice cracked on the last word, like the volume was meant to hide how rattled he was. He stood, pacing now, hands flexing like he didn't know what to do with them, "You weren't supposed to, You shouldn't even-- Jesus, Scottie!"

She closed the laptop slowly, watching him unravel. He looked like he might punch a wall just to make the feeling go somewhere. She recognized it, the way Auggie's anger used to fill a room, but this wasn't the same. This wasn't cruelty. This was fear.

"Chris," She said softly.

"Don't," He muttered, turning his back.

" You're scared."

That made him freeze. His shoulders hunched, his fists clenching tight at his sides. He didn't answer, but she could see the truth in how still he went.

"Why would I care?" She asked, "So what if you like both?"

"You don't get it," He said, his voice hoarse now. He turned, eyes wet but refusing to spill, " He said queer kids were trash. Said they didn't deserve to live. And now you, you know, and--" He cut himself off, dragging a hand through his hair. His chest heaved with the effort of keeping it in.

Scottie stood and crossed the room, her bare feet soft on the linoleum. She touched his arm carefully, the way you'd approach a wounded animal, " I'm not him. I'm your sister. I don't care who you like. You're still my favorite person."

His eyes squeezed shut. For a second, she thought he might actually cry, really cry, but he swallowed it back, jaw tight. Auggie's voice had been drilled into him: Men don't cry. Men don't show weakness. The lesson was a cage he hadn't figured out how to break.

Scottie leaned her forehead against his arm, "You're allowed to be who you are. You're allowed to like who you like. Doesn't make you weak. Doesn't make you less."

He exhaled shakily. His hand hovered awkwardly above her head before finally settling there, fingers brushing her hair.

"You're too good to me, kiddo," He whispered.

"You deserve it," She said simply.

They stayed like that for a while, silence heavy but softer now. Eventually, Scottie pulled back, her eyes bright with mischief.

"Okay. But now that I know..."

She darted to her backpack, digging out her yearbook.

"Oh, god, no," Chris groaned, already seeing where this was going.

She plopped the book on the couch and flipped it open, "Too late. We're going through this together."

"I'm not-- No. Absolutely not. They're kids."

"They're my age," She pointed out, rolling her eyes, "I'm not asking if you want to date them. I'm asking who's cute. Totally different."

Chris buried his face in his hands, "This is a nightmare."

She grinned wickedly and shoved the book toward him, "C'mon. Start with the soccer team. Anyone?"

He peeked reluctantly, lips twitching despite himself, "No comment."

"That means yes," She teased.

"That means shut up," He shot back, though there was a laugh buried in it.

She giggled and flipped the page, pointing to another boy, "What about him? He's nice, he shared his fries with me once."

Chris shook his head, "Scottie-girl, I'm not rating middle schoolers with you. That's weird as hell."

"You're no fun," She pouted, but her smile betrayed her.

"Nope. Not doin' it," he said firmly, but when she wasn't looking, his lips curved. For the first time that night, the panic eased from his chest.

Scottie stretched out beside him, still flipping through pages, humming under her breath again. The same humming Auggie once tried to beat out of her. Chris leaned back, watching her. She was safe here. With him.

He couldn't undo everything Auggie had done. He couldn't protect her from every bruise or cruel word. But he could be this, a couch, a yearbook, a night where she laughed at him until his ribs stopped aching.

And maybe, just maybe, she could remind him he was allowed to be himself.

—

Chris had been gone a lot lately, off doing who knew what with people who never gave their last names. He'd leave a note under the salt shaker or a single text, back later, don't wait up, and then a silence that felt like a wall. Scottie told herself she wasn't mad. She was sixteen now, not a kid. She could handle things. But when the house settled at night and Auggie's footsteps started their slow prowl from kitchen to hallway, she missed Chris the way a body misses air.

Lamar was the part of her life that felt like air. They'd met because his mom worked the late shift at the grocery store, and he'd offered to carry Scottie's bags when he saw her trying to juggle milk and bread and a box of cereal she'd bought with scrounged quarters. He had a dimple that showed up only when he was trying not to smile, and hands that were careful with eggs and people. He walked her as far as the corner where the streetlights got lazy. After that, it became a routine: homework at his parents' kitchen table, dinner once a week like she was already theirs, a kiss stolen by the back door that made the world go quiet.

They only ever went to his parents' house. It was the rule she made without saying. She didn't want him anywhere near the trailer park or the man who gargled beer and hate like mouthwash. At Lamar's, the air smelled like garlic and soap, and the walls were crowded with photos, Lamar's baby picture, Lamar in a little league uniform, Lamar at a church picnic with frosting on his face, Lamar with his signature strawberry vanilla milkshake. Scottie tried to stand very still inside that life, afraid she might knock it over.

At dinner, Lamar's mom would press a second helping on her, and his dad would tell some story about the time Lamar got his head stuck in an armchair when he was four. They told these things like love was a language that needed practice. Scottie said "yes, ma'am" and "no, sir" and did the dishes because it felt good to do a small thing right.

It was Lamar's mom, Denise, who noticed the bruises first. It was a Thursday. Lamar was scraping plates, humming under his breath, and Scottie was reaching up to put away a glass when her sleeve slid back. The yellowing crescent on her forearm flashed like a traffic light.

"Honey," Denise said softly, "come here a second."

Scottie blinked, "Ma'am?"

"In the bedroom," Denise's voice stayed gentle, but it had a spine.

Scottie went. The room smelled like hand cream and clean laundry. The quilt was pulled smooth and tight, like a promise. Denise closed the door behind them and didn't step closer, gave her space like a gift.

"I'm not going to poke where I'm not welcome," She said, "but if something's going on, you can tell me. I won't be mad. I won't tell your business without your say-so."

Scottie's throat closed. Her skin knew what came from telling. Her body remembered locks and bolts and the way a voice could flatten you. She shook her head, "I'm fine."

Denise looked at the bruise, then at Scottie's face, and something old and wise came into her eyes, "Is it your daddy?"

Scottie's breath stuttered. The word daddy felt like a cut. She stared at the pattern on the quilt, a looping vine that went nowhere and everywhere. Silence pressed at her, and then her mouth betrayed her with the smallest sound. Not a Yes. Not a No. Just the soft gasp of someone who has been seen.

Denise nodded like she'd heard a paragraph.

"Okay," She said. She stepped nearer, slow as sunlight, "You don't have to explain him to me. Men like that think fear is the only tool they need," She reached out and then stopped with her hand in the air, "May I?"

Scottie surprised herself by nodding. Denise set a palm lightly on her shoulder, just weight enough to say you are not floating away. Her mouth trembled; she swallowed the tear before it fell, furious at it anyway.

"You have a place here," Denise said, "Do you hear me? If you need it, you have a place."

The words landed like a key in a lock. Scottie nodded again, quick and small. Denise didn't push. She just squeezed once and let her go, the way you let go of something because you trust it to come back.

That week, and the ones after, the world went on pretending to be ordinary. School. Work. Dinner on Thursdays. Lamar and Scottie laying side by side on the living room floor after homework was done, speaking into the dark like it was a river: movies they wanted to see, cities they wanted to visit, the names of stars they didn't know but pointed at anyway. He was her first everything, and she held that like a bright stone in her pocket. She didn't tell Chris. She didn't tell anyone. Secrets, in her life, were either anchors or bombs; she hadn't decided which this one was yet.

The day it happened was a Saturday messed up by heat. The sky had bleached itself pale; the kind of day when the only merciful things lived under shade. Scottie had walked the long way to Lamar's to avoid the corner where Auggie sometimes parked himself like a guard dog. She had cut through the grocery store lot, head down, hair tickling her cheeks. At the far edge near the dumpster, Lamar leaned against the brick, pretending cool like he didn't know his smile gave him away.

"Hey," He said, dimples out.

She kissed him before hello had finished, a quick press that became longer because relief poured into it, relief at being here, at him being him, at the way the world could still yield something soft. It lasted just long enough for the sound of a truck door slamming to split it in two.

"What the hell do you think you're doin'?"

Auggie's voice crawled out of the heat like a snake. Scottie jerked, the ground tilting. Lamar straightened, palms up.

"Sir," He began.

"You don't call me sir," Auggie snarled, already closing the distance. He didn't look at Scottie. He looked through her, past her, like the only object in the world worth seeing was the boy between them, "You don't look at my daughter. You don't touch my daughter," He said daughter like it was a thing he owned and not a person he'd never bothered to know.

"Hey," Scottie said, stepping in front of Lamar even though she knew what that bought you, "Stop. We're leaving."

Auggie's eyes went mean and bright.

"Get in the truck," He said without looking at her, "Now."

"No," She said, and her voice came out calm, like someone else had taught her how to use it, "I'm not going with you."

Lamar shifted behind her, not hiding, just there. He didn't reach for her hand. He didn't make it worse.

"We're not looking for trouble," He said.

Auggie smiled, a thin slice of contempt, "You found it anyway."

It happened fast and slow, the way terrible things do. Auggie stepped past Scottie, shouldered her aside without touching, and went for Lamar like he was crossing a room to grab a tool. There were words, ugly and sudden, that the sun swallowed. Lamar didn't back away. Not once. He just stood there with his hands open because that was the kind of boy he was.

Auggie swung first. A fist, a crack, the wet noise of skin on brick. Lamar staggered but didn't fall. He looked at Scottie, not at the man, and that was when something inside Auggie jumped a track. He reached under his jacket for the gun he loved more than either of his children.

"Dad--" Scottie started, and knew it was the last time that word would ever come out of her mouth.

The sound the gun made was obscene in the summer heat, too loud for the little corner of the lot. Birds shot up out of the elm like the tree had thrown them. Lamar's body jerked like someone had cut a string. He went down on his knees first and then the rest of the way, arms splayed the way a person sleeps when they're too tired to pretend.

For a heartbeat, the world put a hand over its own mouth. Scottie moved toward him and then couldn't, like the air had thickened. Her throat tore itself open on a scream she didn't know she had left. She knelt where the concrete met heat and touched his shoulder, stupidly waiting for him to look up with that embarrassed smile people wear when they've tripped.

"Get in the truck," Auggie said again. His voice was hoarse now, not with sorrow but with exertion, "We're going home."

She turned and looked at him. Saw him. Every year of her life under his roof stood between them like a wall made of photos you'd never taken.

"Fuck you," She said, and her voice didn't shake.

Auggie stepped forward, reaching for her arm. When she flinched, he grabbed her hair instead and yanked, the old grip, the old lesson. Pain flashed white across her eyes. She twisted free with a sound that was more animal than girl and ran. Like that. Bare legs in cheap sneakers. Breath burning. The world snapping into a single line: away.

He shouted her name. He shouted something about family and obedience and the cost of defiance. A truck engine roared. She cut between two parked cars and then another, diving into a side street that wheat-grassed its way between chain-link fences. She didn't stop, not at the corner, not when her lungs yelped, not when a neighbor called you okay? in a voice that didn't want an answer. She ran until the houses grew familiar and the paint peeled a certain way and the porch with the cracked step appeared like she'd dreamed it, Lamar's house.

She hit the porch hard enough to bruise both shins and pounded on the door. It opened before her fist landed the fourth time. Denise stood there in slippers and a T-shirt with a church picnic logo, eyes scanning Scottie's face as if she could catch every word that hadn't yet been said.

"Baby?" She breathed, already reaching.

Scottie collapsed into her. It wasn't graceful. It was a fall that didn't end until it hit a human barrier. She sobbed into Denise's chest like she might rip a hole through it, shook like the body will when it has finally been allowed to know what it knows. Denise held her and rocked, whispering nothing and everything, "It's okay. I got you. I got you."

"Did he hit you?" Denise asked when the worst of the storm had passed, voice careful, already planning a battlefield evacuation that ended with blankets and tea and locks that worked.

Scottie shook her head and then nodded because yes, he had, a thousand times, but no, that wasn't this. Her mouth tried to shape the truth. It came out like pieces of glass.

"He--Lamar--" She couldn't assemble the rest.

"Calvin!" Denise called over her shoulder. Lamar's dad appeared in the hall, pulling on a jacket he must have grabbed off a chair. He took in the scene, Scottie shaking, Denise bracing both of them, and his face went very still.

"Get the keys," Denise said, "We're taking her to--"

The knock at the door didn't sound like any knock Scottie had ever heard. It had the weight of news in it. It had the shape of men who wear their belts like armor. Denise and Calvin looked at each other, and in that glance everything in their lives rearranged.

Calvin opened the door. Two officers stood there, hats in hand because some part of the world still remembered manners even in the worst moments. The younger one inhaled like he wished the sentence he was about to say could be taken apart and made smaller.

"Mr. and Mrs. Harris?" He asked, "I'm sorry to bother you. There's been an incident."

The word incident made Denise's hand tighten on Scottie's shoulder.

"Our son?" She asked, the words so thin they might not have survived the air.

The older officer nodded once, that terrible adult nod that means yes and I'm sorry and the rest of your life, "We're very sorry. There was a road rage incident. He's gone."

A sound came out of Calvin that Scottie didn't have a name for. Denise didn't make a sound at all. She sagged, knees giving, and Scottie held her this time, hands on both her arms like she could be the wall for someone else. The officers said more words, we're investigating and we'll need to take your statements and do you have someone we can call, but the room had already changed shape. The photos on the wall were suddenly heavier.

Denise turned to Scottie, and understanding swept across her face like a storm that finally broke.

"It was him, wasn't it," She said, not a question.

Scottie pressed her lips together so hard they hurt. She nodded once. The truth slid free, and with it, a different kind of sob. Denise pulled her close again, even as her own body bent with grief.

"You're not going back there," Calvin said, voice scraped raw. He wasn't looking at Scottie like she was the reason; he was looking at her like she was the promise. He met the officer's eyes, "You write whatever report you gotta write, but you put down that she's with us now. You hear me? She is with us. She's not staying with that man, because you're gonna go put that man behind bars? You hear me? Behind bars!"

The officers nodded, and one of them wrote something on a clipboard with a pen that clicked too loudly in the quiet house.

That night, the house felt like a church where the sermon had been replaced by breathing. Neighbors came and left, dropping casseroles like bandages that didn't fit the wound. The phone rang and rang and then stopped. At some point, Denise led Scottie down the hallway to Lamar's room. The bed was made. The smell was him. A football lay on the floor where he'd last dropped it. Scottie stood in the doorway and pressed her fist to her mouth because if she didn't, she was sure all her insides would come out with the sound.

Denise touched her shoulder.

"You can sleep here," She said gently, "If you want."

Scottie nodded. She sat on the edge of the bed and then lay down on top of the blanket because getting under the covers felt like trespass. She stared at the ceiling and traced the cracks like constellations. She thought of the cardboard box on a different doorstep, of a name given like a dare, of a boy with careful hands who would not be here in the morning. She thought: I wish I never ended up on that stupid porch. And then, because wishes are treacherous, she thought of Chris, whose absence felt suddenly like a string in her chest pulled too tight, and she amended it: I wish I'd ended up anywhere with him.

In the next room, Denise cried quietly, the sound of a mother tearing and re-threading herself in the same motion. Calvin called someone and said the words again and again until they lost shape. The officers left and the house exhaled and the night went on, terrible and stubborn.

Sometime before dawn, Scottie finally slept. When she woke, the world hadn't righted itself. But there was a glass of water on the nightstand and a folded sweatshirt that smelled like laundry soap and sunlight. Denise was sitting in the doorway like a sentinel. She didn't ask for details. She said, "Good morning, baby," and made pancakes that nobody ate.

By noon, Scottie had texted Chris I need you.

But he was too busy to reply.

Too busy being The Peacemaker.

Too busy fucking and getting fucked.

And under all of that, rooted now in a place no storm could reach, was the quiet fact that the man who shot Lamar would never again be anything Scottie shared blood with. He had forfeited that. When Auggie's name came up, if it had to, she would call him that man the way you refer to weather that ruined a harvest. She would not be his. She would not be anyone's but hers. And she would stay in the house where love still set the table, because Denise and Calvin made a decision in their grief and did not let it go: they would not send her back to learn the same ending as their son. They would not let the story rhyme like that. Not while they were alive to change it.

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[ what do we think so far? ]