Max woke the next morning to a bright bedroom and a naked woman. He took a moment to catalogue Rosie's features so he'd remember everything about that morning for the rest of his life.

He slipped out of bed, headed to the kitchen for a cup of coffee and settled himself on the couch to watch the news, Gizmo next to him begging for scratches.

When Dallas' cruiser unexpectedly pulled into his driveway, he checked the time. It wasn't early but it was too early for one of their regular visits.

Mug in hand, Max stepped onto the porch and waited for Dallas to get out of the car as Wendy’s little electric car pulled up behind him. There was a man exiting Dallas’s passenger seat that looked to be in his mid-forties. He was tall and lean, his face showing signs of wear, like maybe he was too tired to take what life threw at him next.

Max turned his eyes to Dallas who was walking toward the porch, a sheaf of papers in his hand, Wendy right behind him practically wringing her hands

"What's going on?” Max asked.

The other man stayed close to the cruiser, arms crossed as he looked up at Max's house.

"We've got a problem.” Dallas climbed the steps. "It's about Rosie."

Max's defense went up. "What about her?"

"First of all, she isn't who she says she is.” He held out the papers.

Max didn't even look at them. "Who's he?” The man by the car sent him a hard look and took a few steps closer.

"He's Rosie's father," Wendy said quietly.

Max scoffed. "No, he's not."

"Yeah, he is,” Dallas argued, a hard scowl on his face.

"Yeah?" Max crossed his arms. "Did you match his name to her birth certificate or something? Do a DNA test?"

Dallas was quiet for a second. "No," he admitted. "Just look at the papers."

"No. Get out of here." He directed the furious statement at the man by the car.

"I need to see her,” he said, his face pinched.

"Dude," Dallas tried to get his attention.

"Her name isn't even Rosie," Wendy told him.

Max sent them both a deadpan look.

"You already knew,” Wendy whispered.

"Did she tell you she's a missing kid?” Dallas took the top sheet of paper. "Did she tell you she's registered with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children?” He pushed the two papers against Max's chest. "Did she tell you she’s a runaway?" Dallas held his hands up in frustration. "Did she tell you she had a family out there looking for her?"

"Is that what he told you?" Max asked, narrowing his eyes at his best friend and sister. He sent a glare to the man by the car. "You're the foster dad, right?" He was the only person from her past, other than her mother, Rosie had ever spoken about.

The man’s expression turned from desperate to hopeful in a heartbeat. "Does she talk about me?"

Max felt his blood pressure rise. He'd scarred Rosie for life and he was the one that needing coddling?

"No. She doesn't.” His voice was cold. “In fact, she doesn't talk about anything. Ever. She's too goddamn afraid once we really know her we'll all leave her." He sent a red-hot look at the guy. "Where do you think she got that idea?"

"I fucked up." He took a few more steps up and ended up on the middle stair of the porch. "I know that. I went back for her but by the time I got there she was gone."

"I'm not doing this to her." Max slashed his hand through the air. "I'm not ambushing her with this." He sent a scathing look at his sister. "And you shouldn't have come here to do it either. She thinks you're her friend."

"And I thought she was who she said she was. She lied," Dallas stepped in front of and unsure looking Wendy.

"She wasn’t trying to lie to you. She was trying to hide," Max corrected. He cut his eyes to the foster father. "That’s what she does. She hides."

"I know," the man admitted. "I've been looking for almost eight years."

"For what?"

They all turned to find Rosie standing in the doorway. She was dressed in her regular clothes, an oversized fuzzy white sweater and leggings, her hair fixed like it might be any other day.

Max went to her, his back to everyone else and put a hand on her cheek. "We don't have to do this. They can all leave right now and we'll go back to bed."

She lifted a shoulder. "Guess it was bound to blow up sometime."

"I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere." When her eyes fell, he lifted her chin. "And neither are you."

"Happy?” Max turned to see the man, a hopeful look on his face, but this time he was trying to get a glimpse of Rosie.

"Want me to move or tell them to get lost?"

She shook her head. "It's okay. You can move."

He stood next to her and took her ice cold hand in his.

"You look so different," the man said quietly. "So grown up." When she didn't say anything, he kept going. "Your hair." He shook his head, rethinking his tack. "I'm sorry, Happy. I fucked everything up from that first time I let you go. I should have fought harder for you." He put his thumb and forefinger in his eyes. "We all should have fought harder for you."

"I'm sorry I stole your money,” Rosie said. "I needed something to get me started and I didn't have anywhere else to go."

"That was your money. I always told you that."

She shrugged. "That’s all I’ve ever had left to say to you. I’ve always felt bad about it and for a long time I wondered if you’d charge me for it. I can pay you back now."

“Happy,” The man pleaded.

Max looked at Rosie and wondered if it was a cosmic joke that the woman he loved, the one who lived in a state of constant fight or flight, was named Happy.

“Rosie, there’s nothing for you to run from.” Dallas’s voice was kind, but Max could see Rosie was beyond his kindness, her walls firmly back in place.

“I’m not running,” she told them, straightening from the door frame. She looked at Dallas and Wendy, hurt radiating off her in waves and then back to the foster father. “I just didn’t want to be found. I don’t want to be Happy anymore. I don’t want to be reminded of her or what she was. I just want to be left alone. Is that too much to ask?”

“I love you, honey,” the man said. “I’d never stop looking.”

Rosie scoffed and threw her arms out. “For what? So you could pick me up off the street again just to throw me back?”

He looked disappointed. “That’s not what happened.”

Dallas was looking at the man suspiciously. Max wanted to throttle him for not being suspicious before he brought him to confront Rosie.

“You led me to believe that Rosie had been an endangered runaway.”

“She was,” the man argued. “When I caught up to her in Virginia she was eating out of a goddamned dumpster.”

Max’s head quickly swiveled in her direction and from the furious expression on her face, he knew the guy was telling the truth. His heart sank at the thought of her being hungry. Not just hungry, but alone and desperate. It must have been terrifying.

And she’d never said a word to him about it.

"Did you find whatever it was you came for?" Rosie asked, her voice rough as she pulled her hand from Max’s and crossed her arms.

He shook his head. "Happy, I came for you."

"Don't call me that. Happy died a long time ago. You can go and write that in some report somewhere and let her be."

"But-"

"I'm never going back there, Butch! There's nothing for me there and I don't want you here. I just,” she shook her head, fighting tears. "I just want to be left alone."

"Well, hey there, buddy.” Gizmo meowed eagerly and trotted to Butch, rubbing himself along his shins, happy to see his old friend. "It's been a long time, Gizmo. You're getting old, huh?" He picked the cat up in his arms and looked up at Rosie. "I can't believe you still have him."

“This is my fault,” Dallas said under his breath. “I should have called.”

“I just wanted to help,” Wendy said as she looked to Rosie. “I thought you were on some list of missing kids.”

Dallas shook his head. “That’s what I saw when I looked at that report. I saw missing kids. Kidnapped kids or runaways and then, here’s this guy who’s desperate to find you. I thought I was helping. He said you ran from a home,” Dallas said, his eyes questioning.

Rosie sighed. She didn’t want to tell them this shit. She wanted to let it go.

“Is that what he said?” She glared at Butch. “That I was in a home. That’s a new spin on it.”

“Like a group home,” Dal nodded.

“It was a mental institution,” she told him, her voice heated. “They dumped me in there and pumped me full of drugs and left me to rot.”

“No,” Wendy’s voice shook and tears filled her eyes.

“I came back for you-” Butch stood, his hands out pleading.

Rosie took a step back. Not just away from Butch, but away from them all. “I ran the second I could.”

“How did you end up there? There has to be more,” Dal insisted.

Max looked on wordlessly and she knew he wanted to know the truth, no matter what it cost them.

“You have my back?” She asked him, her voice shaking, cornered. “Is that what this is? Every second of every day, you said. Trust you. Trust this, you said.”

“It’s time to tell the truth, Rosie. Just tell us. Get it over with so we know what we’re dealing with.”

She shook her head. “There’s no we, Max. It’s not our story you want to hear. It’s mine. When Dallas told me you got arrested, I never asked you about it.” His head popped up in surprise. “Because I knew if you wanted me to know, you’d tell me.” She turned to Dallas and Wendy. “I’ve never asked you about the abandonment you feel from your family moving away or about your cheating ex boyfriends-”

“Rosie,” Max interrupted.

“Butch and his wife took me in. When I got too weird for them, which I always do, they threw me back where I belonged.”

“That’s not true,” Butch argued. “You never belonged in any of those shit holes, Happy, and we never should have let you go. I’ve regretted it every day since.” He climbed one stair closer and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’ve never been sorrier about anything in my life. I promised you a lot of things and I never came through.”

“Don’t be sorry. I trusted you,” Rosie choked out. “My mistake, not yours.”

“Happy,”

“Goddammit!” She yelled. “Stop calling me that!”

“I love your name,” he argued. “We did have some happy times, didn’t we?”

Rosie sucked in a breath through her nose.

“Like the time you sat on the witness stand and told a courtroom full of people you thought I was crazy?”

He paled. “That isn’t how it happened.”

“Like the time you told me I wouldn’t be able to be a big sister after all because it was just too hard for you to have me around the baby.” She took another step back.

“Michael talks about you all the time. He remembers you. Erin and I, we got divorced five years ago. I couldn’t stop looking for you.” He hung his head. “I couldn’t forgive myself for letting you go and I couldn’t forgive her for making me do it.”

For years, she’d assumed Butch and Erin had gone about their lives, one little happy family. She couldn’t fathom that she’d had that kind of impact on them.

“Your mom,” he looked away but didn’t need to finish. She already knew.

“She’s dead.”

“What?” Wendy whispered.

His head turned back to her quickly. “How’d you find out?”

This time Rosie was the one to look away. “She comes to me sometimes.”

“Even now?” Butch’s eyes narrowed.

Rosie looked out at the yard, trying to remember one day ago when this place had brought her so much peace.

“I know she lied, Happy – Rosie,” he corrected. “I tried to come see you at Coleman to tell you but,”

When he didn’t finish, Max prodded him along.

“But what?”

“But they had her pumped so full of drugs she couldn’t even lift her head.” He rubbed his eyes again. “Just a kid for Christ sake and they had her restrained and totally gorked.”

Rosie let out a humorless laugh as she took another step away, embarrassment and anger burning through her like wildfire. “And there, folks, is my life story.”

She turned to make a hasty exit. There was no way she could stay here, she needed to be anywhere but here.

“I pressed charges against her. For what she did to you.” Butch called after her but she kept walking almost to the end of the porch.

Dallas grabbed her arm and she pulled out his grip, sending him a glare.

“She went to jail for attempted murder. That’s where she died.”

Rosie stilled. No one had believed her when she’d told them her mother had gone berserk. She’d locked Rosie in a closet, only to pull her out later to brand her with a crucifix and choke the devil out of her. That’s what her mother had said. She needed to choke the demon out of Rosie’s body.

“Wait? Murder? Your mother?” Dallas asked.

“Her mother tried to kill her.” She heard them all take in a shocked breath. “Her mother did kill her.”

“Rosie,” Max took a step toward her, a look of pity on his face that made her heart crack in half.

She held her hands up, warding him off. “Please, don’t.”

He held out a hand to her but she just shook her head.

“This is what you all wanted to hear right? Why I ran. Who I really am. Well, there it is.” She looked at all three of them. “Are you happy now?”

“No,” Wendy was crying, tears slowly sliding down her cheeks.

“Killed her?” Dallas muttered, looking between Rosie and Butch.

“A neighbor came forward after the fact. Confirmed he’d helped revive Happy – Rosie, after he heard the commotion but ran due to an outstanding warrant.” He looked to Rosie. “I booked her myself. I owed you that much.”

Rosie took another step back and slashed her hand through the air. “I don’t want anyone to owe me anything. I don’t-” she shook her head, completely overwhelmed with them all. “I don’t want any of this.” Her eyes cut to Max. He was looking at her like he had no idea who she was. “I never wanted any of this.”

She turned around, quickly scooped up Gizmo who had been lounging on the porch, and took off.

None of them tried to come after her.