My room went from black, gray, blue, to the yellow light of morning angling through the windows. I got up when I was too hungry to stay there.

Physically, I was a wreck. But mentally, the sunlight had brought a clarity that brought my emotions to heel. I had seen real human suffering, and I had seen people survive real pain. I was afraid of a broken heart, but what was a broken heart in the face of losing a child or going hungry?

A part of me wanted to run toward the risk, saying “bring it on,” while opening my arms to whatever Chris Carmichael had in store for me. And the other part of me was very clear, very firm, and spoke in a voice years older.

It said I would not do a single thing that didn’t serve me. If I made a sacrifice, it would be because that sacrifice would make me happy. If I made a demand of him, it would be because I couldn’t live without the thing I was demanding.

I didn’t know what any of that meant. Specifically, I didn’t know what to demand, but when I came to it, I would know. I’d opened the door to my needs, and I trusted they would walk through when they needed to. I was not going to rely on Chris to figure this out for me, nor was I going to second-guess him. I was going to take him at his word, and he was going to take me at mine.

I came downstairs to find Harper at the folding table in the dining room. She was scribbling in a notebook, and I expected to see a bunch of unintelligible signs, symbols, and codes. Instead, it was her uneven script with cross-outs, arrows, and lines across sentences.

“Good morning,” she said, not slowing her pencil one bit.

“What are you writing?”

“College essay.”

I looked over her shoulder and saw my name. “What’s the question?”

“I have to describe someone I admire.” She covered her paper and continued scribbling. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

I put my hand on her shoulder and squeezed it. I didn’t have any words of gratitude, and I knew she didn’t want them anyway. “Can I make you something to eat?”

“I’m good.”

“It’s nice to see you not crying.”

“Same for you.” She put her pencil down and cracked her knuckles. “Reggie came by last night.”

“He owes you an apology. Don’t you dare speak to him until he apologizes to you.”

“I sliced his head open with a garbage pail lid,” she said incredulously.

I put my hands on my hips. “There was no excuse for him speaking to me like that in front of you. I’ll get my own apology, and you’ll get yours. In the meantime, I don’t want him coming around here, and I don’t want him to be alone with either one of us.”

“Oh my God, do you think he came here alone? You should’ve seen the team of assholes he was with. And I say asshole in the most affectionate way.” She counted on her fingers. “Johnny. Kyle. Pat. Even Juanita came with him to make sure he didn’t start calling anybody names or getting violent. It was kind of weird.”

I wanted to accept his apology so that I could move on with my life, but I was still kind of mad. I surprised myself. I’d never thought I was much of a grudge holder. But maybe Chris brought that out in me.

I went to make breakfast.

“Chris called,” Harper shouted from the dining room. “I left the message behind the phone.”

I whipped around with the coffeepot in my hand, turning so quickly the torque almost sent coffee flying. Behind the wall phone, on a little pad we kept for such a purpose, was a note in Harper’s handwriting.

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There was a number underneath, the area code from Doverton. The club.

Reggie had apologized, and this was my town. I wasn’t getting in the car and wasting gas to go a mile. I’d come and go as I pleased.

I was a grown woman.