Muniba nodded but kept cleaning. “The kids have been through too much. Too much trauma. Too much uncertainty. They’ve built walls around their feelings to protect themselves. Many times, we can’t get through these walls to really reach the kids—they’re too hurt. But when we do? They make all this worthwhile. They stay here.” She touched her heart. “Even after they leave, they leave their mark.”
“You feel like you got through to Yasmin?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Yasmin didn’t put up walls. It isn’t in her nature. Daniel’s like that, too. He’s an open book. That’s why he bonded so well with Yasmin. It’s why he keeps coming back months after he moved out of here.”
But no. Daniel wasn’t an open book. Not with me anyway. He wanted his parameter. But ... I dropped my sponge. What did she say? “Daniel ...livedhere?”
Muniba turned quickly to me. “Shit. I wasn’t supposed to tell you that. He didn’t want you to know.”
I was confused. Daniel had a home with his mother and uncle. The shelter was for families without homes. “But ...”
Muniba tilted her head. “Families end up here for many different reasons, and it’s not my place to divulge why. I’m sorry I told you.” She furiously started cleaning the stainless counter again.
Daniel had experienced homelessness. This was the secret he hadn’t wanted to tell me. Even though we’d become so close. I blushed, remembering how much I’d wanted to kiss him at the party. Now it totally made sense why he’d wanted that parameter. It wasn’t because he didn’t like me enough to be open, or because he didn’t want a relationship with me. It was because he was hiding a secret that was too big to tell me. A secret that would have betrayed his mother’s privacy if he’d told me, too. I went back to scrubbing the pot. “I won’t tell him you told me.”
Just then I heard a commotion at the entrance to the shelter. I dropped the sponge and rushed out, Muniba close behind me.
A big group of people from the search party were coming back into the building, led by Daniel, who was holding Yasmin in his arms.
“Yasmin!” Faduma yelled, rushing past everyone to get her daughter.
“Mama!” Yasmin put her hands out toward her mother.
“She’s fine,” Andre said. “She’s tired, and she says her leg hurts.”
Faduma took her daughter in her arms and sobbed. Muniba put her arm around the woman and guided her to the common room sofa. “The ambulance will be here soon,” the police officer said, following them into the common room. “We need to get her looked at.”
Daniel stood in the hallway outside the common room, looking a little empty after Yasmin was taken from his arms. Tears werestreaming down his cheeks, but his face ... his face as he watched Yasmin and Faduma showed pure relief. Not a surprise, really—there wasn’t a dry eye in the place. I was sure my eye makeup had run into my sad-raccoon look.
I went to him. “Thank god you found her.”
“I knew where to look. Fallen trees. It’s where she thought the fairies lived. She told me the book said they welcomed visitors on full moons.”
I cringed. “I shouldn’t have given her that book.”
Daniel shook his head. “She wanted to ask them if they had a house big enough for all her brothers and sisters to have their own rooms. She said she tripped because it was too dark, so she decided to wait under a tree until a fairy, or I, came to help her.”
“You?”
He nodded. “She said ‘there you are’ when she saw me.” His voice cracked again.
I couldn’t just stand there anymore. I took two steps toward Daniel, and wrapped my arms around him, holding him tight. He hugged back, burying his face in my neck. “She’s okay,” he whispered again.
“She is,” I said.
And then neither of us said anything for a few minutes. Just stood there, in the lobby of the family shelter, clutching each other tightly. I wasn’t sure what to say. I didn’t fully understand how he was feeling right now because I didn’t fully understand him. Or his life. I had no idea what it would be like for someone like Daniel—someone so positive, optimistic, happy—to find himself without a home. There were so many questions swirling through my head. How long had he lived here at the shelter? What was his time here like? Did any of it have anything to do with his strained relationship with his uncle?
But I said nothing. I didn’t want to intrude. Even if this hug had nothing to do with our fake relationship, and even if I’d left my ownparameter far behind me, I’d respect his privacy. All I could do was be here for him, like he was always there for me. I could do that.
The paramedics arrived and were taken straight in to see Yasmin in the common room. The rest of the search party returned to the shelter. Everyone was laughing and smiling with relief, slapping Daniel on the back when they heard how quickly he had found the girl. The police began conducting interviews, so Muniba and I made more tea for the search party. And Andre pulled out some celebratory brownies and passed around the plate.
The paramedics said Yasmin seemed fine other than a twisted ankle, but they wanted to take her to the hospital for X-rays. When they were getting her ready to go, she said she wanted to get a colored cast like Daniel’s. Then she started telling the paramedics all about the fairies in the forest.
“I always wondered why you came here so much, like more than you needed to,” Cass said as they followed me into the kitchen to pack up some sugar cookies for Yasmin to take to the hospital. “I get it now.”
“What do you mean?”
“You look at home here,” Cass said. “Like, you’re comfortable. Daniel is good for you. And this place is good for you, too. Anyway, Aimee wants to head back to Jayden’s. I think he wants to restart the diamond run. There’s probably enough time. Can I assume you’re staying here?”
