“The trash bags,” I said.“That’s the first rule of foster care: never buy luggage.Luggage implies you’re staying.Luggage takes up space.If you keep everything in a trash bag, you can be ready to leave in five minutes.”
“Austen…”
“And the food,” I continued, needing him to understand why I hoarded oat bars, why I panicked about my car.“My third home—the Millers.They were nice.They bought me a bike.But two weeks before they called the caseworker to come get me, Mrs.Miller stopped buying the family-sized cereal.She started buying the small boxes.The variety pack.”
“Why?”
“Because the family size implies a long-term commitment.The small boxes?Those are finite.Those ran out exactly when the placement did.”
Luke’s hand moved across the rug.His fingers brushed against my wrist, hot and rough.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.“That sucks, Austen.”
“It taught me that permanence is a myth,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant, though my voice trembled.“People keep you as long as you fit the equation.When you become an outlier… they solve for X, and X is you leaving.”
Luke’s hand closed over mine.He didn’t squeeze.He held on, anchoring me to the floor, to the room, to the moment.
“I’m not going to solve for X,” he said fiercely.“I’m not the Millers.”
“Everyone is a Miller eventually, Luke.It’s a matter of time.”
“No,” he insisted.“My mom left because she couldn’t handle the pressure.You’ve seen the pressure.You’ve seen my dad.And you’re still here.You’re eating Spam on a rug with me.”
“The Spam is arguably the breaking point,” I joked weakly.
He didn’t laugh.He moved his thumb over my knuckles, a slow, deliberate rhythm.
“Do you think she’d like me?”Luke asked.“Your mom?”
I thought about it.My mom, who laughed too loud and loved too hard and never understood math but always checked my homework.Who made lemon meringue pie for breakfast on my birthday because nutrition was secondary to joy.
“She would have liked that you label the pea bags,” I said.“She liked order, even if she couldn’t keep it herself.”
Luke smiled in the dark.I could feel it.
“My mom would like you,” he said.“She hated hockey.She liked people who read books.She used to tell me,‘Lucas, be a person, not a position.’ She’d like that you force me to be a person.”
“I force you to be an accountant,” I corrected.“Distinct difference.”
“Close enough.”
His finger hooked around mine.The tip.A tentative anchor.
“Go to sleep, Austen,” he whispered.“We iterate tomorrow.”
“Okay,” I whispered back.
“And Austen?”
“Yeah?”
“I bought the family-sized mac and cheese,” he said.“We have leftovers.”
I smiled into the pillow, a small, painful cracking in my chest.It wasn’t a promise of forever.But for tonight, it was enough.
Outside, the wind howled around the empty brick corners of Stony Creek Hall.Inside, on a cheap rug between two twin beds, the variables settled.
We were the only two people in the world.And for the first time in my life, the math worked out perfectly.
