The names arrived without faces, without context, without anything except their own insistent presence. She’d been happy. She’d been laughing at Eva’s sketch and feeling Joy press fries on her and watching Lincoln smile, and now Randall’s data was flooding through her skull like it had been waiting for exactly this moment.
Like it refused to let her have anything. Pushed out her good memories and now making sure she couldn’t make new ones.
Morgan pressed her forehead against the cool glass of the mirror. Her reflection stared back—pale face, dark circles, eyes that looked hunted even when she was trying to enjoy herself.
Out there, Lincoln’s family and friends were laughing. Lincoln was smiling. A whole world of belonging existed just beyond that bathroom door.
Morgan splashed cold water on her face. Watched it drip from her chin. Arranged her expression into something that might pass for okay.
She’d spent twenty-eight years hiding her strangeness. She could hide this too.
When she returned to the table, Joy had ordered another round and was arguing with Becky about whether sweet potato fries counted as a vegetable. Bear was crowing about his victory. Theo was demanding a rematch that everyone knew he wouldn’t win.
Lincoln looked up the moment she appeared. His eyes moved across her face—not cataloging, not analyzing, just seeing. Just checking.
“You okay?” He spoke quietly enough that only she could hear.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” She slid in beside him. “Just needed a minute.”
He didn’t push. But his hand found hers under the table, fingers interlacing, and Morgan held on.
The evening kept unfolding, and Morgan let it carry her. The data lurked at the edges, but she found that if she focused on what was in front of her, it stayed manageable. Almost quiet.
More pool games. More drinks. More laughter that came from somewhere genuine. Eva told a story about Theo’s first attempt at cooking that involved a fire extinguisher and a deeply traumatized smoke detector.
“Oh, but last Christmas takes the cake,” Derek said. “Literally. Linc reorganized the entire dessert table by quality. He and Marie, our second cousin, created abrave endfor anything that required courage to eat.”
“Which was appropriate, given my mom’s brownies,” Theo said, nodding solemnly.
“Aunt Ray’s brownies,” Bear confirmed. “May they rest in peace.”
“Marie agreed our system was an improvement,” Lincoln said flatly, but the side of his mouth ticked. “People understood what they were getting into as soon as they got to the table.”
Joy spewed her water. “Marie is three and a half years old.”
Lincoln glared. “A very smart three and a half.”
Morgan watched them. The easy rhythm of people who’d loved one another their whole lives. The way they orbited around Lincoln—making space for his bluntness, catching his flat humor, including him in ways that felt effortless because they’d been doing it for decades.
This was what family looked like. Real family.
She’d never had this. Foster homes had been temporary by design, the connections always conditional, the belonging always borrowed. She’d learned early that staying too long meant eventual rejection. That getting attached meant getting left.
But these people had built something that held. And they’d decided, somewhere before they’d even met her, that Morgan was part of it.
The jukebox shifted and the upbeat rock song faded, replaced by something slower. A melody that sounded like it belonged in a different decade, all soft guitar and someone’s grandmother’s idea of romance.
Around the bar, couples began drifting toward the small wooden dance floor. Eva tugged Theo’s hand, and he went willingly despite loud protests about his coordination. Bear swept Joy up with practiced ease, rubbing her still-trim bellygently. Derek pulled Becky close, and she pretended to complain while leaning into him.
Morgan expected Lincoln to stay seated.
Dancing seemed like everything he avoided—unscripted physical contact, public performance, social rules he couldn’t compute. He’d stay in his chair and she’d understand, and it would be fine.
But he stood.
He didn’t say anything. Just pushed out his chair and turned to face her, his hand extended, his expression carrying something she couldn’t quite read.
She stared at that hand. The calluses on his palm from rappelling cliffs and other physical activities she would’ve never expected from him. The fingers that had touched her so carefully, learned her so thoroughly, held her through nightmares she couldn’t escape.
