You’re mine now.
I almost melted into the goddamn blanket all over again.
I set the guitar aside, knowing I wouldn’t be able to play a note until I got this out of my system. I pressed my palm to the band, letting the name heat up under my skin.
It felt like belonging, and for the first time in a long time, it didn’t feel wrong at all.
It was weird, how a piece of leather could hold more heat than some whole rooms I’d lived in. I wondered if that was whyit wouldn’t stop reminding me of the night I first came to the McKenzie place.
The brain was an asshole that way—putting two totally unrelated things next to each other and then refusing to let go until you figured out what they had in common.
I still had the sketchbook I carried that night. I’d brought it with me from the last place Vivian and I had lived—somebody had left it behind, and I liked how it felt in my hands, solid and a little battered, the edges soft from years of flipping pages. The first dozen sheets were already filled with pencil ghosts: apartment kitchens, borrowed beds, shoes I’d never own.
It was my insurance policy against waking up and not knowing where I was. The weight of it in my backpack was the only thing that kept my heart from bailing out of my chest when I stepped onto the McKenzie porch.
I remembered that first night like it was burned onto the inside of my eyelids. The moon was a half-smile, the porch bulb flickering overhead, and the sound of frogs echoing from the field. Harlow opened the door, his whole body blocking out the world behind him, and he stared at me so long I almost dropped my bag. He said nothing, just looked me up and down with this stubborn, unblinking curiosity.
“He’s not gonna bite,” the social worker whispered, nudging me toward the threshold. “Just go in.”
I went. I’d learned pretty quickly that resistance only made things harder. The front hall smelled like yeast and lemon soap. I tried not to gawk, but the ceiling was so high and the floorboards so wide that it felt like walking into a cathedral where you were the only non-believer. Every shadow hid something big enough to swallow me whole.
Quiad was there, but I didn’t know his name yet. He stood just inside the door, silent, arms crossed, leaning against thewall. Besides the man that had answered the door, he was the tallest person I’d ever seen outside of a basketball game.
At first, I thought he was one of those weird uncle types they warned you about in foster orientation. But he kept his eyes on the floor, like he didn’t want to scare me.
I tried to hide behind the social worker, but she was already halfway into the kitchen, calling for "Mrs. McKenzie." So I did the only thing I could: I clung to my sketchbook, pressing it to my chest like it might deflect bullets. The rest of the family crowded around me, voices coming in waves—too many names, too much heat, too many expectations.
Harlow, Bodean, even Grandma Minnie, all tried to make small talk. I answered in monosyllables, hoping I’d get a chance to disappear before they noticed how badly my hands shook.
It was a while before I realized that the tall guy—Quiad—had followed us into the living room. He didn’t say a word, just hovered near the edge of the lamp’s glow, half-in and half-out of the room. When people talked at him, he nodded, but I never saw him actually speak.
I only looked directly at him once. He’d peeled his hands out of his sweatshirt pocket and flexed his fingers, like he was making sure they still worked. The back of his right hand was covered in an old scar, the kind that came from a knife or a really bad childhood. He had other marks, too—faint blue lines on his forearm, like tattoos someone had tried to erase but only made darker.
His face was all harsh angles: square jaw, slashed eyebrows, a nose that looked like it had been broken and never quite reset. But the thing that got me was his eyes. Brown, but not the kind of brown that faded into the rest of his face. These were sharp, almost black in the lamplight, and when he met my gaze it felt like being dropped into freezing water.
I couldn’t look away.
“Hey,” he said, voice gravelly, a single syllable that filled the room.
It was the only thing he said that whole night.
After the social worker left, the family scattered—everyone except Quiad, who stayed standing in the hall. I tried to carry my suitcase up the stairs, but the thing weighed more than I did, and after three steps I almost toppled backwards.
He caught it. Just—reached out one arm, steady as a fencepost, and stopped me from falling. He didn’t say "be careful," or "you okay," or anything like that. Just steadied me, then took the suitcase and walked up the stairs with it like it was empty. I followed, because what else was I going to do?
My bedroom was at the end of the hall. He set the suitcase down by the bed and turned to leave, but then paused in the doorway. I stood there, clutching the sketchbook, not sure what to do with my face.
“S-so, do you like, um, live here too?” I stammered, already hating myself for sounding like a child.
He looked at me, one eyebrow raised, then said, “Workshop’s mine. Live above it.”
I waited for him to add something, like “stay out of my way,” or “don’t touch my stuff,” or “I don’t do small talk.” But he just nodded once, then shut the door behind him, so soft I barely heard the latch click.
I sat on the bed, heart still thumping, and thought about the way his voice sounded. It was nothing, just a fact, but it hit me in the sternum so hard I wanted to hug myself to keep from coming apart. I opened the sketchbook and, without thinking, started drawing: his hands, the tension in his forearms, the shadow of his profile against the hall light.
When I finished, I stared at the page a long time. It was just lines and smudges, but it looked more like him than any photocould. The name under the drawing was just a blank. I didn’t know it yet. But even then, I think I knew I was in trouble.
I spent that whole first night tracing the drawing, over and over, my pulse jumping every time I thought I heard footsteps outside the door. I wanted to crawl out the window and run away, but I also wanted to wait for his voice again, just in case he changed his mind and decided to say one more thing.
