The screen door bangs open before I can say anything more. Wren steps inside, cheeks pink from the evening wind, and Jasper follows behind her sober this time, but his energy is electric.
"Big news," he announces, his voice cutting through the room like a spark.
Brooks and I both turn.
"I’m moving to Houston," Jasper says, wrapping an arm around Wren like it’s the most natural thing in the world. "I’m going with her. I leave next week."
Mom’s head turns toward the announcement, remote forgotten in her lap.
My mouth opens, then closes again. I glance at Brooks, whose eyes are wide but proud.
Jasper shrugs. "I need a fresh start. And I think… I think Dad would want me to go. To stop running in circles here."
For a second, I just stare at him. My little brother—the one who used to fall asleep on the couch with cartoons blaring at 3 a.m., the one who quietly held Mom together when no one else could, the one Dad yelled at instead of thanking because he was scared and didn’t know where to put the fear—is leaving. On purpose. For himself. Not to escape, but to build. It hits me all at once that he’s not stuck anymore, and maybe he never was. Maybe I was the one who kept assuming none of us could leave without the whole place collapsing.
I step forward and wrap him in a hug, my heart full and aching all at once. "He’d be proud of you. You carried him when I couldn’t," I whisper. "Now go build something new."
And I believe he will.
Because maybe that’s what this season is about. It’s about learning how to live again. Not in grand, sweeping gestures, but in the quiet, steady ones. In clean dishes. In packed-up leftovers. In showing up, even when it’s hard.
Funny. I thought I had to leave to find clarity. But it was always here buried beneath laundry piles, porch steps, and people who never stopped loving me.
We celebrate with Dad’s favorite pasta dish and drinks and laughter. And then, the sun sinks lower on the horizon and Jasper takes Wren back to her parent’s house.
The kitchen is quiet now. Mom’s curled in Dad’s old recliner, half-asleep as the television casts a soft blue light across her cheekbones.
Now, it’s just us. Brooks and I sit side by side on a porch step, the night still and thick with late-summer air. The stars stretchacross the sky like a quilt. The cicadas sing. And somewhere in the distance, an owl hoots, then goes quiet.
It’s strange. A month ago, this house felt like a mausoleum—airless and heavy and full of everything we’d already lost. Tonight it doesn’t feel fixed exactly, but it feels… lived in. Mom is asleep in Dad’s chair instead of locked behind a door. Jasper’s talking about a future without apologizing for it. Brooks is selling his house. And I’m here. Not visiting. Not hovering like I’ve got one foot out the door.Here.
For once, the future doesn’t feel like something miles away. It feels like it’s sitting on this porch with us.
I tuck my legs under me. "I’m thinking of starting over with my account."
Brooks turns to me, brow lifted. "Deleting it?"
"No. Just… reframing it. Less about aesthetics. More about honesty. Real life. Messy days. Healing. Maybe even grief. Not as content. Just… as proof that I survived this."
He nods slowly. "You’ve always been good with words. Might help someone."
"I hope so," I murmur. "I think it might help me, too."
Silence drapes over us for a moment, comfortable this time.
"I’ve been thinking of getting a job," Brooks says suddenly. "Like… a real one."
I glance over. "A real job?"
He laughs under his breath. "Yeah. Something that pays me on purpose instead of just ‘helping out where I can.’ Maybe even full-time."
"Do you know what you want to do?" He shrugs, but it’s not the old kind of shrug. Not that ‘I’ll just float here forever’ shrug. This one has momentum in it.
"Not yet. But I think I’ll figure it out. I don’t feel stuck anymore."
"Good," I whisper. "You deserve more than stuck."
We sit with that for a while. The wind sails gently by. My fingers find his and we both hold on tight.
