Malcolm doesn't even look up from his book.
I hide my smile behind my mug.
Finn appears in the doorway looking like he lost a fight with his own bed. He looks like he dressed himself in the dark—hair wild, t-shirt with its seams and tag showing on the outside, and feet clad in what could only be described as a sock identity crisis: navy blue on the left, candy-striped on the right.
He makes a beeline for the coffee pot like a man on a mission, pours himself a cup without bothering with cream or sugar and drinks it black and hot like he's punishing himself for existing before nine in the morning.
Then he drops into the chair next to mine with enough force that the table shakes.
His knee bumps mine under the table, warm and solid and utterly without ceremony.
I don't pull away.
The warmth spreads up my leg and I let it in without examining it too closely. Without asking myself what it means or whether I should feel guilty for accepting comfort from a pack that isn't mine.
"Morning," Finn mumbles into his mug.
"Morning," I say.
Malcolm turns another page.
We sit in the quiet together. The three of us. Coffee and morning light and the sound of birds outside.
It's nice in a way I didn't know I was missing. There's no careful choreography of who sits where and who gets attention and who's allowed to take up space. Just people existing in the same room without it feeling like a battle for territory.
I know I should be angry with them. I should be furious that they all made decisions about my life without telling me or asking me, but it's hard to be angry when I know they wanted to help me. And I know without them doing it the way they did, I'd still be stuck in that house with Ragon's pack.
There's still a part of me that stillwantsto be there, even after everything. But logically I know I wouldn't have survived it much longer.
So Iamangry at them. All of them. But mostly I'm angry at Ragon. And I'm even more disappointed with the rest of them.
But I'm here now, and I have to figure out the best way to move on and go forward. I just don't want to think about how bleak my options are looking.
After breakfast, Finn mentions the garden.
We're clearing plates when he says it, casual as anything, like it just occurred to him. "There's a mess out back if you want to take a look. Might have some herbs still alive under all the weeds. It could use someone who knows what they're doing."
I know he's lying.
Not about the garden being a mess, I saw it through the window yesterday—overgrown and wild, more forest than anything intentional.
But about it just occurring to him.
He watched me garden over the fence between our houses for months. I'd catch glimpses of him sometimes, pretending to be doing something else while I worked. Sometimes he'd come over. Sometimes he'd just watch. I know he's been sitting on this information, waiting for exactly the right moment to deploy it. When it could help instead of hurt.
I file that away. The careful timing. How he offers things without making them feel like charity.
"I'll check it out," I say.
His smile is small and satisfied, like I just passed a test I didn't know I was taking.
The garden out back is an absolute disaster.
Overgrown doesn't even cover it. Weeds have taken over everything, choking out whatever used to grow here. There are remnants of what might have been intentional planting once. A border of stones, a trellis collapsed under the weight of some vines. But it's been abandoned for long enough that nature has reclaimed most of it.
I crouch in the dirt and work with bare hands. I don’t have any gloves or tools, just skin and soil. The earth is cool and damp from recent rain, and it feels good under my fingernails. Real. Grounding.
I pull weeds carefully at first, then with more confidence as I find what I'm looking for underneath the chaos.
