Kai is setting the table with Wren, and judging by the scowl on his face, he’d rather be doing literally anything else, but he won’t say that out loud because it’s Thanksgiving and his mom told him to do it.
Harlow stands at the counter beside Sherry, helping transfer something into a serving dish. She laughs at whatever her mom just said, her shoulder brushing hers, easy and unguarded in a way that makes something in my chest pull tight.
I’m leaning against the kitchen doorframe, officially assigned to staying out of the way until called upon, which suits me just fine. It gives me an excuse to stand here and watch her.
She’s wearing a cream-colored sweater, her hair down around her shoulders, and she’s beautiful, which isn’t exactly new. But this feels different somehow. Softer. Brighter. She looks comfortable in her own skin in a way that still catches me off guard sometimes—not because it’s new, but because I remember the earlier versions of her. The careful stillness. The way she used to map every room before she let herself settle into it.
She’s not doing that today.
She’s just here. Present. Laughing with her mom over something I can’t hear.
I watch her reach across the counter for a serving spoon without hesitating, without that brief internal calculation I used to catch in the smallest moments—especially the ones involving food.
“You’re staring,” Kai says, appearing beside me with a stack of napkins.
“I’m observing.”
He gives me a look that says exactly what he thinks of that distinction. Then his gaze follows mine to Harlow, and something in his expression shifts.
Relief.
The kind that’s probably been lodged in his chest for a long time and is only just now finding room to breathe.
He doesn’t say anything.
Neither do I.
Sometimes the things that matter most between people don’t need to be spoken out loud. They just need to be witnessed by someone who knows the whole story.
Kai heads back toward the dining room, and I push off the doorframe in search of a way to make myself useful.
The table is full in a way that makes the house feel smaller and warmer at the same time.
Sherry’s sister is here with her husband, Ron, who has strong opinions about football and shares them freely. There are cousins—two of them, college-aged and loud in the easy, comfortable way of people who’ve never had to make themselves small to survive. A family friend named Patrice has known Sherry since before Kai was born and calls everyone, including Thomas, baby.
Wren’s family is here, too, her mom and all four of her younger siblings, which somehow makes the room feel even louder.
It’s a lot of people. A lot of voices. A lot of dishes being passed and conversations overlapping.
Harlow sits beside me, and as the noise rises around her, she doesn’t flinch.
She passes the rolls without cataloging them. She takes the mashed potatoes when they come around and puts some on her plate. She listens to Ron’s latest football take and offers a response that’s polite enough to pass for respectful but sharp enough to make Thomas hide a smile behind his glass.
And she eats.
Not like she’s forcing herself so no one notices. Not like she’s doing it to avoid causing a scene. She eats because she wants to.
Just like a person sitting at a Thanksgiving table.
Which is what she is.
And I know enough about what it cost her to get here to understand that sentence isn’t as simple as it should be.
Under the table, I rest my hand on her knee and give it a gentle squeeze.
On her other side, Wren catches it. Her mouth curves with a smug little smile, and she gives me the slightest shake of her head before turning back to the conversation. I also catch the way Kai keeps glancing at her when he thinks nobody’s looking, which is its own thing entirely.
Thomas asks me something about hockey, and I answer. Harlow turns slightly toward me while I talk, her shoulder pressing into mine, and when I glance over, she’s already looking at me.
