Huxley Bay isn’t like other small towns. It doesn’t feed off gossip or other people’s misfortune. We’re a community here. A family. Not the kind that pries, but the kind that remembers your birthday, drops off casseroles, and rallies when you need it—even when you say you don’t.
I step across the street, making my way to The Sketch Pad. The building rises in clean lines of glass and pale stone, crisp angles and wide windows. What’s cool about this place is that the architects inside helped design it.
The motion sensor detects me coming and the doors split open. A puff of vanilla-scented air hits me, immediately making me crave a sugary treat.
“Hey, Erin,” Lois calls from the receptionist desk, sliding the visitor’s badge across the surface.
“Hey, Lois. Thanks.” I clip the badge to my jeans.
“Book club is back at Bakes by the Lakes this weekend, right?” she asks, pressing the button to lift the badge-controlled entry barriers.
“Yep. No more rodents tagging along.”
She shivers. “Thank god.”
I laugh at the memory of Mrs. Darwin’s hamsters staring at us while eating bite-sized courgettes while we gushed over last month’s romance novel.
Nothing like swooning over cowboy spice under hamster surveillance.
I wave goodbye to Lois and step into the elevator. It hums as it climbs thirteen floors without making a single stop.
When I step out, it’s quiet and no one is around. Glass walls separate the waiting area from the offices, muted light streaming down from the ceiling above, making the space seem open.
I walk to the door that readsBELLA SILVER - ARCHITECTand push it open, but I don’t see my sister when I step inside.
A silver photo frame catches the light from the window, resting on the edge of the glass desk. I lift the frame, the cold metal edges pressing into my palm, as I stare at the picture of four faces radiating genuine happiness. Another reminder of how far I’ve come.
Adoption day. Six years ago.
My eyes well thinking back on the day I met the Silvers—the day I slipped onto a bus in Charlotte, hoping it would carry me far from Roger’s abuse.
The bus only took me as far as Detroit before my luck ran out and I landed in trouble at a diner. That’s where Bella found me. She took me back to her parents’ house in Michigan. The moment I saw Leon Silver, rigid in his khaki uniform, I hid beneath their table, convinced he would take me back to Roger.
Leon was an officer of the law. I was a runaway.
It was his job to report situations such as the one I was in.
But, in full uniform, Leon had ducked under the table I was hiding under and promised I was safe. He sat there with me until I believed him and finally felt brave enough to tell him about Roger. How he hurt me and Griff.
They didn’t send me away that night, but they did call CPS. I was allowed to stay with them as an emergency foster placement. It helped that Leon was high up in the ranks and his wife, Jenna, was a lawyer.
I was lucky enough to have my case fast-tracked, and after an investigation, Roger’s license was revoked. He was also charged with child abuse. They never found Griff, though. He was seventeen and left on his own a few days before I ran away.
A year after Roger’s arrest, the Silvers told me they wanted to adopt me, if that’s what I wanted.
And it was.
I was honest with them about most things—except one. What I saw happen to my dad. I didn’t tell them about the man with the tattoo who came for me, either. No one knew. Not even Roberta.
During the years I lived with Roger, he said a social worker had told him my dad died in a car accident.
The first time Roger told me that, he was drunk. He said that if I had been in the car with my dad, I wouldn’t be his problem.
I cried that night, because I knew it was a lie. I was there. I saw what happened, and it made me question why someone would lie, but I was too scared to ask anyone and too scared to tell the truth.
I just wanted a fresh start.
My mind drifts back to the day in the courtroom moments before the adoption was finalized and I became a Silver.
