I snorted, grateful for his simple but powerful words.Do it anyway.Yeah, I would. I already knew what it felt like to not have her in my life. Just, why did Quinn know about her apartment and not me?
By the time meetings wrapped and the building started to clear out, my legs were shot and my head was buzzing. I sat on the edge of my locker, scrolling through my phone again, bracing myself.
One missed text.
Em:Hey. Quick update—building management says it’s still going to be at least five weeks. I need to go look again but was hoping you could come with me? If not, that’s okay. No rush.
The timestamp made my chest ache. She’d sent it hours ago. Relief and guilt intertwined in my gut. She’d asked me to come with her. She wasn’t telling Quinn and doing this behind my back. It was fucking stupid that I worried so much about it.
Noah:Of course I’ll come with you. Let me know what times it’s available.
Em: Okay! I thought maybe after the Colts game.
Noah: Sounds good.
I stared at my phone, a million thoughts colliding and canceling each other out. I wanted to know everything—where she took Miles, whether the sun was out, if she laughed the way she did when something surprised her. I wanted to ask how he was doing, if he was holding up, if she felt okay carrying so much of his world for the day. But my fingers wouldn’t move. It felt like asking too much, like crossing a line I’d only just been invited to step near.
Then my phone buzzed.
Dad:Your mom is distraught. Fix this, Noah. Why break our family apart?
The words hit me square in the chest, sharp and familiar. The guilt came fast, like it always did, twisting with grief until I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. This was the part I never said out loud—that my biggest fear wasn’t losing a court battle or screwing up as a guardian. It was that maybe they were right. Maybe I had broken the family apart by choosing to follow Nat’s wishes instead of smoothing things over, instead of keeping the peace.
I leaned back against the locker, the cool metal biting through my shirt, and closed my eyes. I saw my sister’s handwriting in my head, the way her letters leaned right, the way she underlined things when she was serious.You’re the only one who gets it.She’d trusted me. With her kid. With her whole heart. I wasn’t breaking apart the family—I was holding together what she’d left behind.
My phone buzzed again.
This time, it wasn’t my dad.
It was Em.
The picture loaded slowly, like my phone was dragging out the moment on purpose. Sassy was front and center, tongue lolling out, eyes bright and stupid-happy. Miles was tucked against her side, arms wrapped around her neck, smiling so wide it looked like his face might split in two. Em was behind them, hair pulled back, sunglasses pushed up on her head, one hand steadying Miles, the other reaching for Sassy like she belonged there.
They looked…right.
My chest tightened in a way that wasn’t panic this time. It was something warmer. Something steadier. Miles looked relaxed, not guarded or tired, just happy in that easy kid way that had been missing for weeks. Sassy looked like she’d foundher people. And Em—Em looked like she fit there without trying, like she hadn’t had to force herself into the moment at all.
I realized, standing there in the empty locker room, that this was the picture my parents were afraid of. Not instability. Not chaos. This.
A family that didn’t look like the one I grew up in.
I thought about the way Em had held Miles that morning, how she spoke to him like he mattered, how she didn’t talk down to him or try to fix him. I thought about the hug she’d asked for, the way she’d melted into my chest like she trusted me to hold her there. I thought about the kiss, and how it hadn’t felt reckless or impulsive. It had felt overdue.
I typed back before I could overthink it.
Me:Looks like a good day.
Three dots appeared almost immediately.
Em:He wanted the slide twice. Sassy thinks she’s a lap dog now. We’re grabbing smoothies on the way home.
I smiled despite myself, something loosening behind my ribs. This was what I wanted to come home to. Not quiet. Not empty. Noise and mess and life spilling into corners I didn’t know were lonely until they weren’t anymore.
My dad’s text still sat there, unread now but no longer loud. He and my mom were hurting. I knew they felt shut out. But this wasn’t about punishment or pride. It was about choosing the family that needed me most, even if it didn’t look the way they expected it to.
I looked at the photo again, at Miles’s grin and Sassy’s ridiculous face and Em’s steady presence behind them.
And something settled.
