Page 47 of Loaded

I’LL BE OVER IN FIFTEEN.

It’s more like twenty, but when I pull down the drive, like always, I wonder why it’s been so long since I drove home. I spent most of my life thinking I didn’t have a home. I didn’t find this one until I was almost a teenager. I thought I was so broken I could never be of use to anyone.

Dave and Seren, and Emerson too, honestly, glued me all back together. I’ll never be like someone who wasn’t shattered, but I can usually function well enough that people can’t tell how broken I am. And it’s all because of this place—these people.

Even stepping out of my car helps me breathe easier.

Seren understands what I need. She never ever pushes me to do things I don’t want to do. In fact, when we were younger, I’d come home crying sometimesabout some project I couldn’t fathom doing. Before I came to live with them, I was never at any one school long enough to worry about grades. But once I moved here, I realized I was pretty behind.

Group projects and class presentations practically left me covered in hives.

Seren went to bat for me and had the school provide something called ‘accommodations.’ It meant they had to find me an alternative assignment that I could do without wanting to crawl in a hole and never come out.

When I walk through the door, looking like a drowned cat, she holds out her arms. “Oh, Beebee.”

I rush into her arms.

She hugs me tightly, never asking any questions. Then she releases me. “Need a change of clothes? Or are we marinating for some reason?”

Most of my analogies are music ones, but all of hers are something to do with food and cooking. In spite of that, she herself is very thin. In fact, she looks like a movie star. Always has. It’s in her blood. My mom probably passed me a genetic disposition to be an alcoholic, whereas Seren got movie-star genes. Her grandmother was one of the most famous movie stars of her era, and the mansion Seren and Dave run as an inn used to be her family home, staffed while she was growing up with five full-time employees.

She had a very different childhood than I did.

And yet she gets me. When I finally emerge, wearing her slightly-too-big clothes, I feel like a totally different person. She always smells like lilacs, for one. I used to think it came from spending time in her garden, which she’s always working in when she’s not baking, but I think it must be a perfume. She smells this way year round.

But I smell like her right now, and I love it.

“Ready to eat?”

She didn’t mention rolls, but of course she made those, too. I swear, it’s a miracle everyone in this family isn’t a thousand pounds. “Thanks.”

“We should set up some kind of weekly dinners. I wonder if we could find a day everyone could come.”

“I’d love that,” I say. And I mean it. I think we all would. “What about Sundays? I get Sunday and Monday off every week.”

“I’ll text Ardath, Emerson, and Jake right now.” She beams. “What about Bentley and Barbara? Should I invite them? Or no?”

“Of course,” I say.

“It’ll be more chaotic, but their twins are so stinking cute.”

She’s not wrong about that, but family chaos is the good kind. After eating two plates of lasagna, even though it’s the vegetarian kind, and three rolls, I lean back and cry Uncle. “I’m so full you could stuff me for Thanksgiving.”

Seren smiles. “Good.”

“You didn’t go to Killian’s meet?”

“It’s in Philly, and I had to be here to meet the contractor.”

“What contractor?”

She sighs. “We’re remodeling theOceans Beneath Usroom—there was a busted pipe, so it moved to the top of the list. We’ve been waiting on this tile—it’s period, and it’s perfect—for three weeks.”

“A lot of people ask for that room, too.”

Seren nods. “Less than used to, but yeah. People still like that movie.” She looks almost sad. I suppose it’s inevitable that the pool of people who loved hergrandmother will shrink with time, but I can see why it would bum her out. It’s not about the money for Seren—it never has been. I’ve rarely met someone who cares about money less than she does.

“Thanks for texting me.” I look at my hands. “I had a rough night last night.”

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