“Well, if you need me, speak into the vent.”
Her lips quirked up at the sides. “You can really hear me?”
“Yep. Whenever anyone talks close by a vent, it travels right up the chute and into the room by my headboard.”
Sarah snorted. “Fun.”
“I’m learning blackmail secrets. It’s fascinating.”
She squeezed my fingers and released my hand. “Don’t spill the beans to anyone.”
“Never. I’m not a bean spiller.”
Sarah bumped her shoulder into mine before she entered her bedroom and closed the door with a silent click.
When I turned to head up the stairs, I felt a presence behind me. It wasn’t who I expected.
My gaze met Harmony’s tear-filled eyes as I looked over my shoulder. Her not making her presence known had me suspecting she hadn’t slept through my nightmare either.
Her hand pressed over her heart as her chin wobbled. Something about the way she stared at me reminded me briefly of Noma. Maybe it was the way she fiercely loved and cared for the people in this household or the understanding of suffering she couldn’t control. It could have been the determined set of her shoulders or even how hard she fought not to let her inner turmoil show.
It didn’t matter other than seeing her so vulnerable, willing to be transparent, helped me to feel like maybe there were others like Noma in the world. Here was someone taking the time to care about me and the rest of us, who ended up lost in a system that tore us away from everything we knew. For some, that was an answered prayer. For others, it was a nail in the coffin.
Harmony gathered her robe tighter around her waist before she gave me a trembling smile and headed back downstairs. There was no mistaking how deeply our pasts affected Harmony and Dale, and yet they still chose to foster kids and welcome special cases.
My Noma had found the perfect house for me, knowing it wouldn’t replace her, but I would still have a place that would protect me and people who would fight for lost causes. My breath stuttered in my lungs as my knuckles pressed into my sternum. Her loss still gutted me every single day, and I fought to control the rising tide of anger that pulsed and tried to punch through my chest.
Rubbing the aching spot, I headed upstairs and back to bed. It took a lot longer than I wanted to fall back asleep.
Seb stayed close to Blue in the following days, not quite hovering but remaining nearby as if he wanted to prevent any further nightmares and could vanquish them in daylight before they had a chance to haunt her dreams.
She never spoke much, but Blue’s eyes held a pain more shattering than any I had ever seen, rivaling my own and even my Noma’s. It was as if her soul had experienced trauma that seemed to follow her like a melancholy shadow, weighing her shoulders down as though every step she took was a struggle. The intensity of it seemed to linger inside the house, thickly hanging in the air.
When I woke up to the sound of dishes shattering a week later, I blinked the sleep from my eyes. A frustrated, stuttering curse followed the clatter, and I knew it was Seb. I had turned off my fan during the night, and the silence in the attic meant I could hear almost everything happening in the lower levels of the house, especially since the vent seemed to broadcast it all like a bullhorn by the headboard of my bed.
Rubbing the last remnants of sleep from my eyes, I sat up and shoved the blanket off. A bit disoriented, I bumped into the dresser as I left the room. A mumbled “Shit” fell from my lips as I stubbed my big toe and took the stairs, making my way down to the first floor. I padded across the floor in my socks, stopping when I spotted all the broken plates in a scattered pile beside the dining room table.
“F-f-fuck, Johnny.”
“You okay?” I bent my knees and helped gather up the largest of the broken pieces, tossing them in the nearby trash.
Finn entered the dining room, chipper per usual. “Again? We’ll be left to eat off paper plates at this rate.” In his baseball uniform, he walked right through the debris, then out the front door to where Dale was waiting. “Dumbass.”
Dick.
Shoulders drooped, Seb grabbed the broom and set about sweeping up the rest, including attempting to gather the scattered pieces Finn had spread as he walked through it, but he missed half of it. “Yeah.”
“Hey, look to your left,” I directed.
“Oh.” He swept again, not quite reaching all of it.
That was when I noticed how he squinted. “Seb?”
He glanced my way. “D-d-did I m-miss more?”
I reached for the broom as he sighed. “You can’t see what you’re trying to sweep, can you?”
After a long pause, he surrendered, shaking his head.
