“When you grow up the way I did,” I start, then stop. I start again. “When nothing is permanent, you stop thinking long-term. You focus on getting through the day. Then the week. Then the month. The future feels like a luxury you can’t afford.”
Winnie sets down her fork. She’s watching me with those eyes—not pitying, just attentive. Present. “The way you grew up,” she repeats.
“Yeah.”
“You’ve never told me about it. Not really.” She meets my eyes. “Will you?”
No one’s ever asked me that before. Not like this—direct, unafraid, genuinely wanting to know. Most people dance around it, change the subject, or pretend they didn’t hear.
Winnie just asks. Like it’s simple. Like I’m allowed to answer. And not only allowed to answer, but also allowed to have complicated feelings about it if I want to.
“I was seven when my mom died,” I hear myself say. “Car accident. I don’t remember much about it—just the social worker showing up and telling me I had to go with her.”
“What about your dad?”
“Never knew him. Not even a name on the birth certificate.” I push a fry around my plate. “So I went into the system. Bounced around a lot. Six families and a couple of group homes in between. Eleven years of never knowing where I’d end up next.”
“Six families?”
“The first one had too many kids—I was just a number. The second one gave me back after three months because I was ‘too intense.’ The third…” I shake my head. “The dad lost his job and couldn’t afford an extra mouth. Others I barely remember. And the last one—”
I stop. Celine and Don. The ones who almost kept me.
“The last one?” Winnie prompts gently.
“They were good. The best placement I ever had.” My voice sounds distant, even to me. “Celine used to ruffle my hair and tell me I was a good kid. Don drove me back and forth to hockey every single day.”
“What happened?”
“Don got transferred for work—out of state. They couldn’t take me with them—something about jurisdiction, paperwork.” I shrug, as if it doesn’t still sting after all these years. “They moved, and I went to a group home. Then I aged out at eighteen.”
Winnie is quiet for a long moment. When she speaks, her voice is soft but fierce. “I’m so sorry, Banks. You deserved better.”
“I got hockey. That was enough.”
“Was it?”
The question hangs in the air between us. I look at her across the table—this woman who showed up with a cupcake, who took me to her favorite diner, who’s sitting here listening to my sob story without flinching.
“It was,” I say slowly. “Until recently.”
Her breath catches. I see it—the slight hitch in her chest, the way her lips part.
“Banks…”
“I don’t know how to do this, Win.” The words come out rougher than I intended. “I don’t know how to be with someone. I’ve spent my whole life building walls to keep people out. And then you showed up with your sunshine and your yoga and your—” I gesture vaguely. “Your everything. And suddenly none of my walls work anymore.”
She reaches across the table and takes my hand. Her fingers intertwine with mine—warm and certain.
“Maybe that’s okay,” she says. “Maybe walls aren’t supposed to last forever.”
“What if I hurt you?”
“What if you don’t?”
I don’t have an answer for that.
We sit there, connected—her hand in mine, the remains of our dinner growing cold on our plates.
