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I slide the key into the lock.

It sticks.

Of course it fucking sticks.

I jiggle it the way Papa taught me, push against the door with my shoulder and—

There.

The smell hits me first.

I stop just inside.

Closed-up house. Old wood. The faint smell of whatever cleaning products Mama used the last time they were here and underneath it something I couldn't describe if I tried.

This house.

Every house has its own smell and somehow this one hasn't changed.

“Holy shit,” Chiara whispers behind me.

“Right?”

We step inside and I open the shutters, one after another, letting the afternoon sun spill into rooms that have been sitting dark and quiet.

The house slowly comes back to life around us.

It's not big or fancy. It never was.

The furniture is old, some of it older than me, and absolutely nothing matches because my parents have replaced things one at a time over the years without ever giving a shit whether the new thing went with the old one.

The floors are still covered in the same cool tiles I remember beneath my bare feet. Family pictures line the walls. There's an old wooden cabinet in the living room and I swear the television sitting across from the couch might be the same one Papa bought when I was ten.

“No fucking way.”

Chiara disappears down the hall and I follow, finding her already standing in the doorway of our old bedroom.

“Oh my God.”

For a second, we just stand there looking at the two beds that somehow survived all these years.

The room is smaller than I remember.

So much smaller.

“How the hell did we fit in here?”

“We were tiny.”

“You were tiny. I was normal.”

“You're one year older than me.”

“Still older.”

I shove her and walk inside.

Our childhood is fucking everywhere.