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His hand stops in my hair. “Mine?”

I think I stop breathing.

“Yeah,” I say.

We step over Koda on the way out. Rafe pulls the throw blanket off the armchair and drops it over Koda.

I watch him do it.

Then we go up.

I can’t get everything back in the duffel.

I’m kneeling on the guest-room floor with it unzipped in front of me, the black one from orientation, and it’s the same bag I came with. I packed it in about four minutes in my dorm room on the nineteenth. Jeans, two T-shirts, a long-sleeve, and a phone charger. It didn’t take long. There wasn’t much.

Now there’s the green flannel pajamas with the stars on them, and they take up half the bag by themselves. The cream scarf, which I’m going to wear in the car. Mr. Waleska’s book, hardcover, heavy, with the coffee ring on the back. My notebook is fatter than it was. There are pages of notes from Mr. Waleska’s book now, questions I wrote down, a Goodwill receipt shoved between two pages, and half a page I wrote at two in the morning and can barely read. I stole a pair of Rafe’s socks.

I sit back on my heels and look at all of it on the rug.

I came to this house with almost nothing. And now I can’t close my bag. It’s a stupid thing to get caught on. I know that. It’s pajamas, a scarf, a book. But it’s proof, too. Proof that I was here, that this actually happened.

I take the book out and decide to carry it.

The bag finally zips.

Downstairs, Rafe sees my duffle and grabs it from me.

“Thank you.”

He runs it out to the car and then Kylie and Nash walk down with their bags. Koda comes in five minutes later.

His parents come in and his mom reaches for me first.

“Thank you so much for having me,” I say over her shoulder. “I really appreciate everything.”

I pull back and look into her eyes. I almost feel nervous. “Really. Thank you.”

She pulls me in for another hug and then she goes to Rafe. He acts annoyed, but I see through it.

Mr. Waleska is in the doorway with a mug in his hand. He nods at the book under my arm.

“Don’t just read it,” he says.

“I won’t.”

“Argue with it. Half of it’s wrong now. Figure out which half.”

He looks at his son, and then he goes.

All of us go out to the car. I get in the passenger seat. Kylie, Nash, and Koda pile into the back.

The gates swing open at the bottom of the hill. I look back through the side mirror at the house getting smaller at the top of the drive. Then the trees close in, and it’s gone.

Around the half-hour mark, I open Mr. Waleska’s book in my lap. I’ve been reading it for three days. It’s old, older than I thought, with chapters about things like fax machines and the Yellow Pages that make Koda laugh when I read them out loud. But the margins are the best part. That small upright pencil, all the way through. Underlines. Question marks. No. Yes, but. Try this. One page with nothing but ASK written at the top in capitals and circled twice.

I’m on a chapter about knowing what you’re good at before you decide what to sell. There’s a note in the margin, in his pencil. You already know more than you think. Write it down.

I look at it for a long time. Then I take out my notebook and start writing.