AHHHHH. i know, i know. long time, no see. graduate school is hard, okay >.< this chapter is a culmination of times through my spring and summer semester where i would lie exhausted in bed and write a couple words at a time because it's all i had time/energy for. more about that later, but leave a like if you enjoyed, say hi in the comments, and please do enjoy xx

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To face the future with another, who means more than any other, is to be loved."

– The Rescuers

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I hardly slept. For once in a long time, there was nothing I wanted to escape from. I wanted to stay stuck in my silly thoughts of a silly boy taking up every inch of space in my mind and in my heart. I didn't need dreams when the memories of him and us were all the daydreams I needed. But now as I got ready to leave the apartment for school, the excitement that kept me up all night started to give way to a hint of shyness.

My existing romantic history consisted of a secret eight grade relationship that we both kept secret from our parents. Most of our "dates" were restricted to the rotation of Jimmy Johns, Panera, and – if we wanted to be fancy – Buffalo Wild Wings that were within walking distance of the school. As most middle school relationships go, it didn't last long. But this was different.

Different.

I smothered another smile into my hands as the thought triggered another memory from last night.

"What will all this look like in the morning?" I had asked Chris when I walked him to the door to say goodbye.

He seemed to ponder this as he shrugged on his coat and took his scarf from the coat rack, placing it around my neck. "It's gonna look the same but different," he said. My heart squeezed with fondness as he tugged me to him and pressed a kiss to my cheek and then my lips. "In a really amazing way."

As I put on Evellyn's pearl necklace – a statement piece to my everyday wardrobe – I wondered what kind of couple she and Papa were. I twisted the charm around my fingers as I walked into the hallway, stopping in front of the bookshelf where Gray's childhood stuffed deer sat, guarding the living room as our silent little watch pet.

What were the two of you like? I wondered.

Although reminders of her and Gray were scattered all around our home, I knew very few stories, and I yearned to learn more. If not to fuel the imaginative part of me that dreams of a universe that stitched the past and present to make one happy reality, I would feel more connected to Papa. I hated knowing there was such a huge part of him that I don't know and haven't known for years. More than once have their names teetered on the tip of my tongue recently. But with Papa and Aunt Suzie having a matching hole in their heart, I have years of learning to not let curiosity kill the cat.

The thought of Suzie reminded me of the message she sent to me late last night. I opened my phone to my messages and scrolled until I found her conversation thread.

Suzie: Hi, Darcy. Forgot to tell you I sent you a package a little while ago. Call me when it reaches you. Don't let your father see it – it's just between the two of us girls.

I sent an enthusiastic message in reply, but the last sentence made me feel anything but. What could Suzie have sent that Papa couldn't see? Surely it wasn't an early birthday present – not with their type of relationship. The tension between Papa and Suzie was yet another mystery from history, another thing for me to piece together eventually.

A knock at the door startled me from my thoughts and a glance at the clock told me Chris was right on time, just like he always was. I hurried to the door but froze with my hand atop the doorknob and my heart attempting a jail break through my chest.

"Relax, Darce, relax," I whispered, fanning my burning cheeks as if trying to blow out a candle flame with my hands.

Everything that's happened in the past couple days shuttered through my mind like a flipbook, leading to this exact moment. Since our time on the rooftop, the shift from Darcy + Chris = best friends to Darcy + Chris = best friends and something more has been our little secret. We've kept to our own little world for a while, and now it was time to step into the real world together as we are. But as I opened the door and embraced the swell in my chest at the sight of him in his favorite black hoodie and a smile that showed through his entire posture, I was struck with the finality of it all.

I wanted to love and be loved by him – openly, freely, and completely.

As if the universe knew what had to be done, the door to London's apartment flung open and out came the woman herself, just in time to see Chris's lips only mere centimeters to mine.

Both her backpack and her jaw dropped to the floor.

"Oh. My. Go–" I shut the door before London's scream could reach Papa's sleeping ears.

The gang's reaction wasn't any more different than London's this morning: hilarious yet mortifying. I just about full body tackled Marissa into being quiet as she began to scream while jumping in place. Bryson and Cooper – in turn – had tackled Chris into a celebration group huddle of back slaps and hair ruffling while Philip stood with a grin, nodding and saying, "It's about time."

The rest of the day carried on just how Chris said it would – the same but different in the most amazing way. The mundane routines of the day carried on but were riddled with tell-tale signs of our new relationship. No hiding, no holding back. Occasionally, a few mutual classmates would notice the subtle shift and ask us. Our response? "Yeah, we're together now."

The streak of "aw, that's great!" and "good for you guys!" came to a screeching halt as an unfamiliar boy came striding towards us after school to ask the same question. Instead of holding me close as we confirmed our relationship, Chris let go and stepped in front of me, putting space between me and the boy.

"Yeah, we're together. What about it?" I shivered immediately at his tone – low, cold, and full of steel. This was nothing like I've heard from him before. Not the boy who was the definition of cool, calm, and collected.

The boy was taller than Chris, with a long mop of curly red hair and small lips that turned upwards in almost a manic smile. "Wow. Wait 'till I tell Bridgit about this."

My eyes widened as I connected the dots. Bridgit's twin brother.

Chris shrugged. "Go ahead. Or don't, since it's not her business anyway. Oh, right! I guess you're too dense to understand the concept of boundaries, since you like to cross your sister's all the time by being a freak and sending me pictures of her and Daniel."

"Just thought you'd appreciate the updates. Are you telling me you don't?" the boy mocked.

Chris shook his head. "Lay off already. I'm tired of your shit, Tony, and I'm done with your harrassment. Do us all a favor and focus on your own life rather than mine or your sister's."

A crowd of students were beginning to form around us, some already taking their phones out to record the action. Tony gave a nonchalant shrug in response. "I could. But it's a lot more fun to fuck with you, though."

I blanched as Chris stepped forward and said, "How 'bout I fuck you up instead? I know you like to bark, but you couldn't land a bite if you tried."

Tony straighted. A flare of determination. A challenge accepted. "So confident you'll win this time? How 'bout we test it?"

Before I could take my next breath, a chorus of screams erupted around us as Tony closed the distance and shoved hard against Chris's chest, into me. The both of us collided hard into the lockers behind us, and I let out a cry as I slammed against the knob of a locker. Pain exploded down my back, taking my breath away, and I fell to my knees with tears springing to my eyes. A roar of students shouting filled the hallway, and when I looked up, my vision zeroed in on Chris pinning Tony to the floor. I blinked, and there was Cooper, Bryson, and Philip. Cooper caught Chris's raised fist before it could make an impact on Tony's face. Bryson pulled him up and back a couple feet. Philip put himself between him and Tony, shouting to Chris a warning of possible expulsion if he were to continue. Marissa slid down to her knees by my side and I could vaguely hear her asking me if I was okay over the crowd of students either egging the fight on or telling them to knock it off.

Cooper gestured wildly back to me, and Chris whirled. His eyes widened with concern seeing me hunched on the floor. Immediately he began to make his way towards me, but behind him, Tony scrambled to his feet and shouted, "I'm not done! I'll win this time!"

He started charging towards Chris again – absolute fury on his face – when another student broke from the crowd and grabbed him by the arms, pulling him backwards with a fierce tug. I recognized her immediately.

"Enough, Tony! Leave them alone! " Bridgit screamed, her matching red hair wild across her face. She practically matched her brother in height and possibly strength as Tony struggled to keep his balance against her unleashed fury. "What the hell is wrong with you?" she shouted, emphasizing each word with a pounding fist to his chest. "God, Tony, just leave me alone! Stop fucking causing trouble and just worry about yourself for once!"

"Break it up! Break it up right now!" a voice added in a booming shout from down the hall. The crowd parted as Mr. Patel, a younger teacher I recognized as Chris's English teacher, came running towards the scene. I slouched into Marissa and closed my eyes in relief as I saw Tony back down under the steely tone of his teacher's words.

"Principal's office," he barked. "Now!"

Although I was a vibrating mess of nerves, our innocence in this situation was the sword and shield I was taking into this fight against five adults looming over Chris and I in his apartment. Once the guilty and the jury arrived at the apartment, Camryn immediately sought refuge from the tension by escaping to her room and cranking up the volume on her iPad. Rebecca, Mark, Papa, Jessica, and Reece were all on various positions on the reaction scale, with Reece's nonchalance marking one end of the spectrum and Rebecca's fiery rage at the other end. I've always been told about the way disciplining Rebecca could be, and I could finally attest to how horrible it was to be on the receiving end of it – even if it was mostly directed at Chris. Despite bearing the reprimands since our trip to the principal's office, he has refused to let go of my hand. It was of little comfort, though. The cat was out of the bag, and this wasn't how I wanted everyone to find out.

"You could've been expelled!" Rebecca shouted at Chris. "Or suspended. Or broken a bone!"

"But none of the above happened, Rebecca. Look—" Reece reached over and patted Chris's cheek and then the other "— not a single bruise or scratch on that pretty face of his."

"Yeah, Mom, c'mon. Nobody was even hurt and Principal Gatzy just let us off with a warning," Chris said.

Rebecca placed her hands firmly on her hips. "A warning from a fight you still instigated."

Chris pressed his lips together as if to say "you got me there."

"It was barely a fight. If he was gonna properly fight me, he should've punched me, not shoved me."

I winced, but Reece nodded in agreement and reached over to bump fists with Chris. "That's right, little man. What an ameatur. You would've beat his ass again just like last time if it'd been a proper fight."

Rebecca's eyes bugged. Mark, who was on the disapproving but not particularly angry side of the spectrum, steered his seething wife out of strangle distance. "Boys," he warned.

To their credit, the boys apologized in unison before following Rebecca into the kitchen as she stormed off, saying things like, "He's been a total dick to me, Mom, you don't understand" and "Rebecca, it wasn't even a big deal. There was, like, no blood at all!"

I watched them trail after her and couldn't help the quirk of a smile. Blonde hair and brown hair. Pale skin and tanned skin. Thin frame and muscular frame. They were a product of brothers by bond and not by blood. Chris's readily reaction to threaten, to fight, to protect with loyalty fierce enough to cause harm and be harmed... This was Reece's influence, and it was damn cool to see.

Even if my back was aching with pain as a result.

The couch cushion lowered as a new presence took Chris's spot next to me. Seeing Papa's deep frown was like an injection of dread into my bloodstream. I wanted to eject my soul from my body like an escape pod.

"Are you hurt, honey?" he asked me.

I shook my head, determined to play cool. "No, Papa. I'm okay."

With a deadpan look, he handed me a frozen package of berries. "I saw you holding your back when you walked in. Don't lie to your old man."

I sighed, accepting defeat, and gratefully took the frozen fruit from his hands to position it into place on my back. I let out another sigh, this time in soothed relief. Jessica, who had been on the concerned side of the spectrum, patted my knee in sympathy and gave me a smile that said "Well, good luck, kiddo" before going down the hallway towards Camryn's room.

I couldn't tell what Papa was thinking. He's been nearly silent since showing up to Principal Gatzy's office with Mark. Either way, it pained me to know I must have disappointed him. I reached for his hands and pressed them to my forehead."I'm so sorry, Papa. He was just standing up for himself – and for us. Please don't be mad," I pleaded, adding with a whimper, "This isn't exactly how I wanted you to find out that me and Chris are together now."

"I agree that a call about a fight regarding my daughter's new boyfriend is not the most ideal, no."

I squeezed my eyes shut. "Please don't think bad of him, Papa," I whispered. With witness reports from me, the gang, and Bridgit, the official story Principal Gatzy told our parents was that Tony had instigated the confrontation and made the first contact in terms of fighting. However, Tony's shove was less damaging than the way Chris had shoved and pinned Tony to the damn floor. It was filed as a fight, but the consequences were no more than a slap on the wrist and a warning not to do it again. I slumped in relief as Papa echoed the sentiment.

"I'm not mad – this time," he said. "I'm glad nobody was seriously hurt, but I don't want it to happen again. Ever. Hear me?"

I quickly nodded in agreement while at the same time wishing I could telepathically bombard the boys with the words THANK YOU for stopping Chris when they did. This could have been a lot worse, but were we home-free?

"So..." I said, slowly. "Is it okay that we're... together now?"

Papa looked away, leaning his elbows onto his knees as he thought. I twisted my braid tight around my fingers, slowing my breath as if a sound too loud would negatively influence his answer. After an excruciatingly long moment of consideration, Papa said, mostly to himself, "Kids. They don't stay just ours forever, do they?"

His words nearly stopped my racing heart. "Oh, Papa..."

He waved a dismissing hand."Let's skip the threatening dad script and jump to the important stuff, hmm?" I froze as he reached forward and gently took the pearl necklace between his fingers. Part of me felt surprised. For a while, I didn't know if Papa realized I'd been wearing his love's necklace everyday. I wondered if it felt weird for him to see it worn by two women he cared for so deeply.

"Papa?"

His smile was warm, but his eyes turned watery. "Your happiness is mine. To be alive and in love is an honor that we don't get forever. So don't forget to cherish every single moment, my little north star."

This time, the tears did spill. I leaned in and wrapped my arms tight around the first man to show me what it looks like to love and be loved. The first man to say "I love you" – and to show it and say it everyday after my adoption until my trauma-trained brain rewired from "I'm not worthy of love" to "I am worthy of love."

"I'll love you forever and always, and even more after that, Papa," I vowed, squeezing him tight. Additional curious words formed on my tongue, but I held back. Would you tell me what it was like to love her?

This could go one of two ways: he closes off or he opens up. Most typically, it was almost never the latter, and I did not want to deal with the aftermath of souring the night because I tried to broach the subject. Instead, the two of us collected our emotions and stood to join the others. Fortunately, with our trial adjourned, the rest of the night was normal and wonderful. Jessica and Rebecca gushed at how their old hopeless romantic dreams of us being together one day had finally come true. Reece gave a speech accepting his award for best wingman. Mark had to extensively explain to Camryn that this in fact did not mean we were getting married, and Papa nearly walked out of the room saying he "won't be able to handle me in a white dress."

When given a ten minute warning before our departure from the Radley home, Chris excused us, saying that we were going to call our friends up on the rooftop before I had to go. I was grateful for the escape.

Up top, I closed my eyes and greedily inhaled the cool night air. I let the distant noises of the city and the sting of cold on my exposed skin ground me to the reality of what happened. The night's unfolding was the biggest sigh of relief after the afternoon's events.

From behind me, Chris wrapped his arms around my middle and rested his head in the space between my neck and shoulder. I shivered at the movement of his lips against my skin as he spoke.

"I'm sorry about today, Darce. I really don't get into fights – not like Reece when he was our age. Tony can mess with me, but I imagined him making trouble for you and for us in the future, and it just made me so fucking angry. But I shouldn't have picked a fight. I'm so sorry if I scared you."

"You're more lover than fighter, but I know you're both. That's what Reece taught you, isn't it?"

His smile was response enough, but his next words were coated in concern. "Is your dad mad at me?" When I shook my head, he perked and asked, "So, we're good then? It's okay we're together now?"

Those were my exact words to Papa earlier, and he couldn't have made me more emotional if he'd tried.

I turned in Chris's arms. Those beautiful eyes of his roamed my face, searching for the answer to my question on my features. When I reached up to cup his cheeks, those eyes dropped to my lips.

When I kissed him, I kissed him with the full force of Papa's words. As if I could communicate his lesson through lips and tongue and touch.

Yes, we can be together. We can be alive and in love, so let's cherish every moment together.

Despite operating on a haze of drowsiness and elation, I did not forget the specific task I had set out for myself the moment I stepped back into our apartment building.

"Go on ahead, Papa. I'm just gonna check if my package came. It's a birthday present for Marissa," I told him. The adrenaline from my utter lie began to wake my senses. I had to be careful to hide and discard the box without Papa seeing Aunt Suzie's return address on it. It didn't help that the box turned out to be larger and heavier than I expected.

"The hell is in here?" I huffed to myself as I used my elbow to press the up button for the elevator. I resisted the urge to shake the box and instead rested the box on one knee to give my arms a break. "I'm not a stalker, I'm not a stalker," I chanted quietly as I stood outside our apartment door with my ear pressed against the wood. Confirming Papa wasn't in the living room or the kitchen, I slowly pushed open the door and poked my head inside. He was in the shower.

With the grace of a first time burglar, I quickly and silently rushed past Papa's door and into my room, wincing as my bedroom door closed loudly with the push of my hip. In the case Papa was curious about what birthday gift I bought for my friend, I whirled around in search of some scissors.

"This is just between the two of us girls, huh?" I muttered as I spent two minutes wrestling with my old elementary school scissors against the box tape. The scissors eventually prevailed, and I wasted no time in flipping open the box to find...

A dozen journals?

"What the hell?" I whispered, scanning the designs of the various books inside. Why would Aunt Suzie send me so much stationary?

I picked up the thickest looking one. The pages sat puffed and wrinkled, as if water had spilled on them long ago, leaving them in its imperfect state. I opened the book up to a random page and realized in horror that these were someone's diary entries.

"Who's are –"

And then there. One word. A signature in elegant, tiny cursive.

Evellyn. 

HI, HELLOOO, i'm so happy i was able to get this out for you guys. i literally start my second year of my doctorate program for occupational therapy and, honestly, i'm dreading it. first year was so challenging, and my three month fieldwork out in the community was more tears than happiness. working in a hospital and geriatric population just isn't for me. so i'm very happy to be starting our pediatric (kids!) year tomorrow, and fingers crossed for happy days to come. 

it was important for me to get this chapter out for you before my semester started. as per my pattern, i'm really only able to get complete chapters out during my breaks (summer/winter). despite me having literally worked on this chapter sporadically throughout my two semesters, i was finally able to finish the bulk of it here during my two week break. i know these updates are far and few in-between, but i'm grateful for you guys still reading. 

so! i gotta get to bed and wake up tomorrow to start the new school year. best of luck to the back-to-school students out there, and lots of love to you all. let me know how you are -- y'know i love responding to comments <3

today's chapter question: what has love (romantically, platonically, familial wise) felt like to you?

as usual, best way to see what i'm up to is to follow my instagram trxblehearts. give the chapter a like if you liked it  <3 lots of love you guys, and i'll see you when i see you xx