Kesley surprised Brick and her mom when she appeared in the dining room doorway. An oversized t-shirt draped her body and long baggy basketball shorts hung past her knees. Above a drawing of an Indian chief on the t-shirt, it said, INDIAN RUN 10K.

"Hi, Kels," said Skyden, lifting her plate and Cameron's from the table. "Where'd you find that? I thought we threw that t-shirt away years ago."

Kelsey watched the dishes being cleared. "Why didn't anybody call me for dinner?"

"We thought you were sleeping," Cameron called from the kitchen.

Kelsey took her usual seat, moving gingerly, obviously in pain. "I'm starving. You guys finished eating?"

Skyden asked, "Are you taking your meds, Kels? You look–"

"I'm not taking those pills. I'm just not."

Her mom left it there and carried their plates into the kitchen and rinsed them briefly in the sink.

Cameron poked his head into the dining room. "There's plenty more food. Let me get you a plate and some silverware."

Kelsey read the look of pity in her father's eyes and answered with a crooked reassuring smile. She knew that her dad, her mom, and her brother were pretending to be normal for her benefit, being careful about what they said and how they said it. She realized she was tense and edgy but she wished they could get past all this and go back to a time when they didn't feel the need to tiptoe around her and she could be just Kelsey again, not Kelsey the girl who was almost raped and murdered. She felt like that version of Kelsey was living in another world and she needed to push that world and that Kelsey out of her mind.

She tilted her head back and sniffed. "What do I smell?"

Brick said quietly, "Chicken tacos. The chicken's kinda dry."

Cam entered, plate and silverware in hand and set them on the table. "I heard that." He dipped out of the room and returned a few moments later with a glass of water, which he placed in front of his daughter. He opened his hand and three Advil tablets rolled onto the table. "Kels, you know ice alone isn't going to fix that ankle."

"I know," she said. She downed the pills and chased them with a gulp of water.

Skyden came out of the kitchen and set bowls of salsa and chips on the table. "I appreciate you making dinner, hon."

"Even though I overcooked the chicken."

She placed her hand on his shoulder. "I thought it was good."

"I'm glad somebody around here appreciates bad cooking."

"The chips and salsa were pretty good," said Brick with a wicked grin, reaching for a handful of chips.

Kelsey scooped a dangerous load of salsa onto a chip and brought it to her mouth. A blob of salsa spilled, drawing a red stripe down her t-shirt across the Indian chief. She blotted her lap clumsily with a napkin.

"Whoa. Slow down there," said Cam.

Kelsey spotted her mom's high school yearbook on the side table. She got out of her chair, hobbled over, and flipped open the book.

"Maybe you want to eat first before you look at that," said Skyden.

Brick said in a deep voice, "Handle with care this document of ancient times."

Kelsey and Brick cracked up.

"Yearbooks don't age well," Skyden said.

Cameron kissed her cheek. "You do."

"Aw." She kissed him.

"A few decades from now," Cam said to his daughter, "when you look back on your yearbook, it'll be just as cringy."

"Yeah, probably." Kelsey turned a few pages, gawking at the photos. "Look at all this big hair! How did you even make your hair do that?"

"Some girls got perms," said Skyden. "The rest of us went all in on hairspray and other assorted products."

"Wow. Some of these girls look like..." Finding a photo of her barely recognizable mother, she squealed, "Look how blonde you were back then!"

"How about that?"

Kelsey noticed a Scrunchie in the photo. "What is this?"

"Lemme see. Skyden looked over her shoulder. "That's a Scrunchie. Everybody wore them. They were the thing."

Cameron said, "A girl couldn't Macarena if she didn't wear a Scrunchie." Skyden smiled.

"Couldn't what?" said Brick.

"Did you wear Scrunchies?" she asked her mom.

"Everybody did. I had a Scrunchie to match just about every outfit."

"He wanted me to put one in my hair," Kelsey said.

Cam's eyes met his wife's. "You sure you wanna look at this, Kels?"

Kelsey nodded. She turned the page. Her eyes tracked the rows of photos of Junior High kids. "He's a weird dude," she said. "He does this weird thing with his mouth." She imitated the man's facial tic.

An unlocked memory jolted Skyden. She looked like she'd bitten down on a high voltage wire, was thrown free, and couldn't imagine how she survived.