Stella's POV

I can't settle down. Today is Sunday. Tomorrow is Monday. I'm going back to school tomorrow. When I asked Kate and Harry to go back to school, it seems like I forgot about all the disadvantages of going back to school and only saw two advantages: getting back to normal and seeing Noah. However, now, that I'm thinking about all the pros and cons of returning to school, the two benefits have left my mind and all of the disadvantages are eating away so much of my positivity that I woke up feeling nauseous this morning.

Unfortunately, the nausea did not go away at breakfast so I was tempted to tell Kate that I wasn't going to eat anything but I thought better of it when I imagined the lecture she would give me:

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It gives you energy to kick-start the day...

Therefore, I decide to serve myself a slice of toast, which I don't have the appetite to eat. While everyone else is chugging their food down, I simply stare at the slice and once Josh has finished his bowl of cereal, he glances at me, then at the toast.

"Kate would have started cooking dinner by the time you finish eating," he remarks.

"Josh, leave Stella alone!" Kate reproaches him for the comment he made before turning to me with a gentler tone, "Is there something wrong, Stella?"

"Is there something wrong? Why do you always think there's something wrong? It's like you're always waiting for me to mess up," I don't know where this anger is coming from.

"Stella, I don't know what's going on with you but how you think of how I think of you is not true," Kate is frowning, something that doesn't happen very often.

When the sour expression on my face remains later on during breakfast, Jake whispers into Evie's ear:

"Somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed!"

Clearly, the boy needs to work on his whispering skills because everyone on the table hears him.

"Jake!" Harry hisses like a snake.

I leave the table and run up the stairs to my bedroom, the slam of the door echoing throughout the house. Falling onto my unmade bed, I stare at the patterned ceiling while I try to calm down.

Why am I so angry? One minute, I'm the teenager begging Kate and Harry to send me back to school and the next, I don't want to even think about my return to school and in the process, I'm punishing people who haven't done anything wrong. What I can understand is that the reason why I got so snappy with Kate was because she wanted me to explain what's going on in my head when I couldn't even understand it myself! Ah!

I feel like I'm in the same state of confusion that I went through when my parents died. Everyone I met kept on repeating the same sentences:

I'm so sorry about what happened to your parents! You poor thing! How are you doing?

It would drive me insane. I knew that my parents were dead so you didn't have to remind me. I knew that I was suffering so you didn't have to remind me about that either. During my period of grief, I couldn't recognise each emotion I was feeling; my life became this one big 'I don't know'. That's what it feels like, now.

"Stella!" Kate calls out warily, "Can I come in?"

Hearing the cautiousness in her voice makes me feel even guiltier for losing my temper with her earlier.

"Yes," I croak out.

My foster parent enters the room, closing the door behind her for what I think is privacy.

"What's on your mind, Stella?" Kate questions, trying to apply a light-hearted tone to her voice but there is a noticeable edge to it. She perches on the edge of my bed.

"I'm sorry! I'm probably the most confusing child you have fostered! It's just that I'm a bit nervous...about going back to school tomorrow," I decide to come out with the truth. I owe it to Kate after how I treated her at breakfast.

"Why's that?" she asks, biting down on her bottom lip.

"These past weeks, the only people I've been surrounded by are you, Harry, Jake, Josh, Evie and Ellie. I will feel out of place when tomorrow, I'm constantly going to be around people similar in age to me. Also, I have lots of learning to catch up on."

Kate scrutinises me, unsure whether to believe me or not.

"I think I'd be more offended that you think I can't tell when you're keeping something from me than if you hurled a bunch of insults at me," she states.

I sigh, defeated.

"When I first came to Minehead Academy, I didn't feel like I belong there. Then, just as I started to feel a sense of belonging there, the...secrets of my past came out. Now, I stand no chance of belonging there," I explain with a pang in my heart.

Kate doesn't respond immediately and I wish she would just spit out what she has to say.

"Stella, you're an intelligent girl so I have a question for you. What's the difference between fitting in and belonging?"

Why did she bring this up?

"Why does that matter?" I ask, slightly puzzled.

"Just answer the question," Kate states like a robot, "Since you're always on that phone of yours, how about you use it for something useful."

She passes my phone to me, which I unlock. I tap Google up and search up:

belong meaning

When all the results I receive for 'belong meaning' are displayed on the screen of my phone, I scroll down to the definition that Kate wants:

(of a person) have an affinity for a specified place or situation.

I read this aloud to Kate and she repeats the question.

"Well, Google says the words 'fit in' and 'belong' are similar so there's not really much of a difference," I answer.

Kate gives me a 'I know more than you' smirk.

"Well, you're wrong. Fitting in is becoming who you think you need to be in order to be accepted. Belonging is being your authentic self and knowing no matter what happens, you belong to you."

Then, it hit me.

"You don't have to fit in at school because by being someone else you're losing yourself," Kate says before continuing with a dreamy look, "That's what is beautiful when you're younger, you're so innocent that it's normal to be yourself."

Coincidentally, Jake and Josh zoom past my closed bedroom door, presumably playing 'Tag' since Jake is exclaiming, "You can't catch me!"

"But then, as soon as you get older, you notice what's going around you and you have to choose who you want to be," the far away look that was in Kate's eyes is gone and she has a lot of firmness in her voice, "I cannot count how many people from my primary school changed as soon as we started secondary school. It's like they were different people. Stella, don't be like them! I don't know if I could handle it if you become a new person! I love this girl you are now and you have a place where you belong."

I belong.

I thought I'd never hear those two words after my parents died.

I'm unsure of whether I want to cry or laugh so I do both at the same time. Kate joins in and we stay in this position until a train of thought flows into my head.

Leaving my sitting position on my bed, I kneel down onto the hard floorboards that send a shiver down my spine because of the freezing temperature they're currently at. I hate winter! Kate has now stopped laughing and is asking:

"What are you doing, Stella?" she asks curiously.

I don't respond while I pull out my secret emergency bag from underneath my bed. Expecting to see a baffled look on Kate's face, I'm surprised when I look up to find her just staring at it blankly.

"You...knew about it, didn't you?" My question sounds more like a statement because I already know the answer.

"Unintentionally," Kate gives a one-word answer.

"How?" I choke out, the words leaving a dry, bitter aftertaste.

"You were so reluctant to clean your bedroom when you first arrived here and I thought that was normal, considering what you've been through. Cleaning was not your first priority. One day, you were out somewhere. Don't remember where but anyhow, I decided to sweep and mop your room for you so I moved all of the shoes under your bed. I found the bag and I had guessed what it was doing underneath your bed."

"Why didn't you confront me about it?" I ask, frowning.

"What good could it have done, anyway? I guarantee you it would have done more bad than good. When you walked into my house for the first time, you had that look in your eye that practically said: I would rather be in any other place in this world as long as it's not here."

My cheeks turn a shade of crimson; there might as well have been a hole in my head that revealed all my thoughts and Kate had peeped into it.

"Making someone feel like they're at home is a two-way process. I have to be hospitable but I can't force you to want to be here. So that's why I decided to not tell you about me knowing about the emergency bag. If you knew that I had been snooping, you probably would have wanted to leave even more. But, I really am sorry for not telling you."

"It's ok, Kate."