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Charlotte shrugged. “They’d become foster parents with the intention to adopt. Maybe they figured that was the only way to get a younger child. Most of the kids available for adoption are teens or have serious medical or emotional needs. One night, one of them came into my room and sat at the edge of my bed. Asked if she could read me a bedtime story.” Her lips broke into a tiny smile.

“They were so nice to me. They took turns reading me stories, climbed over each other to do things for me. It was kind of like a love bomb. After a few months, they told me about all these plans they had for me. That they’d been waiting for years for me.” Charlotte’s cheeks flushed with color. “How they’d been unable to have a baby despite nearly

a decade of trying, and after years of fostering hadn’t been able to keep a kid. Do you know how much pressure that is?

To have someone look at you like you’re the answer to their prayers when they’re part of your worst nightmare?”

Alex’s blood turned to ice and her stomach dropped. She’d known the pain of wanting to be a mother and then realizing it wasn’t going to happen for her. Would she have treated a child in her custody the same way? It wouldn’t have occurred to her that a child like Charlotte wouldn’t want the love and care she o ered.

“They were really nice people,” Charlotte repeated as if with regret. “But it was just too much. I didn’t want parents.

I had a mom, and I was so scared they’d try to replace her, that I freaked out. I took her wedding ring from the little dish by the sink. It had been her great grandmother’s or something. Smuggled inside someone’s body when they escaped Italy during World War II.”

Oh, God. No . Alex didn’t want to know what hurt, scared little Charlotte did with the ring.

“I waited for one of them to come see what was taking me so long in the bathroom. When the guy appeared in the wide-open doorway, I dropped the ring in the toilet and flushed.”

Charlotte shut her eyes tight against the memory, as if willing it to disappear from her mind, but it was obvious she’d been transported to another time. She’d relived it, but from the other person’s point of view.

“I had two more disrupted placements after that,” she explained after pausing to gather herself. “That makes people a hell of a lot less willing to take a chance on a kid.

Even a cute, little one. When I was eleven, I ended up in a group home until I finally aged out.”

It looked like Charlotte had more to say but didn’t know how. Alex wanted to let her share only as much as she wanted, but a question slipped out before she knew she’d formed it.

“What happened to your mom’s friend? Ms. Ilona. Do you still keep in touch?”

“It was too hard. Not only because I was shu ed from place to place, but because she reminded me so much of my old life. If I was going to survive, I had to become someone new. Someone much tougher.”

Heartbreak and devastation bubbled up in Alex’s gut, but she didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t just keep saying I’m sorry . It wasn’t going to get less inadequate or useless by virtue of repetition.

“A girl I shared a room with in my first temporary placement taught me this trick when I couldn’t stop crying at night. She got in my bed with me and squeezed me so tight.” Charlotte wiped a tear almost before it formed. “She told me that every time I walked in somewhere new, I was someone new. To pretend I’d just been born and left on that doorstep. Nothing had ever happened before that moment.

And when I left, I had to leave all my memories there. They didn’t belong to me. I was just borrowing them, like the bed and the clothes. I know it sounds kind of crazy, but to my terrified little seven-year-old brain, it made sense. It was something I could do, so I did. I thought about her for a while later, but I can’t remember her name. All I have is her

voice and the wisdom of a twelve-year-old that had already bounced around quite a bit.”

Alex dropped her hand and pulled her into the tightest embrace she’d ever given anyone. For a moment, Charlotte’s body was sti in hers. Of all the di erent ways they’d touched, this was new. Even though fully clothed, it was like they were connecting with absolutely nothing between them.

Not even their bodies.

Slowly, Charlotte snaked her arms around Alex’s waist and melted into her, holding her so close that it was like Alex wanted to secret her inside her chest and protect her from any further harm. Charlotte clung to her.

“Bet this is really sexy,” Charlotte said as she cleared her throat and stepped away. The way she concealed her face made it impossible to know whether she’d been crying.

All she wanted to do was hold Charlotte again, to tell her that she was grateful she’d shared that with her, that she wanted to get to know her soul not just her body, but it was too much. The words died in her throat, sore from holding back sympathetic tears.

Instead of responding, she took Charlotte’s face in her hands and kissed her so slowly and so deeply. Charlotte returned the sentiment with her lips, her tongue, her teeth.

As if she couldn’t speak what she was feeling either, but she could show it.

Charlotte broke the kiss first and rested her head Alex’s collarbone. She wanted to say so many things but couldn’t make herself speak them. Not even in her own mind. Was Charlotte thinking the same? Feeling the same?

The scent of nearly burning cheese wafted from the oven, and Charlotte bolted out of her arms. In her absence, Alex’s body went cold instantly. It was like the time she’d gone scuba diving and her oxygen tank malfunctioned. She couldn’t breathe without her.

“No worries. I saved it before it was too late,” Charlotte said with a smile as she pulled the slightly singed creation o the pizza stone.

Alex just gazed at her. Yes, I think you did.