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Nina

A gain with the eggshells.

They're all treating me like glass. Well, except for Mom, but I've seen her cry a few times to Dad now. I've been getting a lot of side eye the past four days and it's making me nervous.

I haven't told them about all the thoughts and feelings running rampant inside of me. I'm pretty sure they know I'm holding myself back at this point. Unlike in the past, I'm not doing it to protect them. I honestly just need time to sort myself out.

It helps that the guys have been sleeping like rocks, so sneaking away after particularly horrible nightmares is easy. A few nights I've gone to sit in my childhood bedroom to house hunt on my phone.

The guys don't know about that, obviously, but my dad does.

There's one floorboard in the upstairs hallway that creaks, and I step on it every time.

In the moment, it's not intentional, but when Dad wanders into my room looking sleepy in his sweatpants and sweatshirt, I realize I may wake him on purpose.

There've been many moments since being found the first time that I was wary of him. Not anymore. That terrifying afternoon when I was dragged back to hell, all I wanted was my dad.

Now he's here, with me, waking up with me every night I'm near without complaint. He even brought his laptop last night and helped me search for a new place to live with the guys.

When I would drift off, he would send me back to the basement to sleep, for which I've been grateful for. Not that I don't love my bedroom, it's just not me anymore.

I want to move forward, and yes, I know I'll have to deal with all the stuff in the past, but I really really want to be settled before I do that. There are a lot of awful things to unpack and the place to do that isn't under my parents' roof.

What I need is support, and that's exactly what my dad has been for me. So tonight, when he nudged me awake and told me to go snuggle Trevor, I smiled and nodded, but I didn't go to the basement.

Nope .

Tonight, I'm sitting outside near the streetlight with my butt on the curb. My breaths might be labored and my chest a little tight, but my goodness, I haven't felt this free since my sixteenth birthday.

I'm sure most people would find me weird right now, but I don't care.

I have scars all over my back, and spent twenty-six months living in a basement, bleeding out, and starving.

Then I was in a psych ward for twelve more months, trying to find myself again, as the therapists like to say.

Then I stayed home with my parents for eighteen months.

I am most definitely weird. So yes, sitting on the side of the road at four A.M. just because I can makes me feel incredibly free. And it's all because I found our new home.

Dad said he will put the money we get from the other house toward this one, but I fear as soon as Trevor hears that, there's going to be some macho-man argument about who pays for it.

As much as I wish to buy my own house, that's not possible right now. First, I should do what everyone hoped I would do the first time; find myself .

I think that starts with the house I really want about twenty minutes away. The sprawling garden screams my name even if it will be screaming for a whole other reason if I find out I don't have a green thumb.

So what if I kill a few plants and hate playing around with flowers and dirt? I actually want to try , which is a desire I haven't felt for so many years.

First we settle, then we deal, then we live . Yeah. Sounds perfect to me.