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She’s not even a little bit like what he expected.

He thinks she might be worse.

I was eight when my mom lied to me for the first time.

That I can remember, at least.

I’ll be right back , she’d said, and I swear I still remember the feel of her hands gently smoothing my hair away from my face, I still remember a wild, miserable gaze skittering over the features I only partly inherited from her. I won’t be gone forever.

Even then, too young to know better but somehow capable of it anyway, I knew it wasn’t true. I wasn’t surprised when a year passed without her presence, then another, and another, and another.

Abandonment issues—that’s what I got from my mother.

Not her eyes or her smile. Just the bone-deep anxiety that no one is ever going to want me enough.

That I’m not wantable at all. It’s why I reject before I can be rejected.

Why I’ve never really had any friends let alone any relationships.

Why I don’t trust a damn thing anyone’s ever promised me.

Why I’ve been sitting on the steps outside Bright Horizons Rehabilitation Center for all of two minutes and I’ve already convinced myself that Lux isn’t coming.

Fussing with my shiny new red chip, I refuse to stare at the empty driveway. If she doesn’t come, she doesn’t come. That’s fine. It would be great, actually. A fucking relief. Then, I don’t have to go home, I don’t have to see my family, I don’t have to stay sober.

Not that I can’t. I could, if I wanted to.

If I thought I needed to, if I thought I actually had a problem.

Which I don’t. I didn’t . I had the shakes the first week here—big fucking deal.

It was anxiety and frustration and a whole lot of dread at the prospect of being trapped in another hellhole with more people who smile all the time and speak in that voice, the slow, lilting one that makes me feel like a fucking child.

Lux probably changed her mind. That’s why she’s—I glance at the cracked screen of the phone that didn’t receive a single message in the thirty whole days we were separated—four minutes late.

I changed her mind for her. We didn’t exactly part on excellent terms; I believe the last thing I said to her, as she was dropping me off at this phony utopia that looks more like a luxury spa and is such a far cry from the state-run facility I attended last time, was something along the lines of ‘ I’ll never forgive you for this. ’

A touch dramatic, sure, but I was pissed.

I was stuck in the past, remembering my first stint at rehab, remembering meeting Ricky and everything shitty that came from that.

I was in pain. I still am in pain, considering it’s only been four of the advised six week recovery time for my grade two sprain and I really should still be wearing that damn boot, but fuck if I’m wobbling onto the ranch like some kind of wounded prey.

I already feel vulnerable enough. I already dread enough, dread what’s to come, dread returning to the home I left.

For a reason—I left for a reason. A very good one.

It wasn’t a good place for me. I wasn’t a good person.

Not that I’m a particularly good one now either, but I don’t hurt anyone anymore.

I don’t constantly disappoint everyone. I don’t have to live with the weight of that disappointment, just like I don’t have to live with secrets and half-truths and not just my anger, but everyone else’s too, because I always thought we deserved to be angry.

I could never understand why it was only ever me that was enraged by the shit hand we’d been dealt. I still can’t.

God . This is already shit.

By the time I hear the rumble of a truck approaching, I’ve bitten my nails right down to the quick.

Frowning at my throbbing fingertips, I wait until the engine cuts out before slipping the proof of a single sober month into my back pocket and standing.

Only when I hear a door open do I glance at the truck idling at the bottom of the concrete steps, and quickly, I discover I was right.

Kind of.

Lux hasn’t come. She sent a different person in her stead—a better option, probably, I can acknowledge once I check my hurt feelings.

“ Oh my God. ”

As a perpetually excited pitch attacks my eardrums for the first time in two years, I wince. And again when it’s confirmed that my baby sister is still incapable of holding grudges—and of comprehending that not everyone loves physical contact as much as she does.

As Eliza wraps her arms around me, I do my best to reciprocate. I don’t do a great job, but she doesn’t seem to mind, grinning widely when she finally pulls away, and abruptly proves that there’s not much baby about her anymore.

She’s nineteen now. She’s got blonde highlights in her chestnut hair and artfully-applied makeup on her pretty face.

She still looks like my little Eliza though.

She still smiles like a kid, wide and unburdened.

Sounds like one too, like the clingy, codependent kids we all used to be, as she hugs me again and murmurs, “I missed you.”

Despite the lump in my throat, I manage to croak, “Yeah, you too.”

Linking our arms, Eliza starts to tug me down the steps, towards the unfamiliar parked truck. “Lux wanted to come,” she tells me as I try to peer through the windshield at whoever’s behind the wheel. “But something came up.”

Yeah, I’ve heard that one before. There’s always something .

“How’s your ankle”

“It’s fine,” I lie, and I swear the swollen joint throbs a little harder in reprimand.

“That’s good.” Eliza bumps her hip against mine. “Can’t really be a ranch hand with a bum ankle, right?”

“Right.”

Right . That’s what I am now. A good ol’ hired hand. Another one of Serenity’s hardworking employees. The work is hardly new to me—I’ve spent more than half of my life shoveling horse shit, just without the fancy title. It’ll be just like old times.

Except… not.

“You know,” Eliza starts in that rushed, animated way that makes it sound like she won’t be stopping for a while, and I brace for impact.

“Charlie and Simon are still around. Only part-time, though. And there’s a bunch of new hands too.

Had to hire them after the expansion ‘cause with Jackson not working as much and Grace and Hunter gone, we needed the help. I needed the help. I’m kinda the unofficial boss, y’know?

Well, when Lux isn’t around, obviously. I’m like the second-in-command. I—”

Woah, motormouth , I’m about to cut in. Kill the info-dumping. Can’t keep up.

Someone else’s hollering beats me to it.

Draws my gaze back to that truck I don’t recognize and the equally unfamiliar man in the driver’s seat, leaning out the rolled-down window and summoning us over with a crook of two fingers.

“C’mon, boss ,” the stranger calls teasingly, and I glance aside just in time to catch my sister’s cheeks turn pink.

“I’ve got a date with a hot blonde, and you know she’s impatient. ”

Eliza fucking giggles .

Abandoning me in favor of skipping towards this mystery man, she flicks the brim of the Stetson balanced atop his head. “Sorry, Finn.” With her back to me, I can’t see her face, but I can imagine her lashes fluttering hard enough to get a breeze going. “Think you can help Lottie with her bags?”

“I’m good,” I insist, but it’s futile. The car door’s already opening, a tall, bulky body already unfolding itself from the interior. Reaching for the bag attempting to add a broken shoulder to my lengthy list of problems with one hand, he slips his hat off with the other.

And while most of my energy is currently being channeled into being pissed the hell off that Lux sent some random guy to pick me up from rehab, I momentarily get distracted as I crane my neck and squint against the sunlight to get a better look at the stranger.

Suddenly, I get it. The giggling. Back during the phase of my life when good-looking guys were actually something of a priority to me, I probably would’ve fucking giggled too.

Dark brown skin. Tight, black curls cropped short.

Eyes such a deep shade of brown, I can practically see my reflection in them.

Not quite stocky, not lean either—a happy middle that I briefly, misguidedly consider perfect .

He flashes a toothy smile and shit, a set of dimples distract me even more, and I find myself reciprocating the handshake he initiates before I can think better of it.

“Finn Akello,” he introduces himself, his voice low and smooth. “I work at Serenity.”

Well, yeah . I can tell. The hat gave it away, as did the worn Wranglers molded to his lower half, the mud-encrusted boots on his feet too. And if the outfit didn’t clue me in, the hand clasping mine would. A rough hand—a ranch hand.

My new co-worker. Ha . At least the hard work comes with a good view.

Snatching my own hand back, I drag my palm over the rough denim of my skirt and wonder if that tingling sensation is just in my imagination. “Hi,” I greet a little too… huskily before clearing my throat. “I’m Lottie.”

The corner of a full mouth lifts as a strong chin dips. “I know.”

“Hm.” As the guy, Finn , dumps my bag in the bed of his truck, I lean against the dropped tailgate. “My reputation precedes me.”

Those dark eyes flick to me for a single second. “Yup.”

If I didn’t know any better, if it weren’t for that smile, for the way he circles around the hood of the truck to open the passenger door for me politely, I’d swear there was a bite to that word. Like he knows plenty about my reputation, that reputation, the awful one.

Like I said; this is already shit.

With every mile closer I get to Haven Ridge, the urge to vomit increases.

Eliza’s chatter is a nonstop buzz echoing around the truck’s interior, but I don’t hear a word of it.

I barely even register her presence, or the man beside me who splits his time between indulging my sister’s word-vomit and humming along to the radio.

I’m too busy abusing my poor fingernails some more and staring out the window as we enter middle-of-nowhere territory.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen so much open green space.

I missed it, I can’t deny that, but I don’t feel any relief at the sight of it.

I can’t. I have no room for anything but anxiety because I have no idea how this is going to go.

This upcoming family reunion. There are a million possibilities, and all of them are pretty damn grim.

I’m not naive enough to think Jackson is going to welcome me back the same way Eliza did.

It won’t be like it was with Lux either, he won’t be calm and firm even though that’s always what my brother has been, the cool-headed good guy.

The last time we saw each other, he broke that mould— I broke it.

We yelled and screamed and said horrible things, things that creep up and smack me upside the back of the head every so often, things I dwell on in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep.

And Grace. How’s my twin going to react to seeing me? How am I going to react to seeing her , to seeing my face on a kinder, happier, better person? We fought too. We never fight, but we did before I left, she knew I was leaving and she was so damn mad , and—

“Hey.” Cutting myself off mid-thought, I interrupt Eliza mid-sentence too, shifting to peer at her in the backseat. “You said Grace is gone ?”

Unbothered by the interruption, my little sister practically vibrates with excitement as she blurts, “She got a contract.”

“With who?”

Eliza rattles off the name of a soccer team I know just about everything about.

“Huh.” Slumping against the window, I stare unseeingly at the passing scenery.

Grace got a contract. Not just a contract, but the contract, with the women’s soccer team she’s been obsessed with since we were, like, five. My twin is doing exactly what she always wanted, what she worked like a dog to be able to do. She got her dream.

And I wasn't there to see it happen.

And I got… nothing.

I don’t say another word for the rest of the drive.