Page 4

Lila

I wake up to sunlight streaming through bare windows and the disorienting sensation of not knowing where I am.

For a moment—just a moment—I reach for the familiar warmth that should be beside me, the comforting weight of pack bonds that used to anchor me between sleep and waking. My hand finds only empty space and sheets that smell like lavender instead of them.

Then it all comes rushing back. Honeyridge Falls. The broken house. Maeve's kindness and Dean's warm smile and the fact that I'm completely, utterly alone for the first time in years.

And my complete failure at independence on day one.

I sit up slowly. The clean sheets Maeve brought are tangled around my legs, and the pillow that seemed perfectly adequate last night now feels lumpy and foreign. But I slept. Actually slept, without the anxiety dreams that have plagued me for weeks.

The room looks different in morning light, smaller somehow, but also more real. The water stain on the ceiling is definitely Texas-shaped, and there's a spider web in the corner that I somehow missed yesterday. But the sunshine makes everything feel possible instead of overwhelming.

Today, I'm going to prove I can handle things myself. Yesterday was a fluke—I was tired, overwhelmed, caught off guard by neighborly kindness I wasn't expecting. Today I'll figure out what this independence thing actually looks like.

I pad downstairs in my silk pajamas and bare feet, still marveling at the quiet.

No traffic, no pool maintenance crew, no pack moving around the kitchen making coffee and discussing their day.

Just the old house settling around me and birds that actually sound happy instead of the perpetually stressed pigeons of LA.

Dean's coffee maker sits ready on the counter, and I feel a little surge of pride as I figure out how to make my first pot of coffee as an independent adult. It's stronger than I'm used to, but it tastes like victory.

I'm halfway through my first cup, standing at the kitchen window and watching the morning light hit the mountains, when I hear it.

A metallic clunk from the front door, followed by the unmistakable sound of something hitting the floor.

I set down my coffee and walk to the entryway, where I discover that the front door knob has completely detached itself from the door. The interior handle lies on the hardwood floor like it just gave up on life, leaving a perfectly round hole where it used to be.

I can see straight through to the front porch.

"Are you kidding me?" I ask the empty house.

The house, predictably, doesn't answer.

I pick up the door knob and examine it. There are springs and screws and metal bits that all seem important but don't fit together in any way that makes sense to someone whose mechanical knowledge extends to operating a cappuccino machine.

This is exactly the kind of problem I would have called maintenance to handle in my old life. Or Dustin would have fixed it without me even knowing it was broken. But that's the old me—the me who let other people handle everything difficult or complicated.

The new me is going to figure this out.

Twenty minutes of searching through the mysterious closet under the stairs yields a small toolbox that looks like it hasn't been opened since the house was built.

Most of the tools are rusty mysteries, but there's a screwdriver that might work and something that could be a wrench if I squint at it right.

I spread the door knob components on the kitchen table like I'm performing surgery and try to understand how they're supposed to work together. There are clearly mechanisms involved, springs that need to be compressed, pieces that slide into other pieces, screws that hold everything in place.

This is exactly what I came here to learn. How to handle problems myself instead of immediately looking for someone else to fix them.

After an hour of frustrated attempts, my hands are dirty, my back hurts, and I'm no closer to having a functional door than when I started. Every time I think I've figured out the right configuration, something falls apart the moment I try to install it.

I sit on the front steps, staring at the defeated door knob components scattered around me, and feel that familiar weight of inadequacy settling over my shoulders.

I'm twenty-six years old and I can't even figure out how to reattach a door knob.

How am I supposed to live independently when I can't handle the most basic aspects of homeownership?

But then I notice the elastic hair tie around my wrist—a thick, sturdy one I use for yoga. It's not a permanent solution, but maybe...

This is what independence actually looks like, I tell myself. Not having all the right tools or knowledge, but figuring out creative solutions with what you have available.

It takes three attempts and considerable creative cursing to get the hair tie positioned correctly. The first try, everything falls apart the moment I let go. The second attempt holds for exactly ten seconds before the spring mechanism pops loose and scatters across the floor again.

On the third try, I manage to hold the pieces together while stretching the hair tie around the mechanism. It's precarious and looks ridiculous, but when I test it carefully, the knob turns and the latch catches.

Sort of.

I stand back and examine my handiwork with cautious pride. It's definitely not up to code, and I have to turn the handle just right or the whole thing threatens to fall apart again. But it works. Mostly.

And I did it myself.

"Take that, independence," I mutter to the door, then immediately feel foolish for talking to inanimate objects.

But the success gives me confidence to tackle other projects.

I spend the day exploring the house more thoroughly, making mental lists of everything that needs attention.

The bathroom door sticks—I'll figure out how to fix that.

The kitchen faucet drips unless positioned exactly right—there's probably a YouTube video for that.

There's a loose floorboard in the hallway that creaks ominously when stepped on—definitely something I can learn to handle.

The built-in bookshelves are actually beautiful under the dust, and the hardwood floors will be gorgeous once they're properly cleaned. The back porch, while sagging slightly, has a view of the mountains that makes me understand why someone built a house in this exact spot.

The bones are good. Everyone keeps saying that, and maybe they're right.

But the oven is another vintage appliance that probably hasn't been updated since the original owners moved out.

It takes me several tries to figure out how to light it—apparently there's a specific sequence involving the pilot light and a long kitchen match that I find in a drawer full of mysterious utensils.

I slide Dean's casserole dish into the oven, set what I hope is a reasonable temperature, and decide to use the twenty minutes it needs to heat up for some planning.

The living room is so empty it echoes, with just the old leather armchair sitting in front of the fireplace like it's holding down the fort.

I dig through my suitcase for my sketchbook—the one I used to carry everywhere before my career took off—and settle into the chair. Maybe I can figure out what this room actually needs, beyond the obvious answer of "everything."

I start sketching ideas for where a sofa might go, what kind of coffee table would work with the built-in shelves, whether there's room for a reading nook by the windows. This is exactly what I wanted, time and space to make my own decisions about what I want my life to look like.

I'm adding notes about paint colors when I smell something burning. Not the good, warming-food smell I'm expecting, but the sharp, acrid scent of something going very wrong.

I race to the kitchen to find smoke pouring from the oven and the smoke detector shrieking like it's personally offended by my cooking attempts.

The casserole dish is a blackened disaster, and when I open the oven door, more smoke billows out, carrying the unmistakable smell of burnt cheese and ruined dreams.

I turn off the oven and open every window I can reach, flapping a dish towel at the smoke detector until it finally stops screaming at me. The casserole—Dean's perfectly prepared, thoughtfully given casserole—is completely unsalvageable. Charred beyond recognition.

I stare at the destroyed food and feel something crumble inside my chest. It's not just about the casserole. It's about taking something kind and generous that someone made for me and turning it into smoking garbage because I can't figure out how to use a basic kitchen appliance.

But it's more than that. It's proof that I really don't know how to take care of myself. That maybe everyone was right and I do need someone else to handle the important stuff while I focus on... what? Looking pretty? Being grateful?

Dean spent time making this for me. Real time, real care, real thought about what I might need after a difficult day. And I've ruined it through sheer incompetence.

The tears come without warning. Hot, frustrated tears that I can't seem to stop.

I'm crying over a casserole, which is possibly the most pathetic thing I've done since moving here, but I can't help it.

The burned food feels like proof of everything I'm afraid of.

That I'm not cut out for this life, that I don't know how to take care of myself, that I'm going to fail at every basic task until I'm forced to crawl back to LA with my tail between my legs.

Or worse, until I'm forced to rely on attractive alphas to handle everything for me while I pretend that's not exactly what I was trying to avoid.

I sit at the kitchen table and let myself cry until I'm empty, surrounded by the lingering smell of my domestic failure.

That's when I hear the sirens.

At first, I think they're just passing through town, emergency services heading somewhere else for someone else's crisis. But they're getting louder, closer, and then they stop. Right outside my house.

Heavy footsteps pound up my front porch, followed by urgent knocking.

"Fire department! Is everyone okay in there?"

Oh no. Someone called the fire department because of my culinary disaster. This is the exact opposite of proving I can handle things myself. This is announcing to the entire town that I can't even heat up leftovers without requiring emergency services.

So much for independence.