JayJay POV
I got into the car without saying a word.
Jare didn't ask if I was okay. Percy didn't crack a joke. The silence between us wasn't awkward — it was sacred. Like they knew I was holding myself together with thread and breath.
The door shut behind me with a soft click. And just like that, I was leaving the Fernandez house. Leaving the lies. The silence. The people who saw me as a problem to solve.
Percy drove. Jare sat beside me in the back, close but not touching. I stared out the window, watching HVIS blur past — the school, the corner store, the street where I once cried so hard I forgot my name.
And then we turned onto Elcano Street.
Home.
The mansion stood just as I remembered it — tall, sun-warmed, chaotic in the best way. The gate still squeaked. The porch light still flickered. The mailbox still had the sticker: God is watching. I used to think that meant safety. Now I wasn't so sure.
We never moved.
Even after the crash. Even after Jenna took me. Even after the silence and the secrets and the years apart — this house stayed. And now, so had I.
Jare parked. Percy killed the engine.
No one moved.
Then Jare said, "You ready?"
I wasn't.
But I nodded anyway.
We stepped out together.
The air smelled like damp concrete and old mango trees. The kind of smell that clings to childhood. The kind that makes memories crawl out of corners you thought you'd sealed shut.
The front door was already open — Percy had sprinted ahead, yelling something about "reclaiming his throne." A shoe flew past the hallway. A cat I didn't recognize darted across the porch like it was escaping a war zone.
Chaos.
Real chaos.
The kind that felt like home.
I walked up the path slowly, my shoes crunching over gravel. The porch creaked under my weight.
And then I saw it — the swing.
Still hanging. Still crooked. Still mine.
FLASHBACK
We were seven. Jare pushed me too hard and I flew off the swing, scraped my knee, cried like the world was ending.
Mama Reycee came running, arms full of bandaids and kisses. "My brave girl," she whispered, wiping my tears. "You're tougher than the whole world."
BACK TO PRESENT
I touched the swing, fingers trailing over the frayed rope.
Jare stood behind me. "You remember?"
"I remember everything," I said.
We walked inside.
The mansion was quieter than I remembered. The walls were still warm. The chandelier still hung in the hallway. The kitchen still smelled faintly of cinnamon and lemon — like Mama Reycee had just stepped out for groceries.
But the silence? That was new.
I sat on the floor of the living room, knees pulled to my chest.
Jare sat beside me. Percy wandered in, holding a bag of fairy lights, a half-eaten donut, and a cat that definitely wasn't ours.
"Room's ready," he said. "It's aggressively cozy."
I smiled. "Aggressively?"
"Like, if you don't cry in there at least once, I've failed."
Jare snorted. "He's not wrong."
I stood up. "Show me."
Percy led me down the hall — past the old bathroom, past the room where Mama Reycee used to keep her sewing machine, past the door that used to be mine.
He opened it.
And I stopped.
Fairy lights. Blackout curtains. A mirror with gold trim. My old stuffed bear on the bed. A shelf with books I thought I'd lost. A framed photo of Dad and Mama Reycee, smiling like the world hadn't ended yet.
I stepped inside.
It smelled like lavender and lemon. Like safety.
I sat on the bed. Percy sat beside me. Jare leaned in the doorway.
"I don't know how to be okay," I said.
"You don't have to," Percy replied. "You just have to be here."
Jare nodded. "We'll figure out the rest."
I didn't cry.
But I let myself feel it.
And for the first time in years, I didn't feel like I was surviving.
I felt like I was home.