Two Homes, No Place for Me Chapter 08

Two Homes, No Place for Me Chapter 08

When winter arrives, I am hospitalized with acute appendicitis.

The surgery is routine, but when I’m admitted, the nurse still asks, “Who should we call? Is someone coming to stay with you?”

I point to Mia, who is standing beside me.

“She’s my emergency contact.”

The nurse checks my file, “Do you want us to notify your parents?”

“No.”

After the surgery, I sleep for several hours.

When I wake up, there are people standing outside my hospital room.

Dad, Mom, Derek, and Holden have all come. They heard about me from Mia.

Mom’s eyes immediately fill with tears when she walks in.

“Why didn’t you tell us you were sick? We’re still your parents, Anne.”

I look at her.

“You used to tell me to call before I came home. You said someone would always be there to let me

in.”

“Last time, I stood outside for an hour.”

“So I don’t want to take that chance anymore. I don’t want to call and then wonder how long it’ll be

before someone actually comes.”

Mom covers her mouth, tears slipping down her cheeks.

Dad takes the hospital bill from the bedside table.

“I’ll take care of this.”

“No.”

“The school insurance covered it. I’ll pay whatever is left.”

His hand freezes in midair.

Derek peels an apple and holds it out to me.

“Anne, I was wrong. I shouldn’t have taken over your room, and I definitely shouldn’t have thrown your things in the trash.”

“I’ve cleared out the study completely. I even had all your awards reframed.”

I don’t take the apple.

“Weren’t they just garbage to you?”

Derek’s eyes immediately turn red.

Just then, Juliet calls Mom.

She says she has a fever. One hundred degrees Fahrenheit.

Mom immediately gets to her feet.

Dad instinctively reaches for his car keys.

Derek starts asking whether she’s taken any medicine.

Every movement is as automatic as it used to be.

They’re already heading toward the door when they suddenly stop.

Maybe they finally remember that I just had surgery.

Mom turns around, almost as if she needs to prove something.

“This time, I’m staying with you.”

Dad sits back down too.

“Juliet has her stepdad and a pack healer with her. She’s not alone.”

Holden silences Juliet’s repeated calls.

“I’m staying too.”

For once, it seems like they’ve finally made the right choice.

But I feel nothing.

I press the call button and ask the nurse to come in.

“Could you ask them to leave?”

Mom stares at me in disbelief.

“Anne, we’re staying. All of us. We’re choosing you this time.”

I look at her, “But I don’t need you anymore.”

I look at the family who has arrived too late.

“All those years, you kept telling me Juliet needed you more because she was more fragile.”

“Now you’re staying because you’re afraid I’m going to leave again.”

“It’s not because you finally understand me.”

“Guilt doesn’t make a family.”

“And choosing me once, at the very last minute, doesn’t make up for all the times you chose

someone else.”

The nurse escorts them out of the room.

Holden is the last one to leave.

He stands in the doorway and says quietly, “I’ll be right outside.”

I close my eyes, “Don’t wait for me. I’m not going back with you.”

The door slowly closes behind him.

Mia tucks the blanket around me.

On the nightstand sits the chicken soup and class notes my roommates brought me.

They never promised they would always be there.

But when I truly needed someone, not one of them was missing.

During my sophomore year, I enter a residential design competition.

I call my project One Room Each.

The description reads:

[Home isn’t about how big the house is. It’s about knowing there will always be a place for you, whether it’s your name in the family photo, your room in the house, or your access to the front door. Your place should never be something someone else can take away.]

My project wins first place.

After the school posts a photo from the awards ceremony on its official account, Derek is the first to

see it.

He sends me a long email.

He says he finally understands that the renovation sketch he drew as a child wasn’t just a silly

promise.

“I used to think that drawing was just a silly promise I made as a kid. Now I realize I was the one

who broke it.”

“I promised both my sisters they’d always have a room of their own. Then I turned yours into my

study.”

“I’m sorry, Anne.”

Dad and Mom contact me soon after.

They tell me they’ve cleared out a bedroom for me in both houses again.

My access has never been removed from either door. They change the sheets every month, and my

awards and photos are still displayed on the desk.

They ask if I can come home and stay for a few days over winter break.

I don’t say yes.

A bedroom that comes years too late doesn’t magically become home.

After the awards ceremony, Juliet comes to see me alone for the first time.

She has lost a lot of weight, and she no longer has everyone gathered around her the way she used

“Anne, things haven’t been the same since you left.”

“Dad won’t let me keep both rooms anymore. Mom makes me pack my own things now.’

“Derek says he can’t keep making everyone rearrange their lives just because I’m scared.”

Her eyes slowly turn red.

“Even Alpha Holden stopped taking my calls.”

She looks at me, her voice growing quieter.

“Is it only because you left?”

“Would everything go back to the way it was if you came home?”