Chapter Seven #2
“It was gluten-free mac and cheese made with chickpea pasta and unicorn tears. Now it’s dust and broken dreams.” Tossing it in the trash makes me sad, and I give up unpacking for now, turning to give Abby my full attention. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you.”
“For?”
“Helping me get my diagnosis. Surviving college while sick and depressed.” I shake my head. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”
She scoffs, but her eyes are glassy. “Please. You’re a badass, Georgie. You never needed me, but you’re stuck with me anyway.”
Maybe it’s being so far from Abby—and the only home I’ve ever built for myself—but I miss her. And right now, I’m feeling more alone than I have in a long time. In a new place, searching for answers I doubt I’ll ever find, with an illness places like Heart Springs haven’t caught up to yet.
Celiac isn’t just a food thing. It’s an exhaustion thing.
A trust-your-gut-while-it’s-destroying-itself thing.
It was a mystery that stole years of my childhood—years I can’t get back. I was always tired. Always in pain. Always dismissed. I didn’t get real answers until I was in my twenties, and even then, it took everything in me to keep fighting for them.
Sometimes I wonder if it would’ve been different—if it would’ve hurt less—if I hadn’t grown up in foster care.
If I hadn’t been shuffled through seven homes by the time I turned fifteen.
Maybe if someone had stuck around long enough to notice I was always sick, always small, always struggling.
.. maybe then, I wouldn’t have felt like a ghost in my own body.
Maybe if someone had just seen me , I wouldn’t have disappeared for so damn long.
Abby saw me, though. She still does. That’s why she’s my ride or die.
“God, I miss you,” I murmur, blinking away the burn behind my eyes.
“I miss you more,” she says. Then she squints at the screen. “Are you crying again ?!”
“No!” I sniffle and wave a hand through the air. “It’s super dusty.”
“You’re crying.”
“So are you.”
She blinks, wiping her eyes. “I love you, ginger tits.”
“I love you too, witchling.”
After we hang up, I plug my phone into the charger and clean up the mess of empty boxes.
There’s still so much to do, but the thought of organizing this place, of trying to make it feel homey, is exhausting.
I’m already running on fumes, and there’s a bit of work I need to wrap up before I can crash.
Rain drums against the roof in hard, rhythmic bursts. I glance out the tiny window over the sink just as lightning splits the sky.
I used to be scared of storms. They felt too big, too loud—like the sky itself was angry, and I had nowhere to hide. I watched a lot of them from the porches of seven different houses across West Virginia. None of them ever felt like mine.
One of my foster moms once told me, “If you can hang on through the storm, the world always looks a little better after.” I didn’t understand it then. But somehow, the words stuck, and over time, they started to feel true.
Now, I love storms. The crack of thunder, the snap of lightning—it’s chaotic, but it’s beautiful. My favorite part, though, is what comes after. When everything goes still. When the air smells new. And, if you’re lucky, a rainbow arcs across the sky like a quiet little promise.
I make a quick cup of coffee and set up at the kitchen table, opening the guardianship file for Aurora Vernal.
I met her this week—spent time with her in the hospital.
At first, it was just to collect medical notes and check in with the doctors…
but then I couldn’t stop thinking about her sitting alone in that room.
She’s so small. Babbling and curious, but she cries a lot. The nurses say it’s just teething, but I know better. I know what it looks like when someone misses their parents.
My gut twists, and my fingers hesitate over the keyboard.
Mediation is tomorrow afternoon, and I want everything to be perfect. This is my first case here, and soon I’ll be handing it back to the original caseworker. I want to leave it better than I found it.
Once she’s back, I won’t have to see Kade anymore.
He’ll be out of my world, and so will Aurora.
This will all just be a brief blip in the middle of my life.
And Aurora? That sweet little girl will be one step closer to the forever family she deserves.
I can only hope that family is Kade—and that he gets his shit together in time.
After an hour, I close my laptop with a soft click. My eyes drift to the window again. The rain has stopped, and…
And there it is —stretching over the green pasture behind my little farmhouse—a perfect, glittering rainbow.
I stand and stretch, my sore knees cracking, hips protesting in quiet rebellion. The ache is familiar, rooted in years of undiagnosed damage, and I make a mental note to take something for the pain.
Leaning over the sink, I rest my elbows on the edge and stare at the rainbow.
It’s not the first one I’ve seen here. But something about this one feels different—brighter, maybe.
Like a sign that no matter what happens tomorrow, it’ll be okay.
That I won’t screw this up. That somehow, I won’t hurt a child who’s already lost too much.
My eyes flutter closed.
And like always, I make a wish.