Bonus Chapter One Nora
Istop the car for the third time.
The engine hums under my hands, steady, patient. My fingers stay wrapped around the steering wheel, tighter than they need to be. My shoulders ache from holding them up for so long, my back pressed too straight against the seat.
“Maybe I just shouldn’t learn how to drive.”
I have said those words so many times these past few weeks that they have lost their weight, turned into a reflex I reach for whenever the road feels too wide, too uncertain.
“Absolutely not.” Maeve doesn’t even hesitate.
She’s already shaking her head next to me, arms crossed.
“I have a bet going with Myra,” she adds, pointing toward the empty stretch of street ahead like it personally offended her, “and today’s the last day.
You’re driving this entire street tonight.
I don’t care if we’re here until midnight. ”
“I have work tomorrow.”
“So do I,” Claire adds from the backseat, leaning forward between us. Her voice is light, easy, but there’s a grin in it. Always a grin with her.
I look at her through the rearview mirror, my eyes landing on her nose ring—today it’s green. It catches the light, a small, glinting star in the reflection. She changes it constantly. I’ve stopped trying to keep track.
After that day at the movies, Claire had started texting me. Random things. Anything. A song she heard while waiting for the bus. A thought she couldn’t shake about a book she’d finished at three in the morning. A question that didn’t need an answer, posed just to see if I was there.
Then soon came the late-night conversations. The easy silence between replies. The kind of friendship that sneaks up on you.
She met Maeve. Maeve liked her immediately. Claire made it three minutes before making Maeve laugh. And just like that, the two of them became the kind of friends who finish each other’s sentences.
Now the three of us just… are.
When I decided I wanted to learn how to drive, these two jumped at the chance to teach me.
I have no plans to buy a car. But I still want to learn.
Just in case I ever decide to buy one in the future.
So every night, we come here trying to see if I can circle through the street. And every night, I failed.
“And don’t you have a café to run?” I add, looking back at Maeve.
Maeve exhales, dragging a hand down her face. “Fine. One hour. We stay one more hour.” She points at me. “But we are finishing this. I am not losing another bet to Myra.”
I let out a breath that turns into a sigh. “You need to stop making bets,” I mutter. “I’m starting to worry about your financial future.”
She groans, throwing her head back against the seat. “Then help me! Let’s finish this tonight. Let me win for once.”
“It would be nice,” Claire adds casually, “to have someone else I can call when I need a ride.”
“Yes!” Maeve snaps her fingers. “Exactly. I’m exhausted doing it alone. This can be a group activity.”
Group activity.
We’ve been doing a lot of those.
They started small.
Late-night grocery runs that turned into wandering down aisles we didn’t need, arguing over snacks we weren’t going to buy, ending up with far too much anyway.
Movie nights where no one actually watched the movie. Maeve talked through half of it, Claire threw popcorn at her, and I sat between them, laughing more than I ever expected to.
Then Maeve bought a kayak—secondhand, duct-taped in places—and insisted we all learn to paddle together. We capsized twice. Claire lost a shoe. I laughed so hard my stomach ached for days.
We went to a farmers’ market after that, walking through the stalls in the late afternoon light.
Claire bought honey from a man with a grey beard who let her taste three different kinds before she chose.
Maeve bought bread still warm from the oven and ate half of it before we reached the car.
I bought a small bouquet of wildflowers—purple and white and yellow—and put them in a glass on my kitchen windowsill. They lasted almost two weeks.
We traveled, too. Nothing grand. Just the three of us in Maeve’s car, driving until the town fell away and the streets turned narrow and the sky opened up.
The first time, we ended up at a lookout point an hour outside the town—a pull-off on the side of a mountain road, nothing fancy, just a wooden railing and a view that went on forever. The sun was setting, spilling gold and pink across the valley, and the world felt suddenly, impossibly large.
Maeve climbed onto the railing—against all safety recommendations—and spread her arms like she was conducting the horizon.
Claire leaned against the hood of the car, arms crossed, grinning.
And I stood between them, laughing for no reason, the air cool on my skin, the sound of their voices tangled with mine.
We stayed until the stars came out. Until the cold drove us back to the car. Until Maeve found a station playing old rock songs and we all sang along, badly, all the way home.
That was the first trip.
Not the last.
We found places. Small places. A lake an hour north. A forest preserve with trails that looped back on themselves. A tiny diner in a town no one had heard of, where the waitress knew Maeve’s name by the second visit.
I didn’t want to go far. I didn’t want to see oceans or famous landmarks. I just wanted to be with them. To watch the world change outside the window. To know that when the car stopped, I would step out into somewhere new, and I wouldn’t be alone.
“C’mon, Nora,” Maeve says, pulling me back into the car, into the present. “We need to pick up Kieran too.”
They’d sent him out for doughnuts—an unnecessary errand, suspiciously timed—and then told him to wait at a specific spot along the route I was supposed to finish.
Halfway point.
Motivation, Maeve had called it.
I exhale, locking my hands on the wheel.
I am doing this today.
Half an hour later—the car creeping forward at a pace that would embarrass a bicycle—I finally see him. Kieran is standing in the exact spot Maeve had told him to stand. Beside the big tree, the one with the crooked branches that always looks like it’s reaching for something.
He’s holding the doughnut boxes against his chest, two of them, stacked like a small, sweet tower.
The car crawls toward him.
“Why doesn’t he just walk here?” Claire asks from the backseat. “That would be faster.”
I press the gas. Just a little.
Maeve glances at him, then back at me, a knowing look settling in. “He won’t do that.”
“Why not?”
Maeve shrugs, but there’s certainty in it. “Because I told him Nora would pick him up from that exact spot.”
I don’t need her to finish. I already know.
“He’s going to stay right there,” she adds, “until she reaches him.”
My mouth curves into a smile, wide enough that my cheeks press against my eyes. He’ll stand in the cold with doughnut boxes getting heavier by the minute, waiting for me to close the distance he could have closed himself in a few quick steps.
What would take seconds on foot stretches into minutes in the car. He doesn’t try to move until we reach him. Doesn’t rush. Doesn’t get fed up. He just stands there, watching the car approach, his attention fixed, calm, patient.
He opens the door and slides into the backseat. His eyes find mine almost instantly, like they always do, and his mouth lifts in a quiet smile meant just for me.
Before he can say anything, Maeve reaches across him and snatches one of the boxes straight out of his hands.
“Finally,” she mutters, already opening it.
Claire leans in immediately, the two of them crowding the space, completely ignoring him as they start passing doughnuts back and forth, arguing over which one is better.
Kieran just shakes his head, a soft, amused exhale leaving him. Then he opens the other box still in his hand. Without a word, he angles it toward me, sliding it carefully between the chaos of Maeve and Claire reaching across each other.
I pick one. A glazed one, the edges slightly sticky. I pass the box back to him. His fingers brush mine in the exchange.
I take a bite. It’s warm. Sweet. Soft in the middle.
Kieran picks one for himself after, almost as an afterthought, like he was waiting for me to go first.
For a moment, the car fills with nothing but the sound of chewing, wrappers shifting, muffled satisfaction. Maeve declares one of them “life-changing.” Claire disagrees. They argue anyway.
I wipe my hand on a tissue, my heart knocking against my ribs. “What if I can’t do it today too?”
Two pairs of eyes snap to mine. One pair was already there, watching from the backseat.
Kieran opens his mouth, but Maeve gets there first.
“Then we’ll do it tomorrow.”
I frown at her. “Didn’t you have a bet to win?”
She waves me off, already reaching for another doughnut. “It’s fine. I’ll just dodge Myra’s call. What’s she gonna do? Show up at my place demanding I give her money?”
We all speak at once.
“Yes.”
“That’s exactly what she’d do.”
“That’s the first thing she’d do.”
Maeve nods slowly, the reality settling onto her shoulders. “You’re right.” She turns to Kieran. “Would you—”
“I’m not lending you any more money.”
“Who said I was going to ask for money?” She scoffs, offended, though she absolutely was. “Now you’ll never hear the interesting thing I planned to tell you.” She huffs and turns to Claire. “So Claire—”
“No.” Claire takes another bite of her doughnut, unbothered.
Maeve sighs, defeated, slumping back in her seat. “Fine. I’ll figure something out.” She glares at both of them, pointing a sticky finger. “But I’ll remember this.”
My hands find the wheel again. I start the car. This time, when I press the gas, the speed comes easier. Less hesitation. Less fear.
I’m not going to stop halfway.
I’m going all the way.
Slowly—longer than it would have taken anyone else—I circle through the route. The streets blur past, familiar now, each one a small victory I’ve already won. The headlights sweep across the finish line, and I stop.
I sit there, hands still on the wheel, not believing I actually did it.
Then everyone inside the car cheers.
I look at each of them—Maeve’s wide smile, Claire’s nodding approval, Kieran’s eyes soft and proud—and I think: Why was I ever afraid?
I have a whole family now.
They weren’t going to be disappointed if I failed. They were going to show up anyway. With doughnuts. With bad jokes. With a car full of laughter and the kind of patience that doesn’t keep score.
Because that’s what family does.
And that support—that simple, steady, unwavering presence—made every scary thing fade.