"How is the season starting off?" Aunt Gina asked me. I didn't bother to correct that we were already halfway through the season.

We had her boyfriend over for dinner tonight. I liked Cooper, but I didn't really understand why they were so unstable.

"It's going really well actually. We have a new star player this season and won all of our games so far already."

She nods over the dishes as she scrubs the suds around our dirty plates. I grab a towel and join her to grab the clean dishes for drying.

It was just the two of us now, Cooper had left a little bit ago. Cooper attempted to make conversation with me and I soaked it all up. Aunt Gina pitched in here and there, asking me a few questions herself.

"You know your dad was MVP in high school?" She smiled softly.

"What? He never told me that," I say surprised. "What sport?"

"Football, and he wouldn't have, he was very humble when it came to sports."

"Huh." I think about it for a while as we go silent again. She scrubs, I dry, and we both think in silence.

"Gina?" I pause, trying to form the right words. "You know we talked one night... there was something about it that I wanted to bring up with you." I had been hesitating to talk to her about it every moment we spent together after that. This was the first time I was able to muster up the courage to mention anything.

I noticed her scrubbing slowed, but I still went on. "You said um, you said that I was smart. Smarter than you were at my age." I wait for some sort of reaction but she just keeps scrubbing on. "Aunt Gina, can you tell me what happened between you all? Why I didn't know you all these years?"

She lowers the plate into the soapy water and leaves it there. She stays quiet for a long dragged-out moment. And then she says, "I got pregnant."

I hold my breath. Aunt Gina didn't have any children. At least not that I knew of.

"And for a teenage girl just getting through high school... it was rough to say the very least. Our father was religious to the point where it was mortifyingly sinful to become pregnant outside of wedlock, yet not religious enough because he encouraged abortion before anyone else found out."

I stayed quiet as she went on with her scrubbing, mindlessly handing me dishes to dry. "My family and I, we were never really close, you know. We were pretty much strangers living under the same roof. My dad only practiced religion when it suited him. There was so much about growing up in that house that I hated. So much that I was supposed to grow into. When the pregnancy came around and I thought about raising a child in that household, I couldn't. Couldn't take the pressure, the expectations, the guilt... any of it. I left and never turned back."

"But you were still a minor, a teenager. Didn't they file you as missing when you ran away?"

"Like I said Briar, strangers under the same roof. No one cared enough and that suited me."

I blinked. "Not even my dad?"

She smiles a little, an ironic sort of lift of her mouth. "Michael and I were never friends. He was too busy with real friends and football and girls. He didn't have time for me."

It was hard to imagine my dad not connecting with somebody. He was my favorite person in the world. He was so kind and caring... how can she not see that? How could she not think he wouldn't have made time for her?

Did he really not care when she left? Or is that just what she thought?

"Can I ask... what happened to the baby?" I go on carefully, eager to not think too hard about my father when he wasn't my father yet.

"I had a miscarriage, fancy that. Soon after I left. The would-be father showed his true colors after that. So I rang him of every penny I could, got my GED, and started myself from the ground up."

"I'm sorry," I say. "That must have been really hard."

She shakes her head. "It's probably for the best that I wasn't a mother, especially at that time. Things happen for a reason, Briar. I live comfortably now."

We leave it at that, a long stretch of quiet between us. I think of what she said for a long time before I come up with another question for her. "Are we strangers?" I ask quietly.

She looks at me as she passes me the last of the dishes. "I suppose so, Briar," she says, a hint of sadness in her tone. "But I don't think we have to be." She reaches out and flicks some soap suds on my nose.

A surprised laugh slips out of me and I reach to rub the soap from my nose. After living with her for a year, this is the first time in a long time I felt a connection to family.

>><<>><<>><<>><<

"Roman?" He lifts his head up from his notebook. "Do you believe that people can change?"

It was a question I was considering all night after my conversation with Gina. She had no relationship with my father. My father didn't even mention her.

He silently considers this for a long moment. I become distracted while he does. He's resting his chin in his hand. His pinky finger is pushing into his bottom lip just slightly adding a pout.

"Only if they desire to change themselves," he answers.

I consider his words. Only if they desire to. I wonder if my dad had always been a good person or if he grew into the person I once knew him to be.

"Why do you ask?" Roman says, pulling me out of my thoughts.

"Something my aunt said about my dad. I just wonder if I knew the real him." My voice is quiet as I consider it.

"Were they close?" He asks.

I shake my head. "They only knew each other when they were teenagers. I didn't even know I had an aunt until I came to live here."

Roman considers this and nods his head. "So then don't do what you're doing to yourself."

"What do you mean?"

"You have a good memory of him right?" I nod in response and he continues. "So keep it that way. You knew him as your father, your aunt knew him as something completely different and in a completely different time. Overthinking won't get you anywhere."

When I process his words I feel a smile grow on my lips. "You know, you're kind of easy to talk to."

"Sure, when I want to be." he responds. "Now don't go advertising that."

I giggle at that. "It's not like anyone would believe me." His response was to knock his foot into mine, making me grin wider.

Movement across the room caught my eye. Naomi and Vera were at the other side of the room. They both had their lunches off to the side and had their laptops open, typing away and working together.

Things had been mellow on the squad for a while now. Ever since I got hurt and Val laid it into her, it's like she chose a different tactic against me. Instead of targeting me with slick words and sharp glares, Naomi chose to act as if I didn't exist.

This worked better for me as far as Naomi went. I'd rather she acted as if we were strangers from now on than continue to punish me for something that never happened.

Vera looked up from her work to catch me staring. She studies me for a moment across the room. I look away before she does. I've always wondered about what she thought but I was always too scared to find out. She was Naomi's closest friend after all.

Roman believed people could change if they wanted to but I wasn't about to waste my hope on the friendships that could have been. Not when I have the bonds that keep me occupied now.

I steal a glance at Roman working. He's doing that concentration thing where he mindlessly rubs at the back of his jaw. I feel the tug of my lips at his simple action and go back to my own work.

✎ This is so awkward... hi again.

I know it's been months since my last update. I went through some rough patches and honestly I forgot my password and didn't know how to get it back for a while. Life has been rough but I've been getting back on track and I love being back here.

I HATE THAT I'VE LOST READERS! I know that's a consequence of slow updating (and literally dropping off the face of the planet for months)

But if you're still here I'm so glad that you are :) plz don't hate me. WELCOME BACK <3