My mother had been gone for three weeks when I stepped into Daniel Hayes’ house.
I carried one bag.
The rest of my life felt heavier than everything inside it.
I still couldn’t believe she was gone. I had tried so hard to push the thought out of my mind, pretending it wasn’t real. But I was grateful for the last year we had together. Her words. Her laughter. The last smile she gave me remained the most precious memory of my life
Everything changed after she died.
At the funeral, her fiancé Mr. Daniel Hayes told me he would take legal guardianship of me until I decided what to do with my life. Where to go. Who to become.
I didn’t have many memories of him. He was the man my mother chose. They had been together for four years, yet I had only seen him twice both times at dinner. I never liked family gatherings. After my parents’ divorce, I chose isolation. I stayed in my room. I dropped out of school, unable to recover from my first love, the boy who once told me he hated me.
My mother had asked me to transfer to another school. I refused. I told her I wanted to stay home. The truth was, I was running away from the perfect life everyone expected me to have. A life that had always felt fake.
Daniel gently took my bag, offering a soft smile.
“Welcome home, Alweez Morfin.”
The words caught me off guard. He welcomed me with kindness, as if I belonged here. I didn’t even know how I ended up in this house, but I remembered him crying at my mother’s funeral. He had held my hand and told me I would live with him not just because it was her wish, but because he loved her. That much was written all over his face.
I raised my eyes to the staircase when I heard muffled voices above me, low laughter, unfinished sentences.
“Stop,” one of them muttered.
“You’re an idiot.”
“Come on.”
It was long. Wide. Almost overwhelming.
My eyes widened as three boys walked down the steps.
I had heard Daniel had three sons, but I had never cared enough to ask about them. I imagined children ten years old, maybe younger.
But these weren’t Children
They were men.
I immediately lowered my gaze, heat rushing to my face. After what had happened with the boy I once loved, my view of men had become distorted. I was afraid of them. Ashamed around them. If I had known they would look like this, I might never have agreed to come here at all.
One of the boys suddenly stopped in front of me, staring in a way I couldn’t quite understand.
Without meaning to, a soft breath escaped my lips.
“Oh—uh.”
He immediately stepped back.
“Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
He moved away and stood beside the other two boys, leaving me standing there mortified. My face burned, heat rushing to my cheeks until I was sure I looked like a ripe tomato.
Daniel approached me with that gentle smile of his. He took my bag and headed upstairs without saying much, leaving me behind surrounded by his three sons in the most awkward silence imaginable.
I thought he should’ve taken me too. Not the bag.
The same boy who had been staring at me stepped closer again.
“I’m Lucas.”
I looked at him properly this time.
Blue eyes. A teasing smile. Long hair that fell effortlessly around his face.
He was handsome. That was the first thought that crossed my mind.
Typical Ravenwood.
The town was known for one thing: beautiful men. Everywhere you looked, there was someone like Lucas. It raised the standards impossibly high when it came to love.
That was probably why I had been the first one to get rejected.
Not because I wasn’t pretty but because men like him were used to being wanted
The silence didn’t last long.
“Don’t scare her, Lucas.”
The voice came from behind him, lazy, amused.
Another boy stepped forward, hands in his pockets, a crooked smile playing on his lips.
“I wasn’t,” Lucas said. “She just surprised me.”
The boy laughed softly.
“I’m Noah,” he said, looking directly at me. “Relax. We don’t bite.”
I wasn’t sure if that was supposed to make me feel better.
There was something about him that made my chest tighten. The way he looked at me like he already knew too much. Like he was testing something invisible between us.
I nodded, unsure what to say.
Then I felt it.
A presence.
I turned my head slightly and that’s when I saw him.
He stood a few steps back, leaning against the railing, arms crossed. He hadn’t said a word. Hadn’t smiled. Hadn’t moved.
Dark eyes. Calm. Observing.
He wasn’t looking at my face.
He was looking through me.
“This is Eli,” Noah said casually, glancing over his shoulder. “Don’t expect much conversation.”
Eli didn’t deny it.
He just held my gaze for a brief second long enough for something uncomfortable to settle in my chest before looking away.
For some reason, that hurt more than it should have.
“Nice to meet you,” I said quietly, even though I wasn’t sure he heard me.
He nodded once.
That was it.
No smile.
No words.
Just silence.
And yet, out of all of them…
He was the one I couldn’t stop thinking about.
I was lying in the garden, stretched across the grass while my mother watered the flowers nearby. Inside the house, my father was baking the strawberry cake I loved most.
I was reading a magazine, excitement written all over my face as I flipped through the pages, holding it above me with both hands until someone suddenly pulled it away.
Daniel stood there.
Before I could react, I saw my mother carrying the strawberry cake toward us. I looked back at the door, confused.
My father was supposed to be there.
Not Daniel.
“Come on, Alweez,” Daniel said, snapping his fingers playfully in front of my face. “Don’t you want some cake?”
“Come closer,” my mother added with a smile.
I felt disoriented as I moved toward them, unsure of what was happening, unsure why this summer felt so different.
Then
A sound cracked through the air.
The world around me shattered.
I opened my eyes.
I was in the bedroom Lucas had shown me earlier.
Daniel was gone.
I hadn’t even remembered falling asleep. Reality and dreams blurred together until I heard a soft noise nearby.
Noah stood in front of me, holding a book.
He was the one who had woken me.
I lifted my head slowly, still half-lost between sleep and reality. My cheek was pressed into the pillow, embarrassingly warm. I straightened up at once, smoothing my hair with my fingers as if that could erase the fact that I had been drooling only seconds ago.
“Relax,” he said with an easy smile. “I didn’t mean to scare you. Dinner’s ready.”
He turned to leave, then paused.
“Oh,” he added, glancing down at the book in his hands. “I thought you might like this.”
I frowned slightly. “Like… for tonight?”
“For whenever,” he said lightly, extending it toward me. “It helps. Or at least, it helped someone I knew.”
Curiosity stirred despite my hesitation. Books had always been my refuge, the one place where grief couldn’t follow me so closely. I took it from him and turned it over slowly.
The cover was simple. Too simple.
On grief. On closeness. On the quiet ways people try to survive loss.
My fingers tightened around the edges.
Noah watched my reaction carefully, his expression unreadable now.
“I didn’t mean anything weird by it,” he said quickly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Some people talk. Some run. Some pretend nothing happened. And some… find comfort in other ways.”
My chest felt strangely tight.
“I’m not saying it works for everyone,” he added, softer this time. “Just thought you should know you’re not… broken, for feeling things you don’t understand yet.”
Silence stretched between us.
Not awkward. Not exactly comfortable either.
Just honest.
“I—” I swallowed. “Thank you.”
He smiled, relieved. “Yeah. Sure.”
Then he stepped back toward the door.
“If you hate it, blame the book,” he said over his shoulder. “Not me.”
The door closed quietly behind him, leaving me alone with the book resting on my lap.
I stared at it for a long moment.
Whatever Noah had meant by it, it wasn’t a joke.
And somehow, that made it worse
I glanced at the door, half-expecting someone to walk in at any moment.
The book was still in my hands, so I quickly hid it behind my pillow.
Yet the title refused to leave my mind, and I couldn’t figure out what he had meant by it.
I got up and fixed my hair in front of the mirror.
My hair wasn’t much different I’d trimmed it a bit recently but it was what Mom wanted, a little change. She always loved giving me small makeovers. Maybe that’s why she loved theater and fantasy stories so much. Losing yourself in a story lets you forget yourself for a while, and maybe even become someone else.
In real life, you could change too, in small ways, every time