The latch clicked behind them, a sound so final it seemed to echo down the empty street. Marissa flinched at it, her shoulders drawing up like she expected a hand to land on them, a voice to call her back. But the door stayed shut. The house stayed quiet. And Julie Cooper-Nichol, for the first time in Marissa's memory, had nothing left to say.

Ryan's hand hovered near the small of her back, not quite touching. The morning air was cool and salt-tinged, the sun still low enough to paint the Cooper house in shades of gold that made it look almost welcoming. Almost like a home instead of a cage.

"You okay?" His voice was low, rough from sleep he hadn't gotten.

Marissa nodded, then shook her head, then laughed—a small, broken sound that cracked in the middle. "I don't know what I am." She turned to face him, and the morning light caught the red mark on her arm, faded now but still visible. "I think I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop."

Ryan's jaw tightened. He wanted to say something—she could see it in the way his mouth pressed into a thin line, the way his scarred knuckles flexed at his sides. But he didn't. He just nodded, like he understood, and that was somehow better than any words he could have found.

She shifted the strap of her bag on her shoulder, fingers twisting the worn leather. The bag was small, barely big enough for a change of clothes and her phone, but it felt heavier than anything she'd ever carried. "We should go," she said. "Before she changes her mind."

They started down the path together, gravel crunching under their shoes in the quiet morning. Ryan's jacket brushed against her arm with every step, a constant, grounding presence. She wanted to reach for his hand again, but something held her back—not fear, not hesitation, but a strange sort of tenderness, like if she held on too tight she might break the spell.

A bird called somewhere in the distance, a bright, insistent trill that seemed to cut through the heavy silence. Marissa looked up at the sky, pale blue and streaked with clouds, and realized she couldn't remember the last time she'd noticed the morning. Couldn't remember the last time she'd been outside this early without a purpose, without a performance.

"You think she'll call the cops?" Ryan asked, his eyes fixed on the street ahead.

Marissa considered it. "No. She won't want the attention. It would look bad." She paused. "She'll probably call my dad. Or pretend I don't exist until I come crawling back."

"You're not going back." It wasn't a question.

"No." She said it quietly, but firmly. "I'm not."

They reached the car—Seth's car, with the worn leather fob and the plastic superhero dangling from the keys. Ryan unlocked her door first, holding it open while she slid into the passenger seat. The leather was warm from the sun, and the car smelled faintly of fast food and comic books and something that might have been Seth's cologne. It was so normal, so unremarkably teenage, that Marissa felt her throat tighten.

Ryan got in beside her and sat for a moment with his hands on the wheel, not starting the engine. The silence stretched between them, comfortable but weighted.

"I don't know what happens next," he admitted finally. "I've never—" He stopped, shook his head. "I don't know the rules for this."

"For what?"

"For taking someone away from their family." He turned to look at her, his blue eyes steady and uncertain at once. "For being the reason someone doesn't go home."

Marissa reached over and covered his hand with hers. His knuckles were scarred, the skin rough and callused, but his fingers curled around hers with a gentleness that made her chest ache. "You're not the reason," she said. "You're the reason I have somewhere to go."

He looked at her for a long moment, something shifting in his expression—something raw and unguarded that he usually kept locked away. Then he nodded and turned the key in the ignition.

The engine hummed to life, and they pulled away from the Cooper house without looking back.

The drive to the Cohen house was short, but it felt like crossing a border. Newport Beach slid past the windows in a blur of manicured lawns and glass-fronted mansions, each one a monument to the life Marissa had grown up in—the life she was walking away from. She watched it go without regret, her fingers still tangled with Ryan's on the center console.

He parked in the Cohens' driveway and killed the engine. The house sat quiet in the morning light, warm and solid, the windows glowing with the soft gold of a home that was actually lived in. Marissa could see the kitchen light on, could imagine Sandy at the counter with his coffee, Kirsten folding a newspaper, Seth hunched over a bowl of cereal with his phone in one hand.

She swallowed. "Your family—"

"They're not—" Ryan started, then stopped. Rubbed the back of his neck. "They're good people. They'll—" He didn't finish, but the way he said it, like he was trying to convince himself, made her heart clench.

"Ryan." She waited until he looked at her. "If they don't want me here, I'll go. I'll figure something out. I don't want to make things harder for you."

Something flickered across his face—hurt, maybe, or frustration. "You're not a burden," he said, the words clipped and fierce. "Don't—" He stopped, jaw working. "Just don't do that. Don't make it easy for them to push you away."

Marissa blinked, surprised by the intensity in his voice. "I wasn't—"

"You were." He turned to face her fully, his hand still wrapped around hers. "I know that look. I've worn it my whole life. The 'I'm already packing' look. The 'I'll leave before they can leave me' look." His voice softened. "You don't have to do that here."

She didn't know what to say. The words sat in her throat, too big to swallow, too heavy to speak. She just nodded, and he nodded back, and they sat there for a moment in the quiet car, holding on to each other like anchors in a storm.

Then Ryan opened his door, and the spell broke.

The walk to the front door was short, but Marissa felt every step. The gravel path, the neat flower beds, the warm glow of the windows—it all felt like a world she didn't belong to, a life she hadn't earned. She hung back slightly, letting Ryan take the lead, her fingers twisting the strap of her bag again.

He raised his hand to knock, and she saw it—the slight tremor in his fingers, barely there, there and gone in an instant. He was nervous too. He was scared. And somehow, that made her braver.

The door swung open before his knuckles landed.

Sandy Cohen stood in the doorway in a rumpled bathrobe, his salt-and-pepper hair sticking up in about six different directions, a mug of coffee in one hand and his glasses perched crookedly on his nose. He took in the sight of them—Ryan with his hand still raised, Marissa hovering behind him with her bag clutched to her chest—and his face broke into a warm, crooked smile.

"You two look like you need breakfast," he said, stepping aside to let them in. "Come on. Kirsten's making pancakes."

Sandy's words landed like a life raft. Marissa opened her mouth to say something—thank you, or sorry, or I don't know what I'm doing here—but nothing came out. She just stood there, frozen on the threshold, her bag clutched to her chest like a shield.

Ryan glanced back at her, and something in his expression softened. He didn't say anything. He just reached back and took her hand, his scarred fingers sliding between hers, and that single touch was enough to unstick her feet.

The foyer was warm, smelling of coffee and something sweet—maple syrup, maybe, or vanilla. A pile of shoes sat by the door, sneakers and loafers tangled together in a way that would never have been allowed in the Cooper house. Marissa's eyes caught on them, on the chaos of it, and she felt something loosen in her chest. This was a house where people lived, not performed.

Sandy led them toward the kitchen, his bathrobe flapping around his legs, talking the whole way. "Kirsten's been up since six, which is either a good sign or a very bad sign, I haven't decided which. Seth is—well, you'll see. He's been hovering by the window like a nervous chihuahua since Ryan borrowed the car."

The kitchen was bright, all white cabinets and a big wooden table that had clearly seen better days. There were crayon marks on one corner—Seth's, probably, from when he was a kid—and a stack of newspapers that no one had bothered to recycle. Kirsten stood at the stove in a cashmere sweater and pearls, a spatula in her hand, her gray eyes taking in the scene with quiet assessment.

"Marissa," she said, and her voice was warm, not cold. "I'm glad you're here."

Marissa felt her throat tighten. She'd expected questions, demands, a lecture about responsibility and reputation. She'd expected to be treated like a problem to be solved. Instead, Kirsten just turned back to the stove and flipped a pancake, like this was the most normal thing in the world.

"Sit," Kirsten said. "You look exhausted."

Ryan pulled out a chair for Marissa, and she sank into it, her bag sliding off her shoulder and landing on the floor beside her. The chair was solid, sturdy, nothing like the delicate antiques in her mother's dining room. She ran her fingers over the worn wood grain, grounding herself in it.

Seth appeared in the doorway, a bowl of cereal in one hand and his phone in the other. He froze when he saw them, his eyes going wide behind his hipster glasses. "Oh. You're actually here. I thought Ryan was pulling my leg when he said—" He stopped, looked at Marissa, and his voice softened. "Hey, Marissa."

"Hey, Seth." She managed a small smile. "Thanks for the car."

"Anytime." He shuffled over to the table and sat down across from her, pushing his glasses up his nose. "I mean it. Anytime. That's kind of our thing around here."

Kirsten set a plate of pancakes in front of Marissa, and the smell hit her all at once—warm, buttery, sweet. Her stomach turned over, not with nausea but with something that felt dangerously close to hunger. She couldn't remember the last time she'd actually wanted to eat.

"Thank you," she said, and her voice cracked on the words.

Kirsten's hand landed on her shoulder, brief and warm. "Eat first. Talk later."

Ryan slid into the chair beside her, close enough that his knee pressed against hers under the table. It was a small touch, barely there, but it grounded her. She picked up her fork and took a bite, and the pancake was perfect—fluffy and warm and real.

For a long moment, no one said anything. The only sounds were the clink of silverware and the sizzle of the stove, and Marissa felt herself breathing deeper than she had in days. She was here. She was actually here.

"So," Sandy said, settling into his chair with his coffee. "What's the plan?"