“What?” He looks honestly confused, but how can I even explain to him what’s wrong? How can I explain to him what it’s like when a foster-whatever uses your name only because there’s a warning behind it, or anger, or some other negative bent? Or how once your name gets used up like that, once it gets polluted, you can’t scrub it clean again? It gets hard to hear it and feel anything at all. And how when you hear it sometimes, on those rare occasions when there’s love behind it, you wonder what kind of manipulation lurks there, tainting what should be a clean thing.

I never give people my name if I can help it. Ordering chai tea at a coffee shop, I’ve been Amber, Brittany, and Jessica. I used to try and give different names at school, but there were always those pesky attendance sheets revealing my name to a room full of strangers who I didn’t want to have it. It’s risky. It gives them a certain power over you even if they don’t know it. Some of them do know it and abuse it.

He doesn’t press me when I don’t answer.

“Ava,” he says, softening my name this time, coaxing.

A trap. A softly whispered name is always a trap.

I battle with my own muscles not to flinch away.

“Ava.” He tries a third time, reaching out and running a finger from my ear to my chin. This time my name is just my name. I sense nothing behind it.

I step forward.

“You can’t leave now. We can’t leave now. What about the others? This is our home.”

The home part gets me. Despite the fact that this place gives me the creeps, this is home for them. Home for Xander. They want to be home just as badly as I do, and they’re offering to make it my home too. Home is a thing you can learn to love, I hope. It doesn’t have to be the perfect place if you have the perfect people around you.

With a deep sigh, I nod my head.

He still has his fingers against my jaw, and they slide around to the back of my neck.

“Thank you,” he breathes, leaning down and pressing his lips against mine just long enough to clear my head for one blissful moment.

He steps back from me, but his hand lingers on my neck, as if removing it is too much effort.

I take another step toward him just as he pries himself away.

“Good night, my warrior.” His coyness trickles back as he turns and slides out the door.