Finding the four of them standing over me was like some impossible dream. Accepting hugs all at once from the people I truly love who truly love me sent me into inconsolable wails. No one was mad at me, like I worried they might be. Evelyn didn’t blame me for Drew. Ario didn’t hate me for Marcos. Vicky didn’t hate me for destroying her Avery lie. Marcos didn’t ask why I hadn’t tried to reach him.

I was loved, and it saved me.

Marcos shushed me and said that everything was okay as he took Ricky’s urn (“I’ve got him, you can let go.”). “Where’s Avery?” I asked Vicky as she clutched my cheeks in both hands.

“With my mom, don’t worry,” she said, nostrils shimmering with tears.

“He needs you—”

“I know, but I needed to be here. Okay?”

My rescue squad stayed with me for two more days in the city. Evelyn rented us hotel rooms, and we didn’t do much except hang out and return to normal. It was beyond bliss, but eventually, we needed a long-term plan.

And that’s when Evelyn took me in as if I was her son.

I’m currently in the middle of my senior year because of her; I’m killing it on my college applications because of her; and I haven’t lost my damn mind because of her. Weeks after I moved into her home in West Hollywood, my dad (a day late and a dollar short, as usual) found out what happened and halfheartedly offered to let me live with him in England. But I turned him down and a deal was made to let Evelyn foster me until I graduate. I like living with Evelyn, and I refuse to be an ocean apart from Marcos.

Evelyn lost her last shred of hope when her nephew didn’t make it back alive. Sometimes, it feels like she needs me as much as I need her.

My episode on the floor now soothed, Evelyn kisses my head and returns downstairs to the sound of sizzling pancakes. Marcos brings me next to him on the edge of the bed. I kiss him, but the throbbing pulse of my mother’s call turns up the volume on every one of my miserable feelings. I tap my skull before finding the right words: “It’s raining in here.”

To Marcos’s enormous credit, his expression never dips into pity. He summons his best dimples and says, “Can’t rain forever. I love you.”

Neither of us have said this yet. Everything remains on mute, but around the corners of the thunderheads in my mind, golden light blossoms. “Are you saying that because I’m being messy trash right now?”

“I love you,” he repeats flatly.

“You’re just saying that because—”

“I love you.”