She’d read the most recent messages. She knew what weighed on his heart.

This is the kind of thing where if it goes wrong, we can’t ever foster or adopt.

It’s not going to go wrong. We’ll explain.

Anton, I’m really worried.

This is the kind of thing where we need to be upfront with services for her sake and to cover our asses. Honesty is the best policy.

They wouldn’t ever adopt her, they wouldn’t adopt anyone. They were some of the best people and parents she’d known and they’d lose the ability to ever be parents. Because of her.

She’d considered running away, but she worried that would make things worse.

Cornered. Trapped. Drowning.

Everything was off. Things at school were off, because she was trying to put on a veneer of normal when she felt anything but, practicing being ordinary and casual so she would be ready today, and people thought it felt forced, which only made her feel the need to practice more. It was a feedback loop that had led to her being called creepy.

She wanted to scream and throw things and she wanted to curl up into a ball and eat her feet and keep eating until she was nothing.

“I brought snacks,” Keith said. “I don’t know if that’s appropriate, given what we’re doing.”

“I don’t know either,” she said.

“All you have to do,” he said. “Is you tell the truth. I’m not going to ask you to say or do anything more. Yeah?”

She nodded.

He smiled. He reached over and mussed up her hair. She tried to fix it.

“Help me get the snacks out?”

She hurried to get the bowls for the chips and the chocolate covered peanuts.

Antonio showed up a few minutes later, and decided a smaller number of snacks would be more fitting for the occasion. Too much, he opined, was a party, and this wasn’t a party occasion.

The child services workers arrived, with the therapist in tow.

“I’ll talk to her alone? Then we’ll trade off?” the man said, looking at Mrs. Yaris and the other woman.

⊙

Kenzie tossed the remote up into the air, and then caught it.

She looked at the still image. Herself and the therapist. She’d found a picture of the therapist in a book and used it to render a composite, which helped make things accurate.

“What happened?” Victoria asked.

“I studied,” Kenzie said. “Keith and Anton were looking up resources and I read all the resources, best as I could, to try to figure out what I needed to say to fix things.”

“They thought you were coached.”

“Yup. They thought I was coached, and they decided to separate us temporarily. New house, new foster parents. That’s the point where I had to take a bad situation and make it a hundred times worse.”

“Kenzie…”