She hugged me once more and ran back to her class. Natan got busy tuning his guitar and pretending he wasn’t just shut down by a tiny girl not about to tolerate his creepiness.

Sean made room for me to sit beside him on the picnic table so we could be away from Natan, who put his feet up on a tree stump. Teva sandals with socks—which he removed. First the Velcro strap sandals came off. Then he peeled colorful wool socks off two long, hairy feet and began exercising his toes. Gross. I stood up, ready to bolt.

“Muiriel,” Natan said. “That little girl a friend of yours?”

“Sister,” I said, watching Zola race through the grass with the other kids. “Foster sister.” Sean turned to look at me.

This is my usual: straight up from the start, unlike the cagey lie I told Kira.

“Ah…,” Natan sighed in a dreamy way. “Foster care. Such a gift. Your parents are so generous to give shelter to the less fortunate.”

Even more gross.

“No,” I said. “I don’t have parents. Zola and I were in a foster placement together. Should you be barefoot right now? Aren’t we hiking in a minute?”

Sean jumped up from the table, pulled on his pack, and handed me my water bottle. “Let’s go ask Jane if you can have Zola in your group,” he said.

“Wait,” Natan said. “Hold up—you were a foster child?”

“Muiriel, let’s go,” Sean urged.

“Am,” I said. “I am in foster care.”

His mouth opened. “Oh!” he said. “Well, then I misspoke—the gratitude is yours! How beautiful.”

Oh. My. God.

“Absolutely.” I nodded. “I am super grateful for every person who takes pity on me and gives me shelter.”

“Jesus Christ, Natan,” Sean said, low. “It’s none of your business, and for fuck’s sake, gratitude? The entire fucking point of being born is that someone is supposed to take care of you.”

Natan and I stared at him, his words ringing in the stillness.

And what words they were. I was doomed.

Is this what swooning feels like?

Sexy cursing aside, why and how did Sean know to say exactly the right things? Those were some deep “nature of human familial structure” cuts. Were those conclusions he drew from losing his dad? He sounded like me. He sounded like Joellen.

Natan shook his head and smiled, forever oily and patronizing, at Sean. “So young,” he said. “So hotheaded.”

Sean’s face was somehow both blank and incredulous. “Dude. You’re like five years older than us.”

Natan picked up his guitar. “Try twelve, friend. This reminds me of a song I wrote last summer. I call it ‘Tender Essence.’…”

Sean placed his hand lightly on my elbow and steered me toward a water spigot near the lodge and away from Natan’s noxious cloud of patchouli and tentative G chord strumming.