*Gasp* Did Elle actually update...exactly one week after the last time she updated...one week?!

Yes I did!

Here's another long chapter for y'all! Enjoy!

~Elle

o-O-o

It was as if I'd woken up from a nightmare. My mind dragged back to the present. Tears staining my face, my neck, my shirt. I think some of it was mixed in with snot. I didn't care. Warm arms encircled me, creating a protective cocoon for me and my thoughts. After so many years of burying it, burying it all- all it took was for me to relive it was to bully a girl and for one boy to show compassion.

That boy, I noted, who was currently hugging me.

But despite it all, despite reliving that terrible, awful night, I almost felt...safe. It was strange, my body shaking, tears still streaming, fingers still plucking eyelashes at breakneck speed (if Keefe had noticed that I had nearly no eyelashes left, he didn't comment on it). But still in my mind, in my heart, I felt safe. And I realized that despite my years surrounded by my friends and family, I'd never felt quite as safe as I did now.

Whoa.

I knew if I looked up, Keefe would look sad. Empathetic. His eyes would say You didn't deserve to go through this. How did I know? I didn't. It was just as if...as if I could feel his warm gaze on my head.

He really was the best friend I could ever ask for.

I realized that I'd stopped retelling my story. My throat was dry, and we had probably missed at least one class. But I continued anyway, knowing that if I looked up at Keefe, I would lose it.

The rest of the story wasn't as bad as the first part.

"When I woke up, I was lying in a hospital bed, both of my legs casted and propped up, feeling slightly less on fire. Gauze was wound around my head, and my wrist was in a brace as well. Someone had cut off all my singed hair, leaving me with a long bob, and I was wearing a hospital gown. It was five months before I was let out of the hospital, five months before someone told me the news of my family. They didn't let anyone visit me, and clammed up whenever I asked about my family. Five months..."

---

I was watching She-Ra (Because she has taste) when the man came. He shuffled through the locked white doors, muttering "Those devil machines, that yellow one nearly killed me when I was crossing...it was clearly on red, they ran the light, those good-for-nothing go-kart racers...no respect for elder citizens..."

"Who are you?"

The man jerked his head up in surprise. "Sophie Foster." It wasn't a question. "...We should have a talk."

I inched back on my AtLA bedspread (again, TASTE). The man looked quite old, with grey hair and an extremely large, wrinkled body. He smelled strongly of feet. His eyes were a glittering shade of blue that, despite me not knowing him, seemed to be smiling warmly at me.

That didn't make me trust him anymore.

"Who are you and what do you want? You do know you can't get a lot of money from kidnapping me, right?"

The man laughed. "No, Sophie. I reassure you, I am not here to kidnap you. My name is Mr. Forkle, and..." Here he sobered. "I have some extremely important news I must share with you."

o-O-o

"He told me...he told me my family was dead, killed in the fire. I was getting put in the system. Except...it was different. He told me this project his adoption agency -Swan Adoption Agencies, by the way- was starting, called the Moonlark Project. The project included the agency personally picking out available homes for the children, including background checks, compatibility levels, and more. It was still in the beta stage, but Mr. Forkle had found a way to get me on the list.

(Okay so I know this is low-key messed up, bc the kids who have been there the longest should be getting the project first, and the project kinda makes no sense if you think about it, but plot okay? Okay.)

"And...I accepted. Mr. Forkle got me out of the hospital. He was spearheading the project, along with four other members of the company: Tiergan, Juline, Wren and Blur. Blur is short for Bristol Laurence Uriah Richardson. You can guess why we call him Blur.

"I left San Diego two months later. In those two months...Axel happened. That was my flashback. But I soon left him and Stina. For the next three years, I bounced from home to home, city to city, family to family. None of it was...quite right.

"And really, the only true family I had was slowly becoming Project Moonlark's team, the "Collective." And they became not the project's team, but my team. Mr. Forkle was the leader. Tiergan was my therapist. Juline triple-checked that the families were at least alright. Wren was the one who made sure I got a steady education. Blur made sure I got enough sleep at night (Which failed. Completely. He ended up prescribing sleeping pills, which I refused. Nightly.)

"And...yeah. That was my life, with my weird, dysfunctional family.

"Until Juline had an idea one day. She'd put it off because she thought they were too fragile, but it had been too long. She thought I could find a home with her sister and her husband here.

"So I tried it out. And Edaline and Grady were the best adoptive parents I could ever wish for. They also knew loss. Their daughter had died sixteen years ago. They'd been grieving for sixteen years. But I'd been grieving too. And we helped each other and still do. I love Mom and Dad. I still keep in touch with the Collective and all -I visit them a lot during the summer,- but i've found another family. And who's to say you can't have two?"

I fell silent. I was finished with my story. My tears had stopped falling, but I could still feel the puffiness of my eyes. For a second, I just listened beyond the little bubble of quiet that surrounded us. The wind whistling through the trees, the talking and laughing of a couple students skipping class- like us, I thought. A fresh wave of anxiety engulfed me. Instead of being in class, I was crouching in trash with a boy, crying. Well, formerly crying.

"S...Sophie...?" Keefe's voice shook. I looked up into his eyes. "Keefe-" He hugged me tighter. "Oh my god...Sophie...I-I...you didn't deserve to have anything like that happen to you."

"But Keefe...I was the one to-"

"Sophie, you are one of the most beautiful, brilliant, amazing person I know. This...what happened was awful, but it is not your fault, okay?"

"But-"

"It is not."

I slowly unclenched my hands. "O...okay." We were silent for a couple of seconds. "Keefe...thank you."

Keefe's eyes shone with an emotion I couldn't quite identify. "You're safe here. You're safe with me." I hugged him fiercely. And soon I was back to staring into his eyes again. Keefe's lips seemed to part slightly. He seemed closer to me than he was before. "S..."

"Keefe...you really are the best friend I could ever ask for." I said sincerely. "Without you, I don't know what I would do."

Something flashed in his eyes for a second, almost like...pain. But it was gone as soon as it arrived. The soft smile was back on his face. His voice seemed choked. "And you are an amazing friend as well, Sophie."

Wait.

"You've been calling me Sophie the entire time." I realized, startled. He smirked. "Well, I figured the situation required it."

"So you only say it in extreme situations?"

"Of course."

"You baffle me."

"Mmhm, says the girl who drops references left and right to the most obscure things."

"If you actually read for once in your life-"

"Whatever." Keefe waved off her complaints. Laughing, he stood up. He helped me up. "You realize we've missed PE, right?" I asked, worried.

"Oh come on, you hate PE anyways." I smiled a little. "Come on, Foster, I bet you're friends are worried sick about where you have gone. They'll be putting up missing poster signs, asking around, wailing dramatically-"

"Wait." I said again. I halted to a stop as I remembered something. "Keefe...me and my friends are going to stop. I'm going to make them stop. What we're doing is wrong and despite the...questionable things Biana has done, no one deserves what we've been doing to her...and her brother...and...you." I lowered my gaze to the ground. I was so ashamed at what we'd done to Biana and all her friends. It was childish and mean and awful. "I want to make things right."

I looked hesitantly up at Keefe, and was shocked to see him grinning. "Thank you, Foster. It means a lot to me."

I blushed. "And...one more thing."

"Yeah?"

"Can my friends also sit at your table during lunch?"

Strength in numbers. And maybe...maybe we could learn to get along with each other. Maybe.

"Anything for you, Foster." I smiled at him, and he smiled right back.

o-O-o