"What are you doing home so early, Mags?" Noah asks his baby sister. Besides the hair color, she pretty much has the same features as Noah — same blue eyes, same diamond face shape.

"Mrs. Porter had to take Julia to tennis practice, so she dropped me home on the way." She looks at me and then back to Noah. "Now I know why you didn't want me home," she smirks. "Am I interrupting something?"

"You're cute when you're funny. And, no, actually," Noah playfully teases as he brings me over to Maggie. I hold onto Noah's hand with the tips of my fingers and smile as we meet Maggie's stance. "Mags, this is my...," Noah pauses, "...girlfriend. Sophia."

"It's nice to meet you, Maggie," I excitedly say, bending my knees slightly to meet her 5-foot frame.

"It's nice to meet you too, Sophia," she says; the smile on her face still in place.

She surpasses my expectations when she greets me with a warm and welcoming expression. For some reason, I assumed that she'd be hesitant to meet me, considering Noah's all she's got, but instead, her approach is kind and loving. Something tells me her personality is like that, too.

"Call me Fee," I smile.

"Fee? Okay. I like that!" she says. "Would you like to stay for dinner, Fee?"

"Uh, I don't think Fee wants to stay for dinner," Noah chuckles as he anxiously scratches his head. "Unless, of course, you want to," he turns to me and says.

"I'd love to."

"Yayyyy!" Maggie cheerfully exclaims as she reaches for my hand and leads me into the kitchen.

Noah follows us with a wide grin on his face. "I guess I'll leave you girls to it then," he says.

"So, I'm really craving mac and cheese. Plus, it's Noah's favorite," Maggie says as she begins to scrummage through the cabinets. "Shells or elbows, Fee?"

"Huh?" I laugh.

"Shells or elbows?" she repeats, this time pulling out two types of pasta and holding them in front of me.

"Ah! Shells," I say, pointing to the cardboard box that's in her right hand.

"That's what I was thinking!"

Maggie grabs an aluminum pot from the hanging rack and fills it with water before bringing it to the stove. "So, girlfriend, huh?"

"I guess so," I smile.

"Noah's never had a girlfriend before. Not even a friend that's a girl." She pauses for a few seconds, then smiles at me. "I like it."

"Yeah?" I ask, watching her set everything up. She grabs a purple apron that's embroidered with her name on it from the hook by the fridge and pulls it over her head.

"Yeah. It's nice to not be the only girl in the house."

I immediately reflect back to what Cassie said about Noah's mom — when she's not working, she's out dating the wrong guys.

"Me too. I have 2 brothers and no sisters, so I always wondered what it would be like."

"Same!" Maggie smiles and I return the gesture. Her vibrant energy is contagious.

We leave the water to boil and Maggie walks over to the round acorn table. She reaches for her pink backpack that's hanging on the wooden chair before taking a seat.

"Can I ask you something?" she says, scooting her chair in.

"You can ask me anything," I say, making my way over to the table.

"Are you a good writer?"

"I don't know if I'm any good, but I do love to write." She unzips her backpack and removes a black and white marble composition notebook from inside. "What's that you got over there?"

She hands the notebook to me, and the front is doodled with hearts and bubble-letters. "It's my summer writing assignment for school. My teacher, Mrs. Anderson, told me that I needed to work on my writing skills. My spelling's fine, it's the actual story-telling part that I have trouble with."

I sit down on one of the chairs and flip through the pages, where I find paragraphs and paragraphs of writing with tons of cross-outs and teacher's notes in red Sharpie. "Well, what kind of story are you trying to tell?"

Maggie looks over my shoulder as I continue to read. "Well, Mrs. Anderson wants us to write about who we want to be in 10 years. But how can I answer that when I don't even know who I want to be in 1 year?"

She has a good point.

"That's fair!" I tell her. "What if you changed the story to explain that then?"

"Can you help me?" she asks. Her eyes glisten with reluctance as they peer from me to the pen that's grasped in between her fingers.

"Of course," I say, and we spend the next several minutes jotting down ideas until the timer beeps and Maggie has to pour the pasta in. She sets the timer to 15 minutes and comes back to the table.

By the time I'm done showing her how to write an introductory paragraph, the timer rings again. We drain the pasta and bring it back to the stove. Maggie pours the milk in, but misses the pot, and we're pretty much on the floor laughing when the milk splatters all over us.

"Oh no, it's in my hair!" she continues to laugh.

Noah comes down just in time for dinner. His brown hair is wet and he's wearing black sweatpants, a basic white t-shirt, and that backwards black hat. I have to stop myself from staring at those muscles before Maggie picks up on my admiration for her brother's body.

"Smells good in here," he says as he walks over to us, planting a soft kiss to my forehead before looking down at the finished product of mac and cheese, which I must say, smells delicious.

"It was all Maggie," I tell him as I smile at her.

"Is that right, Mags?" Noah asks, walking towards her. He lifts her from the ground by her legs so that her chest and head drape over his shoulder.

"Hey, put me down, Noah!" she playfully shouts as she pounds her fists on his back.

Noah places her down and she teasingly rolls her eyes at him. "Brothers..."

Maggie takes my hand and leads me to the table, and I look back at Noah, who's following us with three bowls of mac and cheese in his grip. He places them down and then brings two chairs out for me and Maggie to sit on before taking the seat to my right.

Noah grins at me before looking over at Maggie, who's already chomping down on the mac and cheese. Looking at the empty chair across from me, I'm reminded that someone is missing from this table. Mrs. Collins. But then I look at Noah and Maggie and admire their strength. They have each other...and for them, that's enough.

The rest of the night couldn't have gone better. After we devoured the entire pot of pasta, we played UNO, where Noah won each round — surprise, surprise. We also made ourselves ice cream sundaes and watched a bit of TV before it became time for me to think about heading home.

It's close to 10 o'clock and I know that it's only a matter of minutes until Liam starts texting me, even though I told him that I'm sleeping at Cassie's.

I shoot Cassie a quick text to let her know that I'll be over soon, and tuck my phone back into my jean pocket. All of this lying reminds me that I'm going to have to tell Liam the truth about Noah. I decide that tomorrow will be the day. Tomorrow will be the day that I tell Liam everything.

"Mags, it's time for bed," Noah whispers to his sister, who's passed out horizontally on the couch. She's using Noah's shoulder as a pillow.

Maggie nods and Noah scoops her up so that she's sprawled out in his arms.

"I'll be right back," he whispers to me as he heads towards the stairs, carrying Maggie. She slightly opens her eyes and picks her head up to say something before they leave the living room.

"I had fun tonight, Fee," she mumbles over Noah's shoulder.

I smile at her. "Me too, Maggie! Sweet dreams."

I catch Noah smile as Maggie lays her head back down is his arms and closes her eyes.