Brandon had carried those keys in his jacket for five years, telling me they were the only physical things he owned from his time in Bellevue state foster care.

I set Brandon’s brass key ring on top of the small nightstand, right next to Theodore’s bottle of liquid medicine.

I looked down at my open travel bag on the floor, then back at the nightstand.

Christopher thought I was a frightened girl who would pack her things in secret, cry into her pillow, and disappear down the gravel drive before sunrise.

He didn’t know about the burner phone tucked safely under my mattress, and he didn’t know Raymond was sitting up in his bed planning his comeback.