Chapter 208

• Nothing had changed during my absence from the old pack. Everything about me felt different, but the large town I now stood in remained frozen in time. The
• sprawling southern homes looked exactly the same— broad porches with worn, creaking rocking chairs, and neatly trimmed emerald-green grass basking under the relentless sun. A few kids, shrieking with laughter, dashed through a sprinkler in someone’s front yard, and it struck a chord of nostalgia in me—Bianca and I had done the same countless times. A pair of dragonflies zipped by, their iridescent wings flashing in the sunlight, as I stared up at my childhood home. The porch had a fresh coat of paint. I remembered a long, dreary day after my father died, when my mom had suggested we repaint it, probably to distract from the heavy grief hanging over us. She’d let me choose the color, and I had picked a bright pink that had once brightened the gloom. But seeing the new paint made my chest ache. I had expected it to still be baby pink, as if nothing else had changed.
• Everything in this town was exactly as I had left it— except for that porch. It felt like the house itself was telling me I no longer belonged. Despite the pull of the humid air and the familiar smell of freshly turned earth, this place was no longer my home.