Chapter 1: When the Smoke Clears
Something's burning.
I'm not even awake yet, but that gross smell hits me first. My eyes snap open. 3:17 AM. Great. I grab my phone and squint at the screen—still no reply to my text from hours ago. "We need to talk." Three little dots that apparently mean nothing to Drew.
The smell gets worse. Way worse. This isn't someone burning toast downstairs.
I roll out of bed, nearly tripping over my charger cord. My heart's doing this weird skippy thing as I head for my door. The hallway feels different somehow. Warmer.
When did everything start getting so weird around here?
I'm running now, bare feet slapping against the hardwood, and all these random moments from this week keep flashing through my head. Like Monday morning when I walked into my bathroom—my bathroom that I've had to myself forever—and there's this bright pink electric toothbrush sitting next to mine. Sierra's toothbrush. In my space.
Mom was all casual about it too. "Oh honey, we're gonna need to shuffle some rooms around. Give Sierra more space to get comfortable, you know?"
Get comfortable. Like she's moving in permanently or something.
Then Wednesday happened. Drew and his surf crew were suiting up in our driveway, and I'm standing there in my pajamas waiting for him to ask if I wanna come. He always asks. Always. But he just grabbed his board and was like, "See ya later, babe."
Just... left. Without me.
Even our stupid family group chat isn't the same anymore. Dad changed the name from "The Kellys" to "Home Sweet Home" yesterday. I mean, what's that supposed to mean?
The smoke's getting thicker. I can hear people yelling downstairs, and now I'm really freaking out because there's this orange glow coming from the living room and oh God, our house is literally on fire.
"Sierra! Get out now!" Dad's voice booms from down the hall. From what used to be the guest room.
I see Drew jump off the couch where he's been crashing since Sierra got here. Our eyes meet for like half a second, and I can practically see the gears turning in his head.
"Go help your dad with Sierra," he says, already jogging toward Ryan's room. "I'll grab Ryan!"
And just like that, I'm standing here by myself while my boyfriend runs off to save my little brother. Not me. Ryan.
I'm not even on his list.
Dad comes stumbling out with Sierra in his arms. She's coughing like crazy, face buried in his shoulder, and he's doing that thing where he talks all soft and gentle.
"It's okay, baby. Daddy's got you, sweetheart."
I used to be his baby. His sweetheart.
Drew appears with Ryan thrown over his shoulder, heading straight for the back door. "Paige! Come on!" he shouts, but he doesn't even look back to check if I'm following.
They're all leaving. Without me.
The front door's completely blocked by flames now. Smoke's everywhere, making my eyes water and my throat burn. The kitchen's sliding door is my only shot.
I take the stairs two at a time, lungs already feeling like they're on fire. Everything's moving in slow motion, like I'm watching this happen to someone else. By the time I crawl through that sliding door, I can barely breathe. I collapse on the deck, gasping and coughing up what feels like half my lungs.
The paramedic's got this oxygen mask over my face, and I'm sitting in the back of an ambulance feeling like I got hit by a truck. I can see Drew over by another ambulance where they're checking Sierra.
"Good thing everyone made it out safe," the EMT says to Drew. "How's the family doing?"
"Yeah, thank God the real family's okay," Drew says. His voice carries in the quiet morning air. "Could've been so much worse."
Real family.
Those two words hit me harder than any smoke. I watch the EMT's face scrunch up in confusion.
"Real family? What about the girl over there?"
Drew glances toward me, then drops his voice. "It's complicated. She's not actually..."
I don't need to hear the rest.
Real family. The words keep bouncing around in my head like a pinball. Last week, when those DNA results came back, Mom held my hand while she explained how they finally found their biological daughter after eighteen years. How some mix-up at the hospital gave them me instead of Sierra.
"We love you just the same, sweetie," she said. "You're still our daughter."
Maybe he didn't mean it like that. Maybe he's just freaked out.
People say dumb stuff when they're scared, right? I mean, we've been together for two years. He practically lives here. This doesn't change anything.
Does it?
"Need an emergency contact?" the EMT asks, pen ready.
"My boyfriend Drew and my parents," I say automatically, then immediately wonder if I should've said that.
They're still my emergency contacts. This is still my family.
At the hospital, I'm watching everyone crowd around Sierra. She's crying, and Mom's stroking her hair with these gentle little movements that make my chest tight.
"Shh, you're safe now, baby girl."
Baby girl. There it is again.
Drew notices me staring and walks over, hands shoved in his pockets. He looks uncomfortable. "Hey, how you feeling?"
I wanna say like you left me behind, but what comes out is, "I'm good. Is Sierra okay?"
Relief floods his face. "Yeah, she's just shaken up. First fire and all."
First fire. Like I've been through a million of them.
"Fire department thinks it started with some old wiring in the guest room." He pauses, then corrects himself. "I mean, Sierra's room. Could've been way worse if your dad hadn't woken up."
I nod like I'm listening, but all I hear is that pause. Guest room—I mean, Sierra's room. Even Drew's rewriting our house.
Maybe I'm being dramatic. Maybe this is just normal adjustment stuff when someone new joins the family. Once Sierra settles in, things'll go back to how they were. We're family—18 years of history doesn't just disappear because of some DNA test, right?
I just gotta prove I still belong here.
I watch Sierra wipe her eyes while Dad kisses her forehead and Mom holds her hand like she might break. They look complete. Like a real family.
So why does my chest hurt worse than my lungs?