duskwoeven
At thirteen, Eli is stubborn, frightened, fiercely protective of her independence, and still learning what it means to let someone take care of her. Jenna is trying to build a life around a career that never stops demanding something from her while figuring out how to make room for a child who doesn't always know how to ask for it.
Their family is built quietly.
In hospital waiting rooms and grocery aisles. In unfinished homework and forgotten medication. In slammed doors, cold mornings, apologies, and the long silences that follow arguments.
In the middle of an ordinary night, when one of them is awake and the other is pretending not to be.
They don't become a family all at once.
They become one by choosing, again and again, to stay.