I pulled up to the curb and turned off the engine, letting the soft click of the cooling car fill the silence. The late winter sun was already dipping low, casting a bruised lavender hue over the suburban sprawl of identical homes that lined our street like neat little clones. Beige walls. White garage doors. Lawns in various stages of patchiness. Ours was no different—except for the trim. Forest green, stubborn and proud. It was the only thing that set us apart in a world where sameness reigned, and I loved it for that. I'd always thought it made the house look braver somehow. Like it was trying.
I sat there in the driver's seat a moment longer, my fingers still curled around the steering wheel, and my backpack sat untouched on the passenger seat. My mind wandered. School had been the usual whirlwind of noise and awkward silences, of lingering gazes and unspoken things I'd never dare say aloud. The day had left an impression—dull in color, but sharp at the edges.
Eventually, I exhaled, reached for my battered green backpack, and stepped out into the cold. The air bit at my cheeks and tangled in my lashes. I liked the chill. It made me feel awake, present. Real.
I crept up to the front door, trying not to make a sound. But stealth was a lost cause. My mother, in her infinite wisdom, had affixed a string of giant brass jingle bells to the inside knob last Christmas, ostensibly to keep the twins from sneaking out. Now they announce every arrival like a marching band. The house knew I was home before I even stepped inside.
But it was still early. The halls were quiet.
Mom hadn't yet returned from work—she taught sixth grade at the middle school down the road—and the twins, Wyatt and Duncan, were probably still causing mischief at daycare. That left Andrew and Michelle, my younger siblings by a few years, sprawled on the family room couch like discarded dolls. The television blared a cacophony of cartoon voices, clashing with the stillness of the house. They didn't glance up when I passed through.
The kitchen greeted me like an old friend who meant well but never quite had it together. Our fridge was plastered in magnets and old appointment reminders, its hum a soft background to the chaos. Dishes were piled in the sink—my job, of course—so I loaded the dishwasher with mechanical efficiency. The table wobbled when I brushed past it, its legs uneven from years of restless little feet kicking at it.
Behind the kitchen sat the pantry: our treasure trove of after school indulgence. I grabbed a Hostess brownie and a juice box and padded toward the stairs, snack in hand like a child refusing to grow up.
My room was at the far end of the hallway, past the bathroom and the twins' room. I'd claimed it the moment we moved in, not because it was bigger or better, but because of the window. The huge bay window overlooked our front yard and caught the sun just right in the evening. It made me feel like I lived somewhere else—somewhere magical.
Inside, my world was my own. A green wrought-iron canopy bed took center stage, veiled in blue lace that caught the light and made everything glow like it belonged in a fairytale. Posters lined the walls—Orlando Bloom, Godsmack, the occasional dragon or fairy interspersed like secret spells only I understood. My computer desk sat nestled beneath the window, shrouded by curtains like a fortress.
I tossed my backpack onto the bed and flopped down beside it. The Precious—our black-and-white Chihuahua-Jack Russell mix—leapt up after me, his tiny form vibrating with excitement. We'd named him after the one ring, naturally. My mom had wanted to call him Sméagol, but even she had her limits.
He curled beside me as I reluctantly unzipped my backpack and stared down the abyss of homework inside. Geometry. Biology. A half-finished essay. I sighed and reached for the brownie.
Not long after, the jingle bells rang again, heralding the return of chaos. Wyatt and Duncan tore through the house, shrieking with the kind of uncontainable joy only toddlers can manage. I smiled. They were wild and sticky and loud, but they were mine. I helped raise them—fed them, bathed them, tucked them in. Sometimes I felt more like their third parent than their big sister.
I could hear my mother's voice somewhere downstairs—tired, already barking orders—and I knew she wouldn't come looking for me. She never did. "The cave," they called my room. My sanctuary. My silence. They thought I was being moody. I was just surviving.
Homework blurred into evening. Outside, the world was cooling into indigo. I opened the window, letting the cold spill in like breath from another world. My parents hated that. Said I was trying to turn my room into an igloo. I said nothing. I just loved the way the chill felt against my skin, the way it cleared my head.
That's when I saw it.
Movement in the tree.
I leaned forward, expecting a squirrel or maybe a particularly bold pigeon. But it wasn't either of those things. It was a hawk.
A real, honest-to-God hawk, perched in the spindly branches of our sad little front yard tree like some mythical sentinel. My heart skipped. I'd never seen one this close. Never seen one at all, really.
It was breathtaking.
Golden feathers rippled across its body, but its head was a rich auburn, touched here and there with stark white flecks like snow clinging to fire. Its eyes—dark, enormous, rimmed in charcoal—locked with mine. I froze. For a heartbeat, I thought it might fly straight into my room, but it only tilted its head slightly, as if studying me, acknowledging me.
I don't know how long I stared.
When the crunch of tires on the driveway broke the spell, I turned. Dad's car had arrived.
For a moment, my heart fluttered—reflex, memory—but it didn't last. Not anymore.
I used to idolize him. He was brilliant, warm, the only one who really saw me. But ever since they decided to seperate, he'd retreated into himself. Into screens. Into silence. When he wasn't working, he was crying, and neither required my presence.
They'd split on my birthday last year.
Seventeen years of marriage ended in the middle of the night after my party. I remember the yelling, and the crying. Happy birthday to me.
Now they lived in the same house, separate as strangers. Mom in the master. Dad on a pullout in the office. The tension clung to the walls like mildew. I avoided the dinner table entirely, waiting until the others had eaten before I scrounged something half-hearted from the fridge.
I didn't speak. I didn't feel. Not where they could see.
I watched the hawk again, heart heavy.
Sometimes, I imagined what it would be like to fly. To shed this skin, this name, this house with its bells and broken pieces, and become something more. Something untethered.
I thought about Hayden.
Kind. Beautiful. Unreachable. He'd helped me pick up my books last week—me, of all people—and I'd nearly forgotten how to breathe. He smiled like sunlight. Said my name like it mattered. That moment had replayed in my head more times than I could admit.
But even he felt like something I wasn't allowed to want.
I curled beneath my blankets later, the hawk still outside, keeping watch. I cried then—not loud, not messy, just silent tears that traced the curve of my cheek and vanished into my pillow.
I was so tired of pretending.
So tired of waiting for a life that felt like it would never begin.
And somewhere, deep in the marrow of my bones, I knew—something had to change. Something would.
The hawk was still there when I finally fell asleep.