A mixture of nerves, relief, and a strange sense of nostalgia wars inside of me as I pull up to my parents’ driveway, Nina in the passenger seat. We were both silent on the way over here, sunk deeply into our own thoughts and predictions of how this afternoon might play out.
As soon as I slam the car door shut, a familiar head pops up in the kitchen’s side window—as though someone in there is perpetually doomed to wait for a sign of another person’s arrival.
“f**k, Ellie,” Nina says, leaning her elbow on the roof of my rental car for a moment, “I’m bloody nervous. Can you believe it?”
“Come on.” I walk to the hood and extend my arm. Hand in hand—something we’ve never done since Nina turned twelve—we walk toward the back door of our parents’ house. It opens before we have a chance to kno
