The whole experience was… odd. I knew I had to win over Jack’s family, but the varying energies they gave off felt unbalanced to me, almost as if each person were operating on a completely different frequency. Maggie, with her warm smile and open demeanor, was clearly the easiest to connect with. That much was evident in the way she greeted me with such enthusiasm, as though she had already decided we’d be best friends.
Carrie, however, was a different story entirely. She wasn’t cold, exactly, nor did she seem unwilling to speak to me or get to know me. It was subtler than that. It was as though she had built an invisible barrier around herself—a kind of cautious restraint that I couldn’t quite get through. Every time I felt like I’d made progress with her, every time she’d laugh at somet
