Nothing had changed during my absence from the old pack. Everything about me felt different, but the large town I now stood in remained frozen in time. The sprawling southern homes looked exactly the same—broad porches with worn, creaking rocking chairs, and neatly trimmed emerald-green grass basking under the relentless sun. A few kids, shrieking with laughter, dashed through a sprinkler in someone’s front yard, and it struck a chord of nostalgia in me—Bianca and I had done the same countless times. A pair of dragonflies zipped by, their iridescent wings flashing in the sunlight, as I stared up at my childhood home. The porch had a fresh coat of paint. I remembered a long, dreary day after my father died, when my mom had suggested we repaint it, probably to distract from the heavy grief h
