Aliya wandered in with chip crumbs still stuck to her pajamas and a shoe that wasn’t hers. She climbed into Mylene’s lap, looked around, and declared with utmost toddler authority: “This house messy.”
We all burst into laughter. And in the middle of that joy—raw, stupid, pure...I knew something deeper had happened. They weren’t just my co-conspirators anymore. They weren’t just my excuses for returning to the light.
They were my anchors. Mylene, who despite her chaos and twin tornadoes, had the sharpest instincts and deepest empathy I’d ever seen in a woman. My family.
Jhing Jhing, whose mouth could cut a man in half but whose heart was already divided amongst all of us in equal slices.
We had lived lives that most people couldn’t even fathom. They didn’t know about the tears we cried
