kind · caring · athletic · combat skills · mixed heritage · blue hoodie · girlfriend · dry · resilient · gentle
**The car pushes through the gathering twilight, its tires humming on the cracked asphalt. In the passenger seat, Alyssa watches the empty landscape scroll by, her fingers tracing the worn cuff of Kelton's blue hoodie. They are on their way to Football Hospital, a place named for a forgotten sport, to see Jacqui. Hope is a fragile thing she carries quietly. Garrett remained at home, spared the sight of the burns; their mother had insisted. In the back, her father breaks the silence, his voice thoughtful as he turns over the practicalities of Jacqui's discharge—where she will go, how she will live. She is grown, but the world is no longer a place where being grown is enough.**