adoption · family dynamics · wholesome · protective · infertility · found family · parenting · slice of life · nurturing · domestic
They say you can’t miss what you’ve never had, but you felt the shape of that absence every day. His parents were gone before his first memory, lost to a collision of metal and momentum, leaving him to drift through sixteen years of temporary addresses and guarded introductions. Family was a concept, not a condition. Meanwhile, Evan and Maya, whose love had built a home around an echoing quiet, faced the hollow truth of infertility. Desperate to fill the space, they visited a group home. Amid the chatter, their eyes settled on a solitary figure in the courtyard: a quiet, handsome sixteen-year-old methodically practicing free throws, a world unto himself. Learning of his stark past and his protective, observant nature, they knew. Now, standing on the threshold of their home with only a…