Chapter 15: Too Close
I never wanted to be his burden. But I was… -Liana
The laundry basket sat between her feet, warm and full.
Liana folded shirts one by one on the couch, methodically, like it was a ritual she didn’t want to rush.
Some were hers. Most were his.
Elias always did the washing.
She didn’t mind folding.
They never talked about it. it just happened like that.
She picked up one of his black t-shirts.
It was soft from wear. A little frayed at the collar.
She held it for a second.
Then brought it to her face.
Inhaled.
It didn’t smell like detergent. Not really.
It smelled like Elias.
Like safety. Like home.
“Is it that clean?” his voice came from behind.
She flinched.
He was standing in the hallway, towel slung around his neck, hair still damp from the shower. T-shirt clinging to his chest. Barefoot.
She blinked fast. “Mm—yes…”
He raised an eyebrow. Didn’t move.
Then his gaze dropped to the shirt in her hands.
She panicked. “It’s really soft,” she blurted. “Can I… wear this one?”
There was a long pause.
His mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. More like disbelief filtered through restraint.
“If you want it, take it,” he said.
Then he walked to the kitchen.
She stared after him, heart tapping like a skipped beat.
She didn’t know why asking had made her feel weird.
Or why his answer had sounded so… careful.
It was two nights later.
He had just come back from a late debrief. Bruised. Tired. Distant.
She waited until he’d taken off his jacket and tossed it onto the hook by the door.
“You’re hurt,” she said softly.
He glanced over his shoulder, saw his reflection in the mirror. “No big deal. Got clipped going over a fence.”
“There’s blood,” she said, moving toward him. “Near your neck.”
He touched the spot. Red smudge on his fingers. Shrugged.
“Scraped it. Didn’t even notice.”
“Let me see.”
“It’s fine, Liana—”
But she was already close.
Too close.
She reached up.
Fingers brushed his skin.
He grabbed her wrist.
Not harsh. But firm.
Time froze.
Her skin was soft. Cold. Barely there.
Her eyes were wide, confused.
His pulse jumped.
She wasn’t doing anything wrong.
But everything about it felt wrong.
“Don’t,” he said. Quiet. Low. Controlled.
Her breath caught.
She stepped back immediately. “I—I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to…”
“I know,” he said, voice still too even. “I just… don’t think you should touch people like that.”
She looked down.
Embarrassed. Ashamed.
“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
“You didn’t,” he said quickly.
Then added, “Not in a bad way.”
What am I saying?
She looked up.
And that made it worse.
Because he saw something in her face that wasn’t just guilt.
It was hurt.
Like she didn’t understand why it mattered so much.
And the truth was… neither did he.
But it did.
Because that hand, that closeness… it wasn’t innocent anymore.
She was growing.
Changing.
And he was still standing in the same place.
“You’re better now,” he said after a long pause. “Stronger. You’ve come a long way.”
She nodded, slowly.
“So maybe… it’s time you started thinking about what you want.”
“I don’t want anything,” she said.
Just you.
The thought popped into her mind and scared her.
“I know,” he said. “But you should still try other things.”
She blinked.
“What kind of things?”
“I don’t know. School. Work. Something outside this house.”
“You mean like… college?”
“Maybe.”
She didn’t answer.
Just stared at him.
He shifted. “You’re smart, Liana. You’ve been teaching yourself for years. You’re more than ready.”
Silence stretched.
Then she said, “You think I should leave.”
“No,” he said instantly. “That’s not what I meant.”
But she’d already looked away.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I get it.”
“No, you don’t.”
His voice was sharper than he wanted it to be.
“I’m not trying to get rid of you. I just think… you deserve a chance to find out who you are.”
Outside of me.
She flinched.
Who was she?
She didn’t know.
She’d never really thought about it.
Because this house was her whole world.
He was her whole world.
Her everything.
She nodded.
“Okay.”
Then walked to her room.
She closed the door quietly behind her.
Sat on the edge of her bed.
Stared at her hands.
Her chest felt tight, but she didn’t cry.
Not yet.
She thought back to the way he’d looked at her when she reached out.
The way he’d said, “Don’t.”
She shouldn’t have done that.
She was stupid.
Too much.
Too close.
She whispered into the dark:
“He wants me to go.”
Not because he said so.
But because he didn’t stop her.
And that…
That hurt in a way she didn’t know how to explain.
Not even to herself.
Chapter 16: Willing
I didn’t want to see outside of these walls… but I had to. -Liana
Elias had never applied to college.
He’d gone to military school right when he was twelve. Woke up to drills and lights-out commands. Learned to shoot before he learned to parallel park. Graduated straight into deployment.
So when he told Liana to “try school,” he hadn’t exactly thought it through.
But he knew someone who had.
“Hey,” he asked Luca during lunch the next day. “You went to college, right?”
Luca blinked. “Uh… yeah?”
“What do you need to get in?”
Luca raised an eyebrow. “Wait—are you going back to school?”
Elias sighed. “Not me. Liana.”
“Oh. Ohhh.” Luca leaned in, suddenly interested. “Gotcha.”
He launched into a whole list. applications, essays, extracurriculars, letters of recommendation, transcripts. SATs.
Elias listened, jaw tightening with every word.
“She didn’t do any of that,” he muttered when Luca finally stopped talking.
Luca paused. “Then maybe don’t aim for a four-year. Start small. Community college?”
That word, small, stuck.
Later that day, Elias left work with a brochure in his hand: Glendale Community College. Clean campus. Flexible programs. Accessible by bus.
Not prestigious. Not intimidating.
Just possible.
And that was enough—for now.
Liana didn’t tell Elias she was looking.
She just waited until he left for work, then opened his old laptop and typed:
how to apply to college
She stared at the results.
So many tabs. So many steps.
One site said she needed a personal essay. Another talked about leadership experience. Extracurriculars. Community involvement. Recommendation letters. SAT scores.
Her throat tightened.
She didn’t have any of those things.
She didn’t even have a high school diploma.
No grades.
No records.
No clubs. No sports. No volunteer hours. No awards.
She hadn’t done anything.
Unless surviving counted.
She’d spent the last five years learning how to stay alive.
How to breathe without breaking. How to go outside. How to smile. How to talk.
That wasn’t something you could write on a résumé.
She sat there, staring at the word deadline.
She’d missed so many deadlines in life already.
Birthday parties. First kisses. High school dances. Exams. Summer jobs.
All the small markers that were supposed to lead a person from childhood into something more.
She’d skipped all of them.
And now, faced with a college website full of bright, smiling stock photos, she felt like a ghost trying to walk into someone else’s future.
For the first time in a long time, she wondered—
Was she too far behind?
Elias came home early that evening.
Liana was already in the kitchen.
She wasn’t cooking. Wasn’t cleaning.
Just standing by the counter, staring at nothing.
He set the brochure on the table between them.
She looked down.
Then looked at him.
“You were serious?” she asked.
He nodded. “Figured we could start small.”
She picked up the paper.
Glendale Community College.
It looked simple.
Safe.
Close.
Not like the websites she’d seen earlier that felt like fortresses.
“They don’t require test scores,” he said. “They take anyone willing to try. Some people transfer out after two years, others don’t. Either way, it’s a start.”
She flipped through the brochure. Course names. Class times. Tuition breakdown.
Some of the words blurred.
She hadn’t gone to school in years.
The thought of classrooms and hallways and group projects made her stomach twist.
But she was tired of hiding in the same four walls.
Tired of feeling like she wasn’t real.
Then: “They want essays.”
“We’ll figure it out.”
“I don’t have anything to write about.”
“You do,” he said. “You just don’t know it yet.”
She went quiet.
Then: “I’m scared.”
“I know.”
He didn’t say “you’ll be fine.” He didn’t say “don’t worry.”
He knew better than that.
Instead, he said: “I’ll help you.”
She stared at the paper in her hands. Folded it. Smoothed the crease.
“I think I want to try.”
He didn’t smile. Didn’t say anything overly encouraging.
He just nodded.
“Okay.”
And for now—
That was enough.
Chapter 17: What He Couldn’t Sign
I wasn’t her father. I couldn’t be. —Elias
Elias
It started with a form.
Just a stupid form.
GCC brochures had a website link.
He clicked through. Admissions. Requirements. Steps.
He thought it’d be simple. Enroll. Choose a major. Buy books.
Instead, the screen stared back at him like a challenge he wasn’t ready for.
Social Security Number. Legal residency status. Guardian information.
He paused.
He didn’t have answers for any of that.
Not for her.
Liana didn’t have a high school diploma.
She didn’t have a passport.
Hell, she didn’t even have a real last name until he wrote “Chen” on that hospital intake form five years ago because she looked like Chinese.
He stared at the application form.
His fingers hovered over the mouse.
And for the first time in a long time, he didn’t know what to do.
Later that day, at the station Hank still had his box of junk under one arm.
Retirement looked weird on him.
Same jacket, same bark, but his badge was gone.
Just a guy now.
“Wolfe,” he said, not even looking up.
“Didn’t think I’d see your face so soon.”
“I need a favor.”
That got Hank’s attention.
He glanced over his glasses.
“You never need favors.”
“It’s not for me.”
Hank leaned on the edge of a desk, eyeing him like a suspect.
“Go on.”
“It’s Liana. She’s been thinking about school. College. But she doesn’t have… anything. No ID. No record. No papers.”
Hank didn’t blink.
“Because you pulled her out of the system.”
“Because the system would’ve destroyed her.”
“That’s not what I’m arguing.”
Elias hesitated.
There was more.
Hank waited.
“I thought I could just… adopt her. File something. Make it clean.”
He exhaled. Looked away.
“Turns out I can’t.”
Hank raised an eyebrow.
“Can’t, or won’t?”
Elias didn’t answer.
His jaw worked.
His fingers flexed at his sides.
“She’s not a kid anymore,” he muttered.
“She’s twenty.”
Hank nodded slowly.
“And you don’t want the word ‘father’ next to your name.”
Elias’s silence said everything.
Hank looked at him for a long time.
Then tossed his keys onto the table and said, “Fine. You want me to sign it?”
Elias looked up, sharp.
“You serious?”
Hank shrugged.
“I’m old. I’m boring. I’ve got a house, a pension, and enough goodwill on paper to make the system happy.”
“It’s not supposed to be your problem.”
“It’s not.”
He leaned forward.
“But I saw you carry her out of that warehouse. Saw you sit in the waiting room three nights in a row while she detoxed in ICU.”
He folded his arms.
“You’re not her father, Wolfe. We both know that. But you sure as hell became something.”
Elias didn’t answer.
Didn’t trust himself to speak.
Hank softened, just a little.
“Let me handle the paperwork. I’ll be the guy on the line. Doesn’t mean she has to live with me. Hell, I can’t keep a damn cactus alive.”
Elias exhaled.
Relief and guilt fought for space in his chest.
“Thanks.”
Hank gave him a look.
“Just don’t screw this up.”
Elias nodded.
But he didn’t feel better.
Not really.
Because he still couldn’t answer the question that haunted him more than any legal form.
Why couldn’t he do it himself?
Why did writing “father” feel like a lie his body wouldn’t let him tell?
That night Liana sat at the kitchen table with her laptop open.
Elias watched her from the hallway.
She was quiet. Focused. Reading.
Then slowly, he saw it shift.
Her shoulders slumped.
Her eyes dimmed.
She closed the tab.
Didn’t say anything.
But he could read the weight on her face like a report file.
He stepped in.
“Rough day?”
She shook her head.
Then nodded.
“It’s harder than I thought,” she admitted.
“They want… everything.”
He didn’t push.
“They want IDs. Records. Proof of things I’ve never had.”
She gave a weak laugh.
“I don’t have any of that.”
He pulled out the chair across from her.
“You have more than you think.”
“I have trauma,” she said flatly. “That’s it.”
“You also have strength. And discipline. And years of self-study that most kids wouldn’t last a week doing.”
She didn’t answer.
Just looked at her hands.
Then whispered:
“What if I’m too broken for this?”
The words hit him like a punch he hadn’t braced for.
“No,” he said immediately. “Liana, no.”
She bit her lip.
“I just feel like… I missed the start line. Everyone else already ran ahead.”
He leaned forward.
“You didn’t miss anything. You just took a different road.”
She looked at him.
And for a moment, he thought she might cry.
Her eyes were red.
But she didn’t.
She just said, “What now?”
He reached into his bag and slid the folder across the table.
“Glendale Community College. Close by. No SAT. Open enrollment. All we need is a legal guardian to sign a few things.”
She opened it slowly.
Then looked at him.
“You’re…?”
“I asked someone I trust.”
Because I couldn’t bring myself to write ‘father.’
Not when I didn’t even know what we were anymore.
She didn’t ask who.
She didn’t need to.
She knew it wasn’t him.
And part of her was glad.
Because part of her didn’t want him to be her anything official.
Not father. Not guardian. Not something that kept her in the past.
But her fingers still trembled as they touched the papers.
Because this wasn’t a maybe anymore.
This was happening.
And she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to thank him—
Or run.
Bonus Scene — What Hank Saw That Day
after Chapter 17: Guardian…
She was smaller than he remembered.
Not physically.
But in that way people get when they’ve had to survive too much, too fast.
She stood behind Wolfe, half a step to the side, as if that was the only place she could breathe.
Didn’t say much. Didn’t look up.
Just nodded when Wolfe handed her the folder.
Hank watched the way Wolfe’s hand lingered, just for a second, before he pulled back.
He watched the way the girl’s fingers trembled when she opened the pages.
She didn’t thank him.
She didn’t smile.
But her shoulders lowered, just slightly.
Like the world had shifted by an inch.
And maybe that was enough.
Hank wasn’t a sentimental man.
But he remembered that night.
The call. The warehouse.
The way Wolfe came out with a girl in his arms and a look on his face like the whole world had just cracked in two.
He hadn’t said a word then, either.
Not to Hank.
Not to anyone.
Just sat outside ICU for three nights straight, barely moving.
He never called her anything.
No title. No label.
But that didn’t mean it wasn’t real.
Some things lived in the way you looked at someone.
In the way you stood between them and the world, without needing a reason.
Chapter 18: Essay
I want to be better. And then maybe… maybe I’ll be worthy. -Liana
Liana
The document was blank.
Just a blinking cursor and too much air in the room.
I’d opened the page three times already.
Typed three different sentences.
Deleted all of them.
Now I just stared.
“Tell us who you are,” the prompt said.
Who I am?
I didn’t even know where to start.
Elias had printed out a checklist.
“GCC Application: What You’ll Need.”
It was sitting on the kitchen table, half-covered in his messy handwriting.
He’d underlined things in red.
Circled others.
Wrote notes in the margins like Ask about ESL waiver and Reminder: proof of residency?
He was trying so hard.
Like always.
And here I was, stuck on the first sentence.
I turned back to the laptop.
Typed:
I used to be someone else.
Deleted it.
Typed:
I have no awards, no medals, no leadership titles.
Deleted that, too.
My fingers hovered.
I closed my eyes and thought about what I did have.
A backpack I barely used.
A shelf of books Elias kept buying for me even when I didn’t ask.
I do like books. Didn’t know how he found out.
And a body that still flinched at every sudden sound.
Great.
Very inspiring.
The articles all said the same thing:
Be honest. Be specific. Show growth.
But how do you show growth when most of your life was just surviving?
The other kids probably wrote about helping their community or winning science fairs or starting a coding club.
What would I say?
Hi, I used to sleep with the light on for three years straight.
The cursor blinked again.
Mocking me.
I closed the laptop.
Rested my forehead on the table.
I didn’t cry.
Just felt… tired.
I used to think I was strong.
But maybe I was just stubborn.
Maybe there’s a difference.
Later, I made tea.
The house was quiet.
Elias wasn’t home yet.
I liked it this way sometimes—when the silence didn’t feel heavy.
Just still.
I looked over at the folder he’d left by the door.
It had the Glendale College logo printed in dark blue.
Inside were notes, printouts, a brochure, a calendar with deadlines circled in black pen.
He’d done all that for me.
And I couldn’t even write a sentence.
I opened the laptop again.
Typed:
I used to think surviving was enough.
I stopped.
Didn’t delete it.
Just… stared.
That was true.
Wasn’t it?
For a long time, surviving was the goal.
Getting through the day.
Sleeping through the night.
Making it to the next one.
But now?
Maybe I wanted something more.
I didn’t know what.
But maybe that sentence was the start.
I used to go to school in Taiwan.
It was crowded.
Noisy.
Always rushed.
I sat in a classroom of thirty kids.
I didn’t have many friends.
Not because they were mean.
We just didn’t connect.
I always found it hard to fit into those girl groups.
I was honest.
Sometimes too honest.
And that’s not a good thing in Chinese culture.
People didn’t like that.
I wasn’t bullied.
But I also wasn’t liked.
School felt like a place you were required to be— not a place that wanted you.
I didn’t hate it.
Didn’t love it.
It was just there.
I wonder what American college is like.
The pictures in the brochure looked nice.
Open lawns.
Smiling students with laptops and coffee cups.
They looked comfortable.
Like they belonged.
I don’t know if I’ll ever feel like that.
But maybe…
Maybe I could try.
I stared at the sentence on the screen again.
I used to think surviving was enough.
My hands hovered above the keyboard.
Then, slowly, I typed the next line:
Now I want to learn how to live.
I hit save.
Closed the laptop.
I didn’t know if it was good.
Didn’t know if it would help.
But it was mine.
And for tonight, that was enough.
Or so I hope.
