Chapter One: Left at the Door

Zaniah didn’t know you could feel your heart break at eight years old.

She thought heartbreak was something that only happened to adults. People who said things like “I need space,” and “We’ve grown apart,” and slammed doors behind them. But as she stood on the cracked cement porch of a house that didn’t smell like home, holding a backpack that wasn’t even zipped all the way, she realized she was wrong.

Her mother didn’t cry when she drove away.

Didn’t even look back.

"Be good," she'd said, her voice clipped and rushed.

As if being good was enough to make Zaniah invisible.

As if being good would stop the ache curling in her chest.

The screen door creaked open, and she was there.

Keisha.

Red nails. Tight tank top. The kind of smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“Well, look who finally showed up,” she said, tugging her robe closed like Zaniah was the one intruding.

Zaniah blinked at her. Behind her, the house was dim. She could hear the sound of sports on a TV and the clinking of a spoon in a coffee mug. Her father didn’t come to the door.

He never came to the door.

Keisha moved aside, like she was doing Zaniah a favor by letting her in. The girl hesitated. Part of her still thought her mom might change her mind, pull back into the driveway and say, “Just kidding. Let’s go home.”

But the beat-up Honda kept driving down the street, disappearing like she was never coming back.

Zaniah stepped in.

The air smelled like burnt bacon and weed. The carpet was stained near the corners. Someone had knocked over a plant and never cleaned it up. This wasn’t home. Not even close.

“You can put your stuff over there,” Keisha said, waving toward a spot near the couch. She was already back on her phone, typing with long fingers like none of this was her problem.

Zaniah walked past her in silence. Her father glanced at her over his shoulder from the kitchen, eyes bloodshot and tired.

He didn’t say her name.

Didn’t even smile.

Just turned back to whatever he was doing, as if she were some delivery left at the door.

Zaniah sat on the edge of the too-soft couch that smelled like cheap cologne and betrayal. Her hands were clenched in her lap, her backpack still clinging to her shoulders like it didn’t want to let go either.

In that moment, something inside her settled.

Not in a good way.

Not in a soft way.

It was the kind of settling that happens when something breaks and doesn’t get fixed. When you stop waiting for someone to come save you.

She was eight.

And already, Zaniah was learning how to disappear.

Zaniah didn’t even get five minutes of silence before the first cut came.

“She got your ears, you know,” Keisha said from the kitchen, not even trying to whisper. “Big ol’ Dumbo ears. Poor thing.”

Laughter.

Her father’s.

Zaniah stiffened. She didn’t even turn around. Her ears burned, and suddenly she was aware of every part of herself she couldn’t hide. Her ears. Her too-thin arms. Her dry lips. Her voice that always sounded too small.

Keisha kept going. “Bet the kids at school eat her up, huh? Talkin’ like she’s grown but lookin’ like a scared little rabbit.”

Her dad didn’t stop her. Didn’t say, “That’s enough.”

He just kept stirring whatever was in the pot.

Something inside Zaniah snapped. Quietly. Like glass cracking beneath your feet.

She didn’t say a word. She stood up, gripped the straps of her backpack, and walked out the front door.

No one stopped her.

No one even noticed.

Outside, the sky had turned the color of bruises. Thunder rumbled somewhere far off. She sat down on the porch steps at first, but the storm didn’t care about her mood—it started pouring like the sky itself was done holding back.

She didn’t move.

She let it soak her hoodie, her socks, her skin. Let it crawl down her back and stick her curls to her forehead. She was too cold to shiver. Too tired to cry.

That’s when she saw him.

A boy about her age, maybe a little older. Ten, maybe eleven. Skinny, with long legs and sharp cheekbones. He wasn’t running from the rain—he was walking right through it like it didn’t matter.

He stopped when he saw her. Just... looked at her.

"You okay?" he asked.

His voice was soft but confident. Like someone used to being ignored but still choosing to care.

Zaniah didn’t answer.

He didn’t press her. He sat down a few steps away, quiet, both of them getting drenched like forgotten laundry.

“I don’t like the rain,” she finally said, voice barely above the storm.

“I do,” he replied, grinning just a little. “Can’t nobody see you cry in the rain.”

She turned her head toward him slowly. Her eyes stung.

“Not crying.”

He didn’t argue.

They sat there for what felt like forever, watching puddles form in the gravel driveway, watching leaves tremble under the downpour.

Then he stood up. “I gotta go.”

She blinked. “Wait—what’s your name?”

The boy smiled, just once. “You don’t need to know it. You’ll forget anyway.”

And just like that, he ran off, vanishing into the curtain of gray.

She never saw him again.

That night, she didn’t eat dinner. She lay in the crusted twin bed in the spare room, water still dripping from her braids. Her backpack was her pillow. Her wet socks stayed on.

But she thought about him. The boy in the rain.

And that smile that made her feel—just for a second—like maybe she wasn’t completely invisible.

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