“Are you all right?” asked Regan, focusing on the nameless girl. “You look like you’re going to be sick.”
The nameless girl looked at her and smiled, brighter than it seemed she had ever smiled before. She pulled her hands out of Sumi’s and placed them to either side of her own neck, fingers spread, like she was giving herself a hug.
“My name is Marian,” she said. “That’s my name.”
The door of the house banged open as a beautiful boy in a hand-stitched vest burst onto the porch. “Sumi’s back!” he yelled. “She’s back, and she’s got Cora with her!” Kade ran down the porch, cutting across the lawn as several more students piled outside, pointing and yelling. Cora ran toward them, leaving Sumi with the girls from Whitethorn. She and the boy met in the middle of the lawn, wrapping their arms around each other and spinning like pinwheels in the sun. So many things were still broken; so many things still needed to be done. But in that moment, there was victory, and the sound of Marian’s joyful sobbing, and a haven to be harbored in.