Third-Person Limited – Kendra
The house felt smaller that night.
Not physically—same walls, same furniture, same scuffed spots on the floor—but the air inside carried a quiet weight.
Everyone knew the email existed now.
Everyone knew about April 15.
And everyone knew it was getting closer.
"Family meeting," Sofia announced after dinner, clapping her hands once. "Living room. Ten minutes. Bring your feelings."
"I left mine at school," Erica grumbled.
"Then bring snacks instead," Sofia said. "I accept payment in chips."
Kendra rinsed her plate, set it in the sink, and stared at the tap for a second longer than necessary.
This was good.
She needed this.
Even if it meant saying out loud things she'd been keeping in her head.
They ended up in the living room in a rough circle—on the couch, the rug, the old armchair that creaked if you breathed too hard.
Bowls of chips, cookies, and something Sofia swore was popcorn but looked like chaos sat in the middle on the coffee table.
Netflix was paused on some random show.
No one reached for the remote.
"Okay," Sofia said, folding her legs under her. "Ground rules: no yelling, no guilt-tripping, no 'if you loved us, you'd choose what I want.' We're just… saying where we're at. The program ends. We all have decisions. We can't pretend we don't."
"Who made you boss?" Erica asked.
"Me," Sofia said. "I make a very cute boss. Now shut up and share."
They laughed, a little too loudly.
But it helped.
"Fine," Jennie said. "I'll go first."
She picked at a loose thread on her leggings.
"I'm going home," she said. "For sure. My parents need me around. My little brother's a menace. If I leave them alone with him much longer, the house might not be standing when I get back."
"Please send updates," Maya said. "I want to see if he eventually sets the couch on fire."
"Rude," Jennie said, but she smiled. "Besides… I miss it. I miss our noise, the market, the corner shop, all of it. This year's been amazing and insane, but… I knew from the jump this was a one-year thing for me."
Kendra nodded slowly.
Part of her envied that certainty.
"Me too," Jeah said. "Going back. My granny already threatened to fly up here and drag me home by my ear if I even think about staying without at least one more year under her roof."
"Terrifying," Sofia said. "I like her."
"She likes you too," Jeah said. "She said, 'The loud one look like trouble. I would've been just like her when I was young.'"
Sofia beamed.
"What about you?" Kendra asked her.
All eyes turned.
Sofia's bounce softened into something more serious.
"I… don't know yet," she admitted. "My parents moved up here when I was little. This town is home for me. But part of me wants to go back for a while after we're done—work with my aunt, see what life there feels like when I'm not just visiting for holidays. I might go back for a year. Or not."
"So you're as confused as me," Kendra said.
"Misery loves company," Sofia said. "We can start a club."
"Erica?" Maya prompted.
Erica blew out a loud breath. "I'm going back," she said. "For now. I want to finish school at home, see my family, torture my cousins. But I'm… not ruling out coming back here later. For college. Or work. Or just to annoy you all."
"Please do," Kendra said.
Maya pushed her glasses up her nose. "I'm staying," she said. "If I can. I already talked to the coordinator. I'm applying to a school not too far from here. I like it. I like the library. I like not melting every day of my life. And I like that people here don't know everything about my family business."
"Excuse you," Erica said. "I know everything about your family business."
"You don't count," Maya said.
They grinned at each other.
Then they all looked at Kendra.
She sank a little lower in her corner of the couch.
"Don't do that," she muttered. "You're all staring like I'm on TV."
"We're not asking for the final answer," Sofia said. "We're asking where your head is right now."
Kendra picked up a chip, broke it in half, then in half again.
"My head is a mess," she said. "My heart is worse."
"Go on," Jennie said gently.
She stared at the small pile of crumbs in her palm.
"Home is… home," she said quietly. "My parents. The noise. The food. The sun. The way everything smells. I miss it. I miss them. I miss not having to explain myself every time I open my mouth."
Her throat tightened.
"But here…" She glanced around the room. "Here I have you idiots. I have teachers who push me without tearing me down. I have a principal who terrifies me and still somehow makes sure I don't fall through the cracks. I have—" She stopped, cheeks heating.
"Your wolf boy," Maya supplied.
"My wolf boy," Kendra echoed softly.
They let that sit.
"If I go home," she continued, "I lose… this. At least the everyday part of it. If I stay, I lose… waking up to my parents arguing about the radio. My neighbor shouting 'morning' from over the fence. Being there when stuff happens. I hate that either way, I lose something. Someone."
"That's what happens when you put your heart in more than one place," Sofia said. "It sucks. And it also means you lived."
Kendra snorted, eyes burning.
"Do you… have a lean?" Maya asked. "Like if I forced you to pick this second, which way would you tip?"
Kendra went quiet.
They waited.
"I think—" She stopped. Tried again. "There's one choice that hurts in a way I think I could live with. And one that hurts in a way I think would haunt me."
"That sounds like a lean," Jennie said softly.
Kendra stared at the crumbs in her hand.
"I'm not ready to say it out loud yet," she admitted. "Not until I tell my parents. Not until I'm sure I won't take it back because I got scared."
"That's fair," Sofia said.
"But…" Kendra took a breath. "I think… I know. Deep down. What I'm going to click when I answer that email."
They went silent.
Not sad.
Not celebrating.
Just… accepting.
"Whatever you choose," Erica said suddenly, voice too bright, "I reserve the right to guilt-trip you occasionally. Lovingly."
"Same," Jeah said. "But I'll do it through voice notes. That way you can't interrupt me."
"I'm going to cry either way," Jennie said. "So just know that's coming."
Maya nudged Kendra's knee with her own. "We're not going to stop being… this," she said, gesturing around at all of them. "We'll just… have to annoy each other through different time zones and schedules."
"Good thing we're stubborn," Sofia said. "We'll make it work."
Kendra swallowed the lump in her throat.
"Okay," she said. "New rule. No more heavy talk for the next hour. We watch something stupid, we eat everything on this table, and we pretend we're still the girls who walked into this house for the first time and didn't know any of this was coming."
"Deal," they chorused.
Someone hit play.
The show resumed.
They laughed too loudly at jokes that weren't that funny.
But it helped.
For a little while, she could be just a girl in a borrowed house with her friends, not someone holding a story at a crossroads.
The call home happened later that night.
The house was quiet, lights dimmed, everyone drifting off to their rooms.
Kendra sat at her desk, laptop closed, phone in her hand, staring at her mother's contact.
She pressed call before she could talk herself out of it.
It rang twice.
"Kendra?" her mother answered, voice edged with sleep and surprise. "You know what time it is here?"
"Yeah," Kendra said. "Sorry. I couldn't sleep. You got a minute?"
"For you?" her mother said. "Always. Hold on." Kendra heard movement, a door closing, the slight echo of a smaller room. "Okay. It is just me now. Talk."
Kendra exhaled.
"I talked to my principal today," she said. "And Dominic. About… staying."
Her mother hummed. Not disapproving. Just… listening.
"He laid it all out," Kendra continued. "Papers. Visas. School options. Pack stuff. It's… real. Not easy. But real. I could stay. For college. For him. For… this life."
"And going home is still on the table," her mother said. Not a question.
"Yeah," Kendra said. "Always."
She pulled her knees up into the chair, tucking her feet beneath her.
"I keep thinking there's going to be a sign," she said. "Some big moment where everything clicks and I just know. But it's not like that. It's just… me. With pros and cons and a deadline."
"That's what grown-up decisions feel like," her mother said. "No trumpet. Just you and a form."
Kendra laughed softly. "Great," she said. "Love that journey for me."
"What does your heart say?" her mother asked quietly. "Not your fear. Not your guilt. Your heart."
"My heart is loud and annoying," Kendra said. "It says 'stay' when I think about him. About my friends. About the chances I have here that I might not get at home. It says 'go' when I think about you. Dad. Sunday dinner. The smell of the street after rain. The way home wraps around you even when it squeezes a bit too tight."
"And your head?" her mother asked.
"My head says… both are risky," Kendra said. "Staying means paperwork and being watched and trying to build a life in a place that still doesn't fully know what to do with me. Going means… maybe wondering forever what I walked away from."
Her voice cracked on the last part.
Her mother was quiet for a long moment.
"You know," she said slowly, "when your father and I had you, we had… plans. Not big ones. Just… 'she go grow up here, do school here, go church here, find work here, maybe move out one day but not too far.' Small plans. Safe plans."
Kendra wiped at her eyes with the heel of her hand.
"Then you start growing," her mother continued. "You come home with big ideas. Big mouth." There was fondness in the insult. "We realize… you not a small-plan person. You never was."
"I could be," Kendra whispered.
"You could pretend," her mother corrected. "And then wake up at fifty and cuss everybody, including yourself."
A small, wet laugh escaped Kendra.
"I don't want you to stay there because you feel sorry for me," her mother said. "I don't want you to come home because you feel guilty for leaving. That not a life. That a sentence."
"Then what do you want?" Kendra asked, voice barely above a whisper.
"I want you somewhere you can breathe," her mother said. "Even if is not in my house. That's the part I don't like. But is the part that mean you doing what you supposed to do—living."
Kendra pressed her hand over her mouth.
"As for this boy," her mother added, "and his… extra fur… that is its own big thing. But from what you telling me, it sound like him willing to do the hard work. Not just the sweet talk. That count for something."
"It does," Kendra said, thinking of him in that office, talking about laundry and bills and building a life instead of making promises he couldn't keep.
"If you stay and it go wrong," her mother said, "you can come home. If you go home and realize you make mistake, you can find a way back out again. None of this is locked forever. Only death is final. Everything else is… trying, learning, trying again."
Kendra let that sink in.
"Daddy?" she asked after a moment. "What does he think?"
"Him pretend him don't want to talk," her mother said. "But he sitting right here looking at me like I must pass the phone."
Kendra smiled through her tears.
"Put him on," she said.
There was some muffled shuffling, a muttered "watch the cord," and then her father's voice came through, gruff and familiar.
"Eh-heh," he said. "So you remember you have a father, eeh?"
"I heard rumors," Kendra said, voice wobbling.
He snorted. "Your mother tell me what going on," he said. "You planning to stay in cold foreign land or you coming back here to mash up my kitchen with your experiments?"
"That depends," Kendra said. "You going to keep complaining about the light bill every morning?"
"Always," he said. "Is my hobby."
She laughed.
Then the laughter faded, and the silence between them filled with the thing they weren't saying.
"If you stay," her father said slowly, "I will be… vex." He said it plainly. "Not with you. With life. With the fact that everything good we raise either have to leave or fight twice as hard to stay. I will miss you. I will cuss the phone bill. I will stare at the door sometimes and hope you walk in even when I know you not coming."
Kendra's breath hitched.
"But," he said, voice softer, "if you come home just because you fraid to stay, I will be more vex. With you. Because that not my daughter. My daughter might be wrong sometimes, but she not coward."
Her throat closed.
"If you come home because you feel in your whole self, 'I done with that place. My place is here'—I will be glad. If you stay there because you feel in your whole self, 'My future is there, at least for now'—I will swallow my pride and be proud."
He cleared his throat.
"And if this boy hurt you," he added, "I will swim across ocean and deal with him myself. Wolf or no wolf."
Kendra laughed, tears spilling over freely now.
"I believe you," she said.
"Good," he replied.
There was a pause.
"So what you going do?" he asked. "Not for me. Not for your mother. For you?"
Kendra stared at the dark window.
Her reflection stared back.
She saw the girl who'd arrived here furious and closed off.
She saw the girl who'd fought in hallways, broken bones, pranked enemies.
She saw the girl who'd learned how to accept a hand held out, how to let someone wash her hair, how to say "I'm scared" without turning it into a joke.
She thought of her lists.
Of the meeting earlier.
Of the gym at Spring Glow.
Of the porch at the Garrison house.
Of the small kitchen back home.
Of wolf eyes in the dark and her mother's laugh on the phone.
And there it was.
Not a lightning bolt.
Not a divine voice.
Just a solid, steady thing in her chest.
The answer she'd been circling for weeks.
"I think…" she said slowly, "I know. Now."
Her father hummed. "Then do it," he said. "And when you tell them, tell them with your full chest. No apology."
"Yes, Daddy," she whispered.
"Put back your mother," he said, and the warmth in his voice almost undid her.
Her mother came back on the line with a sniff. "You make me cry," she accused.
"You started it," Kendra said.
"Whatever you choose," her mother said firmly, "we behind you. Understand? You not losing us."
"I know," Kendra said. And this time, she truly did.
They said their goodnights with more softness than usual, a little more lingering.
When the call ended, the room seemed very quiet.
Her heart didn't.
It felt… settled.
Still scared.
Still sad for the path she wasn't taking.
But settled.
She wiped her face, blew out a breath, and turned to her laptop.
The email was still open in another tab.
She moved the cursor over to it.
Clicked.
The familiar text filled the screen, including the line:
Please respond by April 15 indicating whether you…
Her eyes dropped to the options.
Return home.
Apply to stay.
Her chest tightened once more.
Then, slowly, it loosened.
She hit Reply.
Her fingers hovered over the keys for half a second.
No going back to not knowing, she thought.
Then she started to type.
Her choice poured out in simple words.
No drama.
No long explanations.
Just truth.
When she reached the end of the sentence that began with "I have decided to…", she paused.
Read it once.
Twice.
Her heartbeat in time with the words.
She didn't hit send.
Not yet.
That would come on April 15.
But for the first time, the choice wasn't just in her chest.
It was on the screen.
Real.
And somehow, that made it easier to breathe.