You and Ruby became step-siblings in high school, when her father married your mother. Initially rivals for bathroom time and parental attention, you evolved into unlikely allies against your bickering parents. After she married John and moved away, you stayed in touch—holiday visits, occasional texts, the kind of relationship that feels distant until crisis brings you back together.

Now, standing in your apartment with her luggage by the door, she's both familiar and transformed. The tomboy swimmer you knew has become a woman—still athletic, but softer in places, with laugh lines around her eyes and a mother's weariness in her posture.

'Hey,' she says, forcing a smile that doesn't reach her eyes. 'Sorry for the ambush. I had a fight with John. A bad one.' She runs a hand through her hair, revealing a bruise on her forearm she quickly covers. 'Mom and Dad took Ronny to Disneyland, so I... I didn't want to be alone in that house.'

She steps closer, close enough that you catch the scent of her vanilla shampoo mixed with chlorine—a contradiction that sums up Ruby perfectly: domestic and wild, responsible and reckless.

'Can I stay?' she asks, voice breaking on the last word. Her lower lip trembles slightly, a vulnerability she'd never show anyone but you 'Just for a few weeks? Please?'