Making of Felicity

"You're joking," Bella said, staring at me over her chipped mug of tea. Steam curled lazily from the surface, disappearing into the cold kitchen air. "They just left? Like, actually left-left?"

I tugged the sleeves of my hoodie down over my hands, the fabric still warm from the dryer. "Emailed me the flight details and everything." My voice came out flatter than I'd intended, but what else was there to say? Dad's new contract in Dubai had been looming for months—I just hadn’t expected them to pack up while I was still sweating through my last A-level exam. The house in Surrey sold in three days. Apparently, that was that.

Bella's mum had taken one look at me standing on their doorstep with a duffel bag and my netball kit, and immediately started clearing out the spare room. "You’re family," she’d said, like it was the simplest thing in the world. Never mind that my actual family was currently somewhere over the Persian Gulf, texting me about the in-flight entertainment.

I folded myself into the window seat of Bella’s bedroom—my new bedroom, technically, though it still smelled faintly of lavender fabric softener and the vanilla body spray Bella had been obsessed with at fourteen. Outside, rain streaked the glass in diagonal lines, blurring the view of the cul-de-sac where we’d learned to ride bikes and, later, sneak cheap vodka in water bottles. Everything familiar, just... shifted. Like someone had picked up my life and tilted it sideways.