Chapter440:

###Chapter 440 RILEY Mom picked us up after school, the same warm smile, the same easy questions about our day, and I found myself talking twice as much as usual, filling the car with chatter about my science project and a book I was reading and a hundred small, inconsequential things, like I could somehow balance out Ollie's silence with my own noise. It was a thing I did without quite deciding to do it. Had done for as long as I could remember. Ollie went quiet, and I got loud, like our whole selves were built to counterweight each other. "You're extra talkative today," Mom said, glancing at me in the mirror with obvious affection. "Just a good day," I said, and didn't look at Ollie, who was staring out the window with his wolf clutched in his lap. That evening, after dinner, I overheard Grandma Silvia on the phone with Mom in the kitchen, their voices low but not quite low enough that I couldn't catch pieces of it from the hallway. "—just seems like he's struggling more than usual