"No cooking, we're going to be gone for a few hours, so try not to burn down the house, okay?" Ethan told the youngest Foster sister. Hannah Foster rolled her eyes as she flopped onto the couch, crossing her arms.

"I'm not a kid, Ethan," she huffed. "I think I can survive a few hours without setting the house on fire."

Ethan shot her a skeptic look as he grabbed his keys, "You said that last time, and we all remember how that turned out."

"That was not my fault!" Hannah protested. "The soup said that it was meant to be microwaved for 5 minutes; nowhere did it say that it needed to be transferred out of the tin first."

"Because that's just common sense," May muttered, grabbing her coat from the rack.

Hannah rolled her eyes, snatching the remote and flipping on the TV. She gave Ethan a half-hearted thumbs-up without looking away from the screen. May followed Ethan out of the cramped apartment and toward his old, beat-up car, shaking her head. "Why do you treat her like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like a child."

Ethan sighed as he tossed the keys to May, "She is a child," he said as he slid into the passenger's seat.

"Lex was younger than her when she was the main income for us, Hannah is only a year younger than me, you don't treat me like that," May started the car, glancing at Ethan as she pulled out of the parking lot. "So what's the difference?"

Ethan ran a hand through his hair, "The difference is that you and Lex had to grow up fast, Lex more than anyone else. Hannah didn't. So why should we make her into an adult when she doesn't have to?"

"You don't make someone into an adult, Ethan," May muttered, keeping her eyes on the road. "Life does that for you. And whether you like it or not, Hannah's gonna have to grow up at some point."

Ethan let out a slow breath, watching the buildings blur past. "Yeah, well... not yet."

May's grip tightened on the steering wheel. May still remembers the first time she met Ethan. She was eleven, Hannah ten, curled on the couch watching cartoons while Lex let some punk-looking boy into their trailer. His hair was dark and slicked back, but it still managed to have the messy look that he still has now at twenty-one, his nails were painted black, and his clothes at rips and holes in it but they were for style, not like the sisters clothes which had been passed down through the three.

May didn't like him at first. She thought he was trouble.

But then he kept showing up, when Lex had to start working more, he was there, he made them dinner, he dropped them off at school, sometimes he would even stay there for the night if Lex had to stay late at work.

Somewhere along the way, May stopped seeing him as trouble and just as an extension of the family.

"You know," she chuckled, "I used to think you were bad news."

Ethan snorted, "You weren't wrong."

"No, I was," she grinned, "You couldn't hurt a fly, seriously, I've seen you try."

For a moment, the silence in the car consumed them. May had her learner's permit, and since Lex still had her provisional license, Ethan was the only one who could teach her how to drive. They had spent a lot of time together since she started working on her required practice hours, making May realize she didn't know much about Ethan. She'd always been too busy studying to pay much attention to her older sister's boyfriend. May looked at the location, which was set on the GPS, her brows crossing in confusion as she saw the location, "Why are we going to a jewellery store?"

Ethan stiffened, "It's nothing," he said quickly, almost too quickly.

May gave him a questioning look. "We can't afford to randomly visit jewellery stores. What's the occasion?"

Ethan looked out of the window, refusing to meet her eyes, "Drop it, May."

"Come on, what's with all the secrecy? It's not like you're getting a wedding ring or something," she joked, chuckling as she turned to see Ethan's reaction to her joke. Ethan looked as if he had just seen a ghost, the colour in his face disappearing, "Oh my god, are you?"

Ethan groaned, sinking further into his seat. "May—"

"Oh my god, you are!" she practically shouted, "You're proposing to Lex!"

Ethan sunk further into his seat, "Can you not yell in the car?"

"Ethan! This is massive! Have you told Hannah? What ring are you getting, what money? How—"

"May, calm down," he interrupted her, "I know this is massive, trust me, I know."

"Right, sorry."

Ethan sighed, finally turning to face her, "No, Hannah doesn't know, I didn't want you to know either, I'm not sure if Lex is going to say yes, I mean, we're both young but I love her, I couldn't imagine spending my life with anyone other than her," he explained, "Even if we're engaged for the next fifteen years, I wouldn't mind, because I want to spend my life with her and if she says yes, I know she will to."

"Aww."

Ethan rolled his eyes, "Shut up," May chuckled, "I've already brought the ring, remember how I took up some extra shifts at my dad's repair shop? I managed to save up enough to get a ring. I was only supposed to go in quickly to pick it up."

"And you thought I wouldn't ask why you quickly ran into a jewellery store?"

"Well, I thought you wouldn't be nosy," May gave him a look, "Okay, I hoped you wouldn't be."

She rolled her eyes. The two spent the rest of the drive in comfortable silence. May's always been a quick learner, so she didn't need Ethan's help as she carefully drove around the city. The car came to a stop as May reached 1st Street, her car put into park as they pulled out the front of a business strip where Pasqualli's and Bob's Jewellers are. "So, I guess you want me to wait in the car?"

"Actually—" May watched as Ethan's face turned hard, his eyes widened as he looked ahead, "HEY!" He yelled, opening the door and slamming it behind him.

May's eyes followed Ethan as he ran up to three boys huddled together. She couldn't see what they were looking at or who they were because it was too far away, but they ran when they noticed Ethan approaching them. When the boys disappeared, May felt her heart skip a beat as she saw that another boy was on the ground, covered in blood. "Shit," she muttered as she opened the door chasing after Ethan.

When she got closer, she recognised the boy who was cowering in fear; it was Peter Spankoffski. Peter was trembling, eyes wide, his shirt soaked in blood. His eye was red, surely tomorrow it would be bruised. May skidded to a halt beside Ethan, her shoes scraping against the pavement. Her breath caught in her throat at the sight in front of her. She's never been good with blood. When she and Hannah were younger, and they were losing their baby teeth, May would always cry at the sight. Lex tried her best to comfort her, but even now her fear remains. Ethan placed a hand on Pete's shoulder, causing the boy to flinch. "Are you okay?"

Peter looked at them, May felt the air being ripped out of her lungs.

May gasped. Her head pounded as if something had pierced straight through her skull. She placed a hand on her chest, trying to calm her pounding chest, hoping to conceal her vision from Ethan and Pete. She clammed her eyes shut, hoping, praying, that when she opened them, she would still be here.

She opened them, and she wasn't behind Bob's Jewellers anymore.

She was in the halls of Hatchetfield High.

But something was different.

The walls, usually a dull red with fading trophy cases and rusty lockers, were now a pale blue; she'd seen that blue before, in old photos of Hatchetfield High from a few years ago before the school had been flooded and repainted. The first thing May noticed was that she could hear singing, instantly she recognised the tune, she'd had nightmares about that tune for the last three years.

"La dee dah dah," she heard Ruth, Peter's nerdy friend, sing as she chased after May. Suddenly, May's legs started running through the halls. May wanted to stop herself, to let herself be caught by Ruth and be turned into a singing alien, but her legs wouldn't stop.

She kept running, her breath heavy as more students joined the chase. Deb and Ziggy, two of Lex's old classmates, joined the song. "La dee dah dah," the song was like poison. She turned a corner and found herself in an empty hallway. May's head spun as she started thinking of where she should go next. Her legs raced towards the boys' bathroom, 'No, no, no!' She yelled at herself, putting herself in a dead end was a stupid decision.

May slammed the door behind her, panting as she walked towards the sink, her eyes widened as she saw the reflection in the mirror. Staring back at herself, she saw Peter Spankoffski, only three years younger. His face clean of bruises and blood but covered in sweat.

May jolted back with a gasp. Her hands were shaking, her shirt damp with sweat. The alley behind Bob's Jewellers rushed back into view— Peter was still crouched on the ground, bloody and wide-eyed. Ethan knelt beside him, glancing at May as his eyebrows knotted with concern. She offered him a wobbly smile as she turned her attention back to Peter.

May dropped to her knees beside Peter, her heart still hammering in her chest. "Do you need to go to the hospital?"

Peter shook his head. May noticed that the pair of glasses that he was wearing was chipped. "I just go to go home," he muttered.

Ethan nodded, "We'll give you a lift."