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We were all gathered at my mom's house. Nudge and Angel were playing Slap-Jack while Total and Akila were tending to their new puppies. Gazzy was wolfing down about four homemade chocolate chip cookies at a time and pretending to gag at the sight of Iggy and Ella, who were cuddled up on the couch holding hands. Honestly, I didn't blame the Gasman. Ever since the flock and I got back, all those two love birds had done was act like well, love birds. But who was I to talk?

"Max?" I heard Fang say behind me. "What, hey", I said completely surprised. I was so distracted in my thoughts that I didn't even notice him behind me. "What's wrong?" he asked me with a small smile. I hesitated; I didn't want to ruin this for everybody. I couldn't hide the unavoidable from Fang though. "Even though everyone says we saved the day, I look around at you guys and see how happy you all are but I know that it can't last."

"Max, we are happy and nothing can change that; you just need to learn to trust people again, not everyone, but at least the people close to you." He was right, but after months of being on the run and under the radar, you lose your trust in everyone. "Listen", Fang said while tucking a piece of loose hair behind my ear, "when I said the people close to you, I meant me." And he kissed me, for the first time in a long time. I melted into Fangs arms and forgot everything I was worried about.

Suddenly, the wind was knocked out of me. 'Of course', I thought, 'I knew this couldn't last'. But then I realized there wasn't anyone threatening me with anything but tickles. "We're holding you hostage", cried Gazzy. And the flock was on top of us rolling around and wrestling just like old times. Before we were fugitives, before everything got complicated, before we were all destined to save the world from psychopathic scientists. We were just mutant bird kids being kids.

I started counting everything good that had happened recently in my head; I had gotten a new family, I thought having Fang as my boyfriend was a very good thing, and I had survived everything in one piece with my flock. In that moment, I knew that everything was going to be fine. Perfect, never, but we would at least be able to get as close to normal as we could.

I decided I could be happy and start healing and trusting now. I could finally breathe and appreciate my new life as a daughter, a sister, a girlfriend, a friend to my flock, a leader, and something that I could never change, something I decided I would never want to fix, a hybrid bird kid. Despite everything, maybe we could all have a normal life. Maybe no one else will try to take over and dominate the world. But we can only hope.