Families are strange. We're all given one on the day we're born. Some of us are more lucky than others, some of us actually get to know these people. Some of us share our lives with them. Some of us are loved unconditionally the minute we enter this earth.

Then there are the others who aren't so lucky. There are those of us who have to build our own families. We have to find our own people to share our lives with. We have to hope and pray that someone will love us in the way we need. That we will find someone to love in the way we need.

The really unlucky ones never find anyone. The really unlucky ones are the people who never let anyone in.

I don't know who I am. If you ask me I think I've been lucky and unlucky. I was given a family when I was born. I gave my parents a family, even if they weren't planning on it. But those people only live inside my younger years. When I was too young to remember. When the memories were supposed to fade with the years that passed until there was nothing left. Until I couldn't distinguish between what really happened and what I only believed had. What I wanted to believe.

But I never had to believe. I remember everything about those years. My first family. Those people. Those memories sit inside a tight safe with a combination only I know. With a combination I've never shared.

Those memories are too precious. Too personal. Too everything.

Memories of my childhood. Before it got bad. When all I had were my undone shoelaces. When a rainbow bright backpack never left my sticky fingers. Days were so easy then. I was still too young to understand how things could change. I never thought they would.

I had a mom, an amazing mom. A mom I couldn't imagine losing. I never knew I was going to in a few short years. She was gonna change. A cold stranger would try to remain inside my mothers warm frame. A square squished inside a breaking circle. It wasn't going to work. But we still had time then. We still had each other. She loved me. We smiled together. She tickled my stomach. She bounced me on her knee. She kissed my nose and laughed so loud.

She loved my dad. She whispered in his ear. She held his hand.

Dad wasn't famous yet. He still had time for mom and me. He made sure of it. He had us and that's all he wanted. We were all he needed. The nights he sung me to sleep, the shoulders he walked me on; it was all enough. More than enough. He was happy. I watched him happy with mom.

When I was supposed to be asleep, I watched them slow dance in the kitchen. I watched the way he looked into her eyes. I watched him love her.

But one day he became famous. One day everyone wanted a piece of him and they wanted too much. They wanted it all and he gave it to them. He gave everything meant for us. For mom and me. We were left with nothing. Everything became a memory after that. My family stopped living. They were gathering dust and I had to remember. I had to lock them up before they left me completely. I had to save them because they were all I had. They were everything.

Time went on. Life progressed. I tied my own shoes. I didn't need anyone's shoulders to walk on. I sung myself to sleep. Mom stopped laughing. She stopped tickling. Dad was gone more and more. They stopped kissing. She stopped holding his hand. They stopped dancing. He stopped looking. They both stopped loving.

And so did I.

I was unborn again. I had no family. I was all I had.

Until I met Shawn. That day I met a new family. The safe opened again. I made a place for her. I knew she was worth saving. I knew she was worth everything.

Shawns house was full of laughter and love. Full of story telling and commotion. She had two sisters and one brother. She had a mother who wore cooking gloves and folded laundry. She had a father who should have been as absent as mine, but wasn't.

She had it all. And she let me have it too.

I practically moved into her house. What started off as one sleepover a week, became more. Random Tuesdays and Thursdays were added to the mix. I started leaving my clothes there. Her mom started folding them. My toothbrush sat next to Shawns, and so did my seat at the dinner table. Her family called me Ash and hugged me.

Shawn was the key. She was everything. We stayed up all night talking. We smoked cigarettes in the secret folds of her back yard. We drank rum on her bedroom floor. We rolled joints and smoked them outside her window.

I was lucky again. I had someone who loved me unconditionally. I let someone in.

Shawn and I started sharing her bed. I started singing her to sleep. I started waking up with her arms around me. I started turning around between them. There were more and more awkward moments. There were heavier silences. We became more under those blue bed sheets. We evolved as we slept. We innocently became intimate. We didn't have to do anything.

We never had to do anything. It always came easily. Shawn always had an answer. She always knew what to do. She was my one. She held me together.

And when I broke she found the pieces. She found the pieces and let me put them back together. She knew that's how it had to be. She always knew.

She knew when Kyla showed up. The day family number three entered my life.

The family I wasn't ready to accept. I wasn't ready to let this one in. I was sixteen. Sixteen and dad thought it was time I met my half sister. I was still waiting to meet him. To have my father again. I was still waiting on that family. Something I'd never have again.

But he didn't think of that. He never thought of anyone outside of himself.

So there I was. Sweet sixteen and I gained a sister.

Sweet sixteen and I lost a father. I really lost him. This time it was my choice.

I wanted it that way. I wanted nothing to do with him. I was supposed to be his daughter. His only one. His favorite. But he changed all that. He brought a stranger to my home. A smeared mirror image of myself, and all I wanted to do was break it. Throw it away. Never look into it again.

But I couldn't. The best I could do was break him. Throw him away. Never look at him again. So that's what I did. I killed the messenger, and haven't seen him since. He tried. I let him. One day he stopped. One day I stopped caring.

One day I convinced myself I had.

Kyla was still there though. Kyla was everywhere. She was outgoing and social. Pretty and petite. She got good grades and always knew what to say. She made fast friends that lasted. She was so nice to me. So loving. So understanding. Everything a sister would want and I hated it.

I hated her.

Mom loved her. My mom. The mother who was never there started sticking around. She should have hated her. She should have seen her former husbands affair when she looked into those soft eyes. That's what I saw after all.

But she didn't. She saw the daughter she wished she had. When she looked at Kyla in her pretty clothes and neat braids she saw me. She saw her ten year old princess. The one she lost one day to the beach.

Kyla tried though. Kyla always put on a smile through my put downs. She always held a hand out between my claws. Kyla always included me and Shawn always included her. Shawn liked her. Shawn saw her. She saw the person I refused to let my eyes see.

Shawn knew what I didn't. What I couldn't let myself know.

And then I knew. One day after many hard months, I saw what Shawn saw. It was slow. It took time to peek through the hands covering my eyes. But eventually my fingers separated. They moved away from my eyes. One by one. Until finally there was nothing holding me back. There was nothing blocking the mirror before me. The mirror that wasn't smeared anymore. It wasn't dirty. It was perfectly clear and I saw her.

I saw me.

Nearly eighteen and I really met my sister. I finally knew Kyla. I finally let her in and realized she was one of the best things to ever happen to me.

I found a real family again. I had two families. I was among the lucky. I was walking through life with a safety net. I was untouchable. I had it good for awhile and it didn't take long for me to lose it again. I didn't take long for luck to leave me. For my biggest constant to disappear. Once again, memories of a constant are all I have. Shawn only gathers dust now, inside my tight safe. Shawns merely a memory.

Kyla's all I have left. My last and final family. And on days like today she's all I need. I'm blessed to have Kyla on days like today.

Because today is Wednesday. And any minute now we're going to land in Nantucket. Me, Kyla, Anthony, and Aiden are about to enter a new world. We all needed each other for different reasons. Separate circumstances brought us together.

Spencer needed Anthony. Anthony needed me. I needed Kyla. I don't know if she needed Aiden, but she wanted him there. If it meant we'd all get on the plane, no one was going to say no. Strangely the most removed person from the situation had the most power over it. Aiden was the puzzle piece we all needed to fit together.

Anthony said the more the merrier. I still wonder if that's what Spencer said. Something tells me it wasn't, no matter how many times Anthony assures me she's cool with it.

But it's too late to worry if she is or not. The four of us are here now, sitting inside this shaky and rumbling plane. All sharing the same space in this foreign place. Somehow we share it comfortably. We fit together. Our different world dots hold lines strong enough to connect us. Our lines are long enough to bring us together.

I can hear Kyla giggling behind me. I'm sure Aiden holds her hand the same way Anthony holds mine. The way he takes care of me. The way he heard through me when I told him I hated flying. The way he knew it went beyond the flight. He knows I need to be taken care of.

We're descending now. We're about to share more foreign space together. A smaller more intimate space. Kyla squeezes my shoulder. She takes care of me. I turn sideways and smile. I let her in. I let her help.

I feel us hit the pavement. I close my eyes.

It's so strange how families are born.

Kyla's hand rests on my shoulder.

It's not always blood that holds us together.

Anthony's thumb rubs over my skin.

Sometimes it's what we go through. What we experience and share that connects us.

We hit the ground and Aiden let's out a playful "Woo". The pilot's voice blankets the wheels rolling on the pavement.

"Ladies and gentlemen...welcome to Nantucket."

I turn to my side and see Anthony smiling. I hold his hand tighter. I inch closer to lucky.

I let Anthony in. I smile.

I find another family.