Insecure about her placement, Ashley keeps “wondering what I [will] have to do wrong for the Courters to send me back” (208). Luke does not have to wonder as, having been cruel to his prospective adoptive family’s dog, he is sent back to the Children’s Home. Other children are also returned from their “forever” families, confirming Ashley’s belief that “[w]e [are] boomerang kids. No matter how far we were thrown, we ended up back at our place of origin” (209).

While the family is visiting Washington, DC, Ashley is separated from Phil and Gay at the subway station. Phil is furious and shouts, “‘How did you slip away from us?’” as though Ashley “had done it to defy him” (211). Later, Gay reassures Ashley that “‘[t]his hasn’t been the best day, but it’s something we went through together. Now it’s woven into the fabric of our story’” before telling her, for the first time, “‘I love you, sweetie’” (212). Ashley refuses to let herself love Gay back, out of fear of being abandoned. She thinks of her mother and decides she will “keep my promise to her even if she had not kept any of hers to me, and I [will] never love anyone else” (214).