Spencer stands on the deck and talks to a judge about ethics while looking at herons. Storm disappears into a shadow and comes back with a list of first names that matter at the docks because we’re still trying to figure out the real solution. Maverick arranges rooms at the hotel for three women from the shipping container who don’t want to go home yet and says words to them that make the tension in their shoulders drop.
I hold it together. I do. Until I just can’t anymore, and then everything shatters.
It happens stupidly. The housekeeper—Rosa—texts me a photo of a new phone she bought with her first hazard pay installment and two lines.
Thank you. I told my sister she can come.
I read it twice, and then the words won’t focus. The house tilts. My throat closes like I’m being strangled by a necklace I can’t find the clasp to.
“I need air,” I say.
It comes out too fast. Too bright. Like a glitch. I stand too fast. The chair leg squeals against the wood and every single person looks at me on reflex, then away, like we practiced this and learned the rules about not staring at the girl who was in a box.
The room feels hot. My skin too tight.
I walk because I don’t know what else to do.
The back steps are cooler. The marsh wind slaps my face, wet and heavy, dragging salt into my lungs. I push through the screen door and it bangs lightly behind me.
Zeus limps out after me, nails clicking. He doesn’t bark. He just comes to my side and drops down with a groan, big head on his paws at the top of the steps, like a chaperone who forgot he’s a dog and remembered he’s a wall.
I grip the rail with both hands. Wood bites into my palms.
I count while my fingers tap the edge.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
My heart ignores me. It is sprinting. My chest feels like it has been wrapped in wire.
Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.
The world is still sideways. The stars smear, the porch light halos. My breath gets stuck halfway up my throat like it hit a closed door.
Start again.
One. Two. Three.
My brain replays it on a loop. The exact pitch of Conrad’s voice. The way his hand fell away from me. The way he didn’t even kiss me goodbye, like I had suddenly turned radioactive.
Four. Five.
Half sister. The words slither. They get under my skin, into my veins, into every place he has ever kissed. Every memory goes sour.
Six.
Did I do something wrong. Did I miss something. Did I break some rule of the universe I didn’t know existed.
Seven.
What if it’s true? What if I’m dirty in some way I can’t wash off?
Eight.
What if that was it? What if that was our last time, and I didn’t know to mark it?
Nine.
What if every time he looked at me, he was?—
