Max
Past.
Max: 17, Ember: 13.
Mom and Dad are arguing—again. It’s been happening a lot lately, and their arguments are rarely subtle. More often than not, they’re explosive, even though they try to keep their voices down.
They think I don’t notice. That I can’t sense the charge of tension in the house. And I let them go on thinking that. It’s not like they’re a shitty couple; they love each other dearly, and have never been anything short of exceptional parents to me. It’s just that, when work stuff hits Dad hard, Mom gets worried—and when she’s worried, arguments ensue.
I slip out of the house while they whisper furiously at each other in Dad’s first-floor study. The air is thick with tension, and I’d rather not suffocate beneath it, so I head down the road to find my favorite distraction.
Possibly favoritehuman, too.
It’s late—10p.m.—but Ember is sitting on the porch of the groundskeeper’s house. She’s curled up on the green sofa I got her—one that’ll have to go inside soon, since it’s getting cold and snowy out—and frowning at something on her phone. When she hears my footsteps approaching, she looks up. An easy smile steals across her lips.
“Hey,” she calls out. “What are you doing, wandering around so late?”
“Looking for you.” I ascend the steps of the porch, and plop down beside her. Ember is the easiest person to be around that I’ve ever met. She doesn’t judge, doesn’t talk endlessly, anddoeslend a listening ear. She’s also the only reason I’m passing English.
The fact that I’m being schooled by someone four years younger than me isn’t a point I like to acknowledge, but it’s true. It helps that she’s shit with numbers, while I’m already taking college calculus. I help her with math; she helps me with English; we hang out all the time. I wonder if this is what having a little sister is like to my school friends. Being an only child gets boring.
Nah, I decide. The guys at school endlessly yap on about how annoying their little sisters are, but Ember isn’t annoying. She’s smart, kind, and fun to hang out with. She’s also sassy as fuck.
“How’d the math test go?” I ask her.
She makes a face. “I don’t know. The numbers…” she sighs. “They jumble around on page if I stare too hard. I think I did well, but I won’t know until I get the grade back.” She worries her lower lip, telling me her sentiments on that.
“You’ll be fine,” I assure her. “If you didn’t do well, you can always retake it. Your math teacher loves you.” Probably because her math teacher used to be my math teacher, and I delivered a thinly-veiled threat that he ought to play favorites with her, or I might start tellingtales of his incompetence to my parents. A shitty move, but nothing’s too low when it comes to protecting Ember.
“Did you get your essay grade back?” she asks me.
I nod. “89%.”
She beams, setting down her phone. “I knew you could do it.”
That she did. She always believes in me, even when I don’t believe in myself.
“What about the girl who was harassing you at lunch?” I ask her. A girl whose older brother I had a chat with, telling him to get his sister in line before I took it upon myself to do so.
Again, there’s no end to my protectiveness with Ember, though I don’t usually bother telling her exactly how I go about protecting her. I don’t think she’d want to know just how many people I’ve threatened on her behalf.
“Hasn’t looked at me since last week.” Ember frowns. “It’s weird. She wouldn’t leave me alone for months, and now, it’s like I stopped existing.”
I hide a smile. “Maybe she realized fucking around with you was a bad idea.”
Ember casts me a suspicious glance. “Max?”
“Ember?”
“Did you say something to her?”
“No.” I pause. “I may have said something to her older brother, who’s in my class.”
She squints at me. “What did you say?”
“That if he didn’t get his bratty sister in line, I would.”
“Urgh!” she smacks my arm with her phone, and I chuckle. “You can’t go around threatening people!”
