“They’re just trout. Who’s going to know?”
“If you touch them, you might hurt them.” Evie kept hold of his wrist. “That’s really not cool. Look, there are fish food dispensers over there. We can feed them instead, okay? You don’t need to get all up in their business.”
Evie was right—stationed not far from either end of the walkway were hand-crank vending dispensers which held brown feed pellets. They were old—likely the same ones that had stood there the last time Simon had been to visit the spring.
“Well… if you say so.” Shep whipped a quarter out of his pocket and held it between two fingers, like a magician who’d just pulled someone’s card from his deck. “I’ve got the coinage.”
Evie snorted. She pointed at the machine. “Go ahead, Mr. Moneybags.”
“Ouch. Low blow.”
While they verbally sparred with each other, Harlow leaned on the railing separating the walkway from the hatchery, his head bowed to look at the water, but his gaze distant. He wore a small but stunning smile that lit Simon up from the inside as brightly as the mid-afternoon sun glinted off the surface of the hatchery’s waves.
“They’re cute,” Harlow remarked.
“The fish?” Simon came to stand at his side, his hands set loosely on the railing. The closer he came, the quicker his pulse raced.
Harlow grinned. “I meant Evie and Shep, but the fish aren’t bad. I don’t think I’ve ever been somewhere like this before.”
“I used to come here all the time.” Simon pushed his fingertips against the grain of the railing. “Well, we all did… Shep, Jayne, and me.”
Down the walkway, Shep slotted a quarter into the machine and twisted the handle. Feed tumbled free, rushing past the slot into Evie’s cupped palms. Evie gasped, then looked at him with total adoration. While they bonded, Harlow had eyes only for Simon.
It made Simon shiver with delight and kicked his nervous motormouth into gear.
“We came here with our parents,” Simon explained. He kept his eyes on the water, watching the trout flash forward or dart back, sometimes breaking the surface, sometimes disappearing deeper into the channel. “Mom worked for the Department of Conservation, and Dad worked as a private contractor for a construction company. He was sent here to do some work on… I don’t even remember what, and Mom happened to be here doing work at the time. He started to bug her during his half-hour lunch breaks, and eventually that turned into coffee on a Saturday, and not too long after, that turned into me.”
“Not Jayne?” Harlow’s gaze lingered on Simon meaningfully before he glanced at the teenagers at the other end of the walkway. There was nothing to worry about—Shep and Evie were laughing, tossing pieces of feed at trout, trying their best to hit them on the head.
“Oh, um, no.” Simon smiled. “He’s my half-brother. You can kind of tell, because Shep and I have auburn hair, and Jayne doesn’t. It’s not something we really think about, though. Jayne’s always been my brother. The half thing doesn’t really bother us.”
“Family is family.”
“For the best and for the worst.” Simon’s smile grew—a natural defense against negative emotion. At the other end of the walkway, Shep and Evie had given up on hitting trout in the head. Evie had found a way to skirt the rules, feeding them directly by kneeling right next to the railing. She held the pellets one by one to the surface of the water and allowed them to pluck each piece from her fingers. “So… that’s the end of a long story. Our parents came back here every year with us until they, um, died.” More discomfort. Simon attempted to laugh it away, but the sound was strained. “We haven’t been back since. But it… it’s nice, you know, to be back. Everything is the same as it always was. It’s only us who’ve changed.”
“How long ago did it happen?” The question was posed delicately, and while Simon didn’t like thinking about it—acknowledging it—he didn’t feel attacked.
“Three years.”
“It’s just starting to feel like your life is getting back on track, isn’t it?”
Simon perked up, this time not self-conscious when he looked Harlow’s way. “What?”
Harlow gazed out over the water, his hands clasped. Shep and Evie had gone back to the feed dispenser. This time, Evie loaded in a quarter while Shep cupped his hands beneath the slot.
“After Emerson died, that was about how long it took for me to start to feel normal again.” Harlow spoke with meaning, choosing his words carefully. “Not that… not that you everdofeel normal again, because it really is just like you say it is—the world doesn’t change,youdo.”
The taste of tears collected in the back of Simon’s throat. He swallowed it down, but his sinuses had already begun to run, and he sniffled. Pain erupted across his face from the site of his broken nose, but after the initial burst, he hardly felt it. A hand had wrapped around his arm, stealing his attention away with its calloused fingers and strong grip. Startled, Simon looked up.
Harlow.
His touch wasn’t only a reassurance, but a promise that he wasn’t alone.
“And if the world still doesn’t feel right,” Harlow said softly, “if you’re still in a place where everything is confusing and everything feels lost, that’sokay.It’s okay not to feel normal. It’s okay to mourn. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Don’t letanyonetell you that your grief is invalid, or that you need to get over the pain. It’s okay to hurt. Just… know that you aren’t alone. It isn’t only your burden to bear. If you need to talk, I’m here.”
The taste of saline intensified. Simon swallowed them back, but there was no helping the onslaught. Tears gathered in his eyes and slid silently down his cheeks.
“Hey,” Harlow murmured. His hand traced down Simon’s arm until their fingers wove together, their hands clasped one atop the other as they rested on the railing. “I didn’t mean to make you cry. I’m sorry.”
