“Brothers don’t keep pictures of one another in their wallets,” Sara throws back.
I glance at Trent, who is glancing at me.
“Jesus,” Sara says. “The way you look at one another.” She pinches Trent at the ear and turns his head to face her. She’s angling her head at me. “Even if he’s willing to put a hold on his feelings for a year. What if Gramps outlives his prognosis? Stubborn old men do, you know. What if it’s two years? Three?”
My stomach hops.
A stray thought. I grit my teeth.
How can I want him to live forever... and still think:please, only a year.
I drop my head quickly, shuffle from foot to foot.
“This is unfair to him,” she says, chin to me.
I start. “I?—”
“We will not cross any lines,” Trent says. “We are not and will not.”
The jasmine’s too sweet. Salt burns my lip.
Starboard! Lighthouse! Not Port. Not after today.
bioluminescent plankton
Glows when disturbed. Like laughter after silly thoughts.
We’re quiet as we sneak inside and into our bunks.
The house settles around us: timber cooling, the faint howl of wind through the window gaps.We are not and will not.
I can hear his breathing, uneven, a small catch near the exhale. Awake. Like me.
I press a pillow over my face and let feathers and lavender detergent muffle a growl. Then I cast it aside, glaring up where moonlight thins and thickens on the ceiling.
What even is love? A handful of choices the other person makes that please us; the hand pausing mid-tap, the sneaky glances, the dry answer that clicks with our humour. The impulse to keep leaning in. More, please.
If that’s love, there must be a thousand others who could offer it.
And yet, none are him.
Maybe it’s the shared map: sibling, loss. I understand you; you understand me.
But there’s more than melancholy here. There’s the urge to laugh. To fold into comfort.
Maybe love is a signature. I like the scrawl so much I want to trace every curve with a finger. Call it mine.
A laugh jolts out of me, rattling the frame.
“What’s so funny?” Trent murmurs. His foot bumps the slat beneath me.
“My thoughts are pretentious nonsense.”
“Pretentious?”
“Yeah. Purple prose, but in my head.”
“Ah. Purples. We all have them.”
