What a relief to know that after severing the tie between us, there is stillthis. The luxury of being known.
“I hope we always know each other,” I say, the words feeling trite but necessary.
Ethan rests his palm on the bench, facing upward toward the sky. An invitation. I accept it and rest my hand on top of his.
“We will,” he says. “In some capacity.”
“Are we really going to try to be friends?” I ask.
Ethan shrugs. “Maybe. Let’s take it one day at a time.”
“Okay,” I say.
We sit together for another moment of quiet, listening to the water, the birds, the humming of cars puttering down the street. I wonder if Ethan is also dreading going back inside, back to reality. If he wants to extend this moment for as long as possible to delay the inevitable gossip that will surround us like a cloud of gnats. The horrible details that are about to come out about Erica. Ethan takes his hand away, and immediately I feel its absence, my skin resting on the wood of the bench.
“I’m just glad you’re not mad about Millie,” he says. “A weird mistake, you know?” He runs his fingers through his hair. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“Millie.” I repeat my sister’s name, heat spreading on the back of my neck. “A mistake?”
Ethan stands and rests his hands on his hips. “I immediately felt bad about the kiss. I wasn’t very nice about it either. God, I have to go on an apology tour with the Gold sisters, huh? I hope she gets over it. Won’t do her any good to keep pining after me.”
“The kiss.” I blink, my vision blurring the water in front of me until it’s a mess of blue.
“She told you, right? You guys tell each other everything.”
My throat is sandpaper, and I clench my jaw, force my neck to bob my head up and down. “Of course.”
“Anyway,” he says. “We’re gonna be okay, Lucy. We are.”
He reaches for me and squeezes my shoulder, and like a fool, I let him.
“Keep me posted on Erica, okay? It’s hard to believe she…” He shakes his head. “I can’t believe it. I really can’t.”
“Mm-hmm,” I say as he trots off toward home. But I can’t get up. I can’t stand or move or cry because all I can see is a picture in my mind of my sister’s face attached to Ethan’s.
The boy whose entire existence I can sketch on a map, whose heart lay on top of mine, overlapping like shadows.
Ethan, who Millie had gone after last night, trekking off into the darkness in order to find. Tokiss.
Ethan, who Millie had been…What did he say?Piningafter him?
It’s not possible. None of it is.
And yet…
I spin around and watch as Ethan walks back over theboardwalk between our houses, the massive structures flanking him, our whole lives set on these four acres. I grip the bench, and the wood slats dig into my hands so hard a splinter splits my skin. A sharp pain travels up my arm, and I’m hit with a question so unnerving it knocks the breath out of me: What has Millie been hiding?
Millie
I hear her before I see her. Lucy opening the front door, slamming it behind her. The dampening of her footsteps as they hit the wool runner in the hallway, charging up the stairs. A pause at the landing, then a left turn toward our rooms.
I tense as the weight of the air shifts around me. Trevor is long gone, Alex and Frankie are holed up in her room working on a new logic puzzle, and I’m all alone, attuned to Lucy’s movements because I’ve been waiting for this moment all day. Fearing it.
She’s standing right outside my door. I can hear her breathing, can imagine her raising her hand to the doorknob, knowing I don’t deserve the courtesy of a knock. Not today.
How strange, to know someone by the way their feet hit the floor, the rhythm of their steps. I’ve lived my whole life inside this house, listening to Lucy shut dresser drawers, draw back the curtains, flip on light switches, pull plates down from the kitchen cabinets. I can tell she’s stressed based on the way she pushes the pantry door open with her hip, that she’s sleepy if she plops down onto her vanity seat with force so it creaks on that one floorboard in her bedroom. Her movements around this house, even though I can’t see her, paint a picture. Just as I’m sure mine do.
Because weknoweach other.
