Page 5 of Head Under Water

“It’s a nickname,” he defends himself with a laugh. “Jeez, someone’s on her period.”

All three women look up at once. The air shifts. Sharp. I try to hide my grin. Someone’s about to get it.

“Fitzwilliam,” Mom warns him.

I snort, and he groans. Who wouldn’t hate a first name like that? It makes him sound like some founding father rather than the idiot boy next door.

“Son, do you need a chore? The yard’s getting a little tall, and my scissors have been looking for something to do with themselves,” Margie says, only half teasing. He’s been forced to cut part of the yard with scissors before, after he snuck out and stole her car.

“I was just thinking my ceilings need to be repainted, too,” Ruth says.

“Ha-ha,” Will responds, tipping up the can of Sprite to his lips.

“You comin’ or what?” Will’s brother, Cory, waits in the doorway to the kitchen, sweat glistening on his brow. He’s already sunburned on the nose, always the first to burn of the three of us. “Oh, hey, Opal. You wanna play kickball with us?”

I open my mouth to answer, heart lifting despite myself, but Will moves past me. “No. Come on. Gross. Are you kidding?”

The lift drops just as fast. Of course.

Cory tosses me a sympathetic look, one side of his mouth drawn in, but turns away, rushing out the door.

“You two are gonna have to get along someday,” Margie says thoughtfully, sticking a stamp in the corner of her postcard. Her tone says she believes it, like the mothers have convened and decided it so.

“Sorry, Marge. Your youngest son’s a dud.”

“She means stud,” Will corrects, slamming the door behind him. It rattles on its frame. He always shuts things harder than necessary.

I shake my head, opening the fridge to get my own Sprite. I wait until I hear them leave the porch before I let my face fall. “You guys need any help?”

“Oh, honey, we’ll always take help from our favorite girl,” Ruth says, patting the empty seat next to her. I slide into the chair between her and Margie, tucked into the warm safety of their laughter, pretending I don’t hear Will’s voice carrying across the yard.

Pretending I don’t care.

Pretending I never have.

CHAPTER FIVE

PRESENT DAY

“This is a joke.” I blink, staring at my arch nemesis standing there, smiling that stupid, infuriating smile. “Our mothers are playing a practical joke. I’m going to kill—” I cut myself off, realizing I’ll never again be able to utter those words with such thoughtlessness. Death is no longer a joke or an empty threat to me.

Not like it was.

Even though Dad died when I was five, we never had the kind of relationship I had with Ruth. He wasn’t around much. He and Mom never married, and I mostly only saw him at holidays. It just wasn’t the same.

His death was a paper cut that has never fully healed.

This death—her death—stings like broken glass on sunburned skin.

Will runs a hand through his hair. He looks like he hasn’t slept. “Uh, yeah. You’re not living here. Clearly.”

“Obviously.” I brush my hair back from my face. Then, studying his expression for any sign he was in on the joke, I ask, “You really didn’t know?”

“Mom just said she had a friend who needed a place.” He looks over his shoulder. Like he’s checking something behind him. Some trap he’s waiting for me to walk into. “I assumed it was a dude.”

“Well, yeah. She couldn’t let you live with a woman. How would you hide the fact that you’re a lizard person?”

His face wrinkles with mock humor. “Clearly why she sent you.”