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What a luxury it would be to live in a place where metal didn’t crave exposed flesh every January.

“Nat!” Holly popped up from the railing on the main floor, kitty ears hung around her neck below a smile that few others could coax out of her.

“Hey there, Holly. Not playing outside today?”

Holly gave a dramatic shiver and shook her head. “We’re making soup!”

“Oh, good call, dude. Can I have some?”

Holly disappeared out of sight, and the tapping of tiny feet rose above the radio playing in the kitchen. A.J. had just enough time to notice that Nat was wearing her backpack on a Saturday before Holly’s head reappeared over the railing.

“Mom says yes, but I’ve gotta keep being her helper!”

“Thanks, Katherine!” Nat called as tiny footsteps raced back into the kitchen.

“You’re welcome, Natalie!”

She rolled her eyes at her government name and kicked her shoes off. She followed A.J. down to his bedroom and she shut the door behind her as he flopped on his bed where his laptop had been paused on Little Shop Of Horrors.

He didn’t know if movies counted as one of the visualization exercises the school guidance counselor had given him. Their discussion about credits had turned into a ramble about how anxious he was these days, but Audrey II had certainly gotten his mind off things. Mostly.

“What’s up?” he asked Nat, sensing her unease.

She fiddled with the strap of her backpack before giving her head a shake and pulling it off her shoulder.

“Did, uh, your senior shirt show up?”

He jerked a thumb towards the unopened package on the bench in front of his keyboard. How lucky was he to have a brand new Robolad T-shirt to wear to a school where no one called him that.

“Yeah, so—” Nat unzipped the main pouch of her backpack and pulled out an identical white plastic package. “I didn’t know if you wanted this or I was supposed to, like, burn it or something.”

A.J. took the package and smoothed the wrinkles out on his lap. Neither rain nor snow nor gloom of night had deterred Canada Post from getting his heartbreak in a parcel to him on time.

“I think fire is for when he cheats on you, not . . .” A.J. picked at the plastic in his lap. He didn’t have a word for whatever this was other than miserable, but that didn’t really fit grammatically.

“You doing OK?” she asked, dropping her backpack and sitting on the bed beside him.

He could tell she wanted to say more but was stuck on whether or not she was allowed to bring up the ginger elephant missing from the room. To be fair, he wasn’t sure if she was either.

“It’s, like—two weeks ago I could have just opened a door and boom, Bren. Now I could open every single door in Canada and he wouldn’t be behind any of them.”

He wiped the wetness away with the back of his hand and made himself laugh.

“That’s dumb as hell, right?”

“Well, you are in love, dude.”

“Is that what this is?” he asked, trying to put his hand over the gaping hole at the center of his chest.

He hadn’t known Bren for the first sixteen years of his life. There was no reason that the idea of six months apart should be making him feel this way—or at least that’s what he kept telling himself.

More wetness sprang to his eyes, but he didn’t care. It was only him and Nat there.

“Come on, let’s see what that idiot was planning on wearing.”

It took some time for him to tear the stretchy plastic enough to reveal the neatly folded shirt below. Green sleeves, a white body and orange lettering.

“Ok, that’s so cute it’s disgusting.”