Page 54

Dean’s been avoiding me for days.

As I reenter the apartment after dropping Ella off at school, I listen for the sounds of movement, but I’m greeted by silence. The kind that makes your ears ring.

Breakfast smells hang in the air—muffins this time. Cinnamon and pumpkin that suggest an unnerving level of domesticity. Florida’s winter is hitting hard today, with a freeze advisory in effect and stunned lizards dropping from trees. I needed to dig Ella’s mittens and ear warmers out of the closet for today’s walk to school, but in here it’s downright cozy.

Pains me to admit it, but Dean works hard to make this little place a home. And somewhere along the way, I started thinking of it as a place I belonged, too. The three of us. No one else.

The short hallway leading to his room is silent. Dean’s door makes a gentle creak when I push inside.

He’s asleep. Awkwardly sprawled on the bed with one leg hanging off and the covers bunched up under his arms as if he’s trying to give himself something to hug.

My entrance stirs him awake. When we lived together in the dorms freshman year, this guy could sleep through a hurricane. Now, since Ella, he seems to wake up at the slightest sound. Unless he’s stuck in the middle of a nightmare.

His eyes blink open. “Mike?”

Even after a couple of years of coming into his room when his dreams about Billie haunt him, I’ve never gotten used to that sleep-roughened rasp of his. The way it stirs up something in my chest.

Seeing him hard and desperate night after night, his voice deep and scratchy, making him crawl to me and do humiliating shit was supposed to be a punishment for him. It’s also been a punishment for me.

For wanting my sister’s boyfriend. For being angry with her almost as much as I miss her.

I love Ella. My niece is my world, and I can acknowledge that that little girl wouldn’t be in the world without Dean and Billie getting together. I can also hate that it happened.

I contain fucking multitudes.

“What are you doing in here?” He doesn’t realize it, but he’s already shifting sideways, making room for me.

I fix the blanket and slide in alongside him, hooking one leg over his hip. “You’ve been avoiding me.”

“I haven’t.”

“And now you’re lying again.”

His face screws up in frustration. “How the f—how can you say that? You’re here all the time. You’re baking in my kitchen. You’re in my f—my flipping bed right now.”

He must be very upset if he’s making such an effort not to swear.

“You’ve been weird since I fucked you.”

For a moment he’s silent. His eyes go wide and his body freezes, like a thief caught in the act.

Then he sighs and turns his head away. “Yeah. Well. It was weird.”

“Was it?”

It was. Even with all the things we’ve done, there’ve been certain lines we didn’t cross. By showing up for that appointment, I went and jumped over all of them.

“It’s just—” Another sigh. “You’ve hated me since Billie, and I get why. I get that it’s what I deserve.”

Maybe it’s the morning light seeping in through the thin opening under his blinds, but his eyes glitter in a way that suggests he’s trying not to cry. Exhaustion is in every line of his face, one that looks so much older right now than his almost twenty-six years.

“I don’t know how to handle you when you’re nice,” he whispers.

Part of me knew that, I think, but a ripple of grief runs through me. My mother was right; we’ve been torturing ourselves, and each other, long enough.

Still, I ask, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean.” He rolls to face me now, eyes narrowed. Any trace of sadness is gone. “You hate me. You punish me. I let you, because I owe you that much⁠—”