I huddled in my blanket, afraid that if I so much as blinked, Adrian would stop talking. “So why don’t you ignore Lucian, like Julian ignored you?”
He laughed, which I wasn’t expecting. “Honestly? The library. Books. Harry Potter. I couldn’t be friends with real people, couldn’t interact with my classmates beyond academic necessity, but as long as I told Mariana that the books were for school, I could read as much as I wanted. I consumed fiction like it was food. At home, I had no real concept of compassion or brotherhood or loyalty or bravery—I learned about all of that from books.”
He smiled suddenly. “You know Mrs. Goode, the office lady at school? She used to be the town librarian. She was probably the closest thing I had to a friend. She’d always pick out new series that she thought I’d like, and call the house to tell me that my ‘research materials’ were available. I felt like a spy.” He grinned and shrugged happily. “Once I realized that I could choose to be different, that I could love people, even if they didn’t know it, I promised myself I would find a way to live a different life. I would be nothing like Julian or Mariana or Dominic. I wouldn’t grow bored with the world. And once Lucian came to live with us, I promised myself that I would do my best to make sure that he knew he was loved. He exhausts me, and he’s kind of insane, but he’s my brother.” He paused, a hard look stealing over his face. “I’ve accepted what I am, but I will not accept that my existence is meaningless or that I can’t be inherently good despite my lineage.” He glanced over at me. “That’s why you’re…”
He trailed off and swallowed hard. “That’s why you’re unique,” he finished after a moment. Adrian stared at a stain on the old plaid couch, tracing it with his finger. “I am so sorry that all this has happened to you, with my dad,” he said finally. “It’s awful. It’s terrible, and it’s unfair. But I can’t help but be happy, in a way.” He looked up at me slowly, eyes dark, rimmed with firelight. “You are my excuse to be the person I’ve always wanted to be,” he murmured almost to himself, searching my face as if he’d never seen it before. “Every moment I spend with you is stolen time, and I don’t care. I will never have someone like you again. I will protect you with my life, I will keep you safe from my father—but what truly terrifies me is the thought that, when this is all over, you won’t remember me at all.”
I stared at him, dumbstruck.
There were so many words, so many feelings and impulses building up inside me that I could hardly breathe. Before my stuttering brain could come up with anything even resembling an elegant reply, he blinked, as if coming out of a daze, and stood up.
“Are you hungry?” he asked abruptly, heading toward the kitchen.
I wasn’t, particularly, since I’d eaten breakfast less than an hour ago, but he returned from the kitchen with Lucian under one arm and the cooler under the other and set his brother on a chair and the cooler on the table. I shuffled over with my blanket and sat down, and we ate silently. It was Mariana’s cooking, so it was delicious, but I didn’t really notice because I was distracted by everything Adrian had said. Lucian finished eating in record time, and produced a deck of cards out of thin air.
“Can we play?” he begged Adrian.
A tiny wave of what could have either been irritation or tiredness passed over his face before he smiled and said, “Sure.”
“I’ll clear the dishes.” I picked up everyone’s plates and carried them into the kitchen to wash them by hand in the glacier-cold tap water. A few minutes later, I had the dishes laid out on the drying rack and crept to the door to listen, peeking through the sliver where the door didn’t quite meet the jamb. They were sitting on the rug in front of the fire.
“Go!” Lucian said excitedly.
Adrian picked up a card from a pile between them.
“Do you have any Jacks?” Lucian asked, holding his cards awkwardly close to his chest so he wouldn’t reveal them to Adrian.
“Go fish.”
Lucian’s face fell and he picked up a card from the pile, but as soon as he saw it, he grinned and laid down four matching cards.
“I win!”
There was still a huge pile of cards sitting on the floor between them, but Adrian folded his up and said, “You sure did.”
I decided to walk in then and join them on the rug.
“Would you like to play?” Lucian asked me as Adrian began shuffling the deck again.
“Sure,” I said, pretending innocence. “What are we playing?”
“Go,” he announced.
“It’s Lucian’s version of Go Fish,” Adrian explained and dealt out cards to us. We played a few rounds where whoever got the first set of four ‘won’ the game. It was amazing to see how Lucian’s normally blank face would light up when he thought he played well or got a good hand. After Lucian won his fourth game, Adrian gathered up the cards. “Do you think that’s enough for one day?”
Lucian said, “Okay,” but looked pretty bummed.