“Wait, were you drinking?”
“No, of course not. I’m just—I’m bad at telling when people are lying. It’s always been a problem.” My cheeks burn. “When I was younger, I didn’t understand sarcasm, either. It took me ages to learn it. So would someone else have realized she wasn’t being honest?”
Lucas shrugs. “Dunno. We all believe lies sometimes. That doesn’t make her choices your responsibility, dude. She wouldn’t blame you, and I sure don’t.”
His confidence is disproportionately reassuring.
“I get it,” he says. “Watching things explode like that is hard. You want to do something about it, and there’s nothing to do. But it’s not your job, okay? You don’t have to worry for the rest of the world. The world will do its own worrying.”
“Sure.” I look back at the lake. My eyes are bright, cleared by adrenaline, as if I’ve run a mile, rather than done something as mundane as talking about my feelings. How do people do this all the time, put their vulnerabilities on the line every day? How are they not perpetually exhausted?
“Do you like it?” I ask, gesturing at the water.
He bounces on his toes like a child. A six-foot-three, square-shouldered child. “Do I like it?” He laughs. “Do I like it? Come on. Look at this. It’s going on my list of favorite places.”
But he’s not looking at the lake. He’s looking at me, as if there’s something in me that’s deserving of his happiness.
I look away, back out at the still water, which blackens with the coming night, hiding a million complexities. Lucas starts telling me about the pond behind his aunt and uncle’s house in Florida; when he was young, he caught tadpoles in that pond by the handful. I tell him about the southern Darwin’s frog, whose tadpoles mature in the mouth of the father until he spits them out as full-grown adults. He tells me that’s disgusting. I agree.
We settle into a rhythm of conversation—a rhythm that’s starting to feel familiar—but it’s the pauses that wake me up. The moments where he stops his eager babbling to look out at the lake, or to wait for my voice to have its turn.
It’s remarkable. For once in my life, there is nothing here I find unsatisfactory, nothing worthy of critique. There is nothing I would change about standing here on this muddy bank, talking with a friend as the dusk bends down over our heads.
IT’S DARK BY THE TIME I GET HOME. I SET THE GROCERY bags on the table, jog up the steps, and knock on Kat’s door. Not that she asked about Juniper, but she could use the knowledge that one of my best friends isn’t dead.
After Kat’s usual grumble of admission, I push my way in. “Hey,” I say. “I saw Juni.”
She pauses her game and looks up. In moments like this, I see the old Kat flicker in her blue eyes, a hint of concern giving her away. But her voice, deadpan to the point of sounding robotic, shields any notion that she might care. “She’s okay, I’m guessing?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s really let herself go.” Kat taps her game back to life.
“Come on. Juni is having a tough time. She’s not letting herself go.”
“All right, whatever.” Kat glances at the door. “So, want to leave?”
“You realize that’s rude, right?”
“It’s my room.”
I realize my hands are shaking. I’ve reached the last of my patience.
“Why are you so angry?” I ask, meting out the words syllable by careful syllable.
“I’m—”
“And don’t say you’re not. Don’t say you’re minding your own business, so I should mind mine. You are my business, and you treating me like this? That’s my business, too, and it’s not normal. At least, it didn’t used to be. So spill.”
“I’m treating you like I treat everyone,” she snaps.
“There it is. There’s you lashing out because you’ve forgotten how to do anything else.” I advance on her bed. “Kat, something’s messing up your life. You have got to figure it out.”
“God, leave me alone, would you? I’m better off alone.”
Before I can reply, she barrels on: “You’d be better off alone, too, but you don’t know, is the thing. You don’t even know who your friends are. Like, Claire? In CompSci, she sits there listening to these guys making slut jokes about you. Doesn’t say a word. And Juniper . . . well, Juniper’s a whole other story.”
“Stop it,” I say sharply. “Stop deflecting. My friends aren’t the point: you are. Answer me, would you? Why are you so obsessed with shutting me out?”
No answer.
I look hard at my sister, at her sharp chin and her gaunt cheekbones. She stares resolutely at her computer screen. I’ve lost her. Every time she goes quiet like this, I feel her leaving me a little more, like a word written on the back of your hand that wears away with every washing. Soon she’ll be completely gone.
Panic rises in the back of my throat. All of a sudden I feel the last two years draped over me like chains. I’m so exhausted from carrying them this long.
“It’s Mom,” I say. “Isn’t it?”