Safe.
CHAPTER 8
Anna
I talked to my little brother Caleb while I was making coffee.
"Okay, don’t laugh," he said.
"Already a bad sign," I replied, stirring the spoon against the mug.
"Whitmore gave me a sixty-two on the thermo midterm," he went on, voice flattened with outrage. "And before you say anything, I studied. Like, genuinely sat down with the textbook and everything."
"And?" I asked.
"And apparently that wasn’t good enough for a man who thinks partial credit is a personal insult." I could hear him shifting, probably sprawled across his dorm bed with his shoes still on. "I even made flashcards. Don’t make it weird. My roommate’s girlfriend had a laminator and I figured why not."
"You laminated flashcards for thermodynamics," I said, pausing mid-stir.
"It felt like the responsible thing to do at the time. Turns out the universe doesn’t reward effort."
"Did you get the answers right?"
"I got them in the neighborhood of right," he said, dragging out the words.
"Caleb, that’s not how engineering works," I said, almost laughing.
"I know how engineering works. I just think it should be more flexible about it."
I leaned against Miley's kitchen counter and let him talk. He went on about the professor, about his roommate's new habit of playing guitar at midnight, about the dining hall running out of chicken tenders on a Wednesday which he considered a personal attack. Normal things. College things.
Problems that fit neatly inside a nineteen-year-old's world, where the worst thing that could happen was a tough grading curve and a roommate with bad timing. I held my coffee with both hands and let his voice fill the kitchen, grateful for a few minutes inside a life that still made that kind of simple sense.
I listened and something in my chest ached.
"You okay out there?" he asked. "In Miami?"
"I’m great."
"You sure? Mom said you sounded tired last time you called."
"I’m adjusting. New job, new city. It takes a minute."
"Yeah." He was quiet for a second. "I still don’t get why you left Charlotte. I mean, you had the photography stuff going and everything."
Change of scenery, that was the story. A change of scenery. Which was technically true, like calling the Titanic's sinking a slight navigation error.
"Sometimes you just need something different," I said.
"I guess." He didn’t push. He never did, which I loved him for and also felt guilty about, because he deserved better than a sister who lied to him every time he asked a direct question. "Well, Miami better be treating you right or I’m coming down there."
"You can barely treat yourself to chicken tenders."
"That was the dining hall’s fault, not mine."
I smiled. "I love you, Caleb."
"Love you too, weirdo."
