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There’s a vacation somewhere sunny I don’t recognize. A photo of my sisters and me on a dock, wearing matching bathing suits.
And then there’s a photo of the first award-winning painting I ever did. I was five. Almost six. It’s hung on the wall of the private school we went to. The first photo is with me and my parents, standing in front of the painting.
The second one is of me and Leo and Eva.
“Oh,” I say, softly, in spite of myself.
Because Leo’s different. For one thing, he’s switched his uniform shirt to black. And his face—
His face is closed off in a way it wasn’t in the earlier photos. He’s smiling, because I’m beaming. Because I won a contest. But his eyes are wary. Haunted.
I shove the phone back into Carter’s hands. “You’re an asshole. Stop trying to distract me and let me go out.”
“No.” He puts his phone away. “Nobody’s getting killed out there. Like I said, his knife is in here.”
“He doesn’t need a knife. You know that.”
Carter purses his lips. “Fine. I do. But if I really thought they were going to murder each other, I’d have gone outside already.”
“But you’re not going to let me go.”
“Correct.”
“You work with plants.” I try to feint around him, but Carter just blocks me again. “How are you pretending to be so calm? This is not a calm situation.”
Honestly, it could go either way. Leo could kill Emerson with his bare hands. He might try to drown him. The ocean is right there. But then—Emerson’s a surfer. He’s strong, too. Maybe he’s drowning Leo, and then I have to see my brother’s drowned body on the beach. Sweat prickles at the back of my neck.
“We just have to wait,” Carter says.
“How would you know that? Did the plants tell you?”
“Maybe,” he jokes, his eyes twinkling. “Rhizomes can tell secrets.”
“You are the worst.” I back up a few steps. “Can I watch from the window, then? Will you let me do that?”
“I’ll even watch with you.”
We go through to the kitchen, where Emerson cooks me breakfast, and both of us stare out the windows.
“I can’t see them. Can you?” I crane my neck one way, then the other.
“Do you want some tea?” Carter steps away from the window and opens one of the kitchen cupboards. “I bet there’s tea here.”
“I do not want tea. I don’t want anything until they come back. If they come back.”
“They’re coming back,” Carter insists.
Down the beach, at the very last spot I can see from the kitchen window, two figures appear. Shadows in the cloudy moonlight. My relief is so powerful it knocks me forward, onto the windowsill. “Oh my god. There they are.”
Carter comes to join me. “I don’t see any blood,” he says. “Hard to tell without any good light, though. Leo looks okay.”
“Do they seem tense to you?”
“Yeah.” Carter huffs a laugh. “I can’t imagine it was an easy conversation.”
They’re both still alive. Walking back toward the house. This isn’t how I wanted them to meet. This isn’t the conversation I wanted them to have. But I’ll take it. I’ll take both of them surviving this.
I stand up and wipe my hands on my leggings. The closer they get, the harder my heart pounds. This is hard. It’s easier to be the person who doesn’t ask for anything. Who doesn’t stir up trouble. Who lets herself be protected. I was most naive, though, about everyone else. It’s like painting the ocean. Adding one stroke shifts the rest of the piece, like it or not. The most independent person in the world still needs other people. Still affects other people.
