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“I’m not as patient as Leo,” she says. “I don’t know if they’ll come to me.”
If I did portraits, this is how I’d paint Eva. Calm and collected with birdseed in her hands. Claiming she’s not the patient one, when I know she’d stand here all day if I wanted. This is how she smooths things over. Eva can pretend her patience is for the birds.
It’s for me.
My body relaxes in spite of itself. I could talk to Eva about this. In fact, I think I have to. There’s no one else. Sophia is closest to me in age, but she’s mysterious. Always busy. She was the first to leave. At the front door, she gave me a tight hug and made me swear to text her. Then she was gone.
Eva’s the one I went to when I was small. Her and Leo. She didn’t fight with our dad, because Leo was doing that. They both let me sit in their bedrooms and sketch. They both let me talk about school and art and dreams.
I was away for a couple weeks. I can still talk to my sister.
“I need advice.” My headache backs off a little bit.
“About what?” Eva studies the birds in their branches.
“About Emerson.”
She nods a little, concentrating. “I’ve got time.”
Maybe she did this on purpose. Both of us facing out, instead of staring into each other’s eyes over breakfast.
Another wave comes. It feels like static. Like paint blurred beyond recognition on canvas. This piece is unresolved. It’s not finished. The unblocked pieces hurt.
Where is he?
Eva’s being cautious and gentle because she’s worried about me. About what happened to me. Nothing happened that I didn’t want. I mean—I didn’t want to be kidnapped. Not actually a prisoner.
I wanted everything else.
I move more air into my lungs and let the anxious wave recede. Where is he, where is he?
“Well.” My hands flex in my pockets. I wish I felt like painting. “We’ve never talked about sex.”
Eva lets out a breath. “What happened there is not what sex should be about.”
Frustration crests. “You don’t even know what I was going to say. And you don’t know what happened there. You’re all just assuming things.”
“I’m sorry, Daph.” My sister keeps her arms tucked close to her body. She’s committed to feeding these birds. Not walking away from the conversation. “You’re right. Go ahead.”
“I liked it. Okay?” It’s hard to keep up this level of defensiveness when I’m so tired. I have no choice but to let it drop. To stop reaching for an invisible paintbrush. “I liked the things we did together. It wasn’t how you imagine. It was—”
It wasn’t just about sex. It was more than that. No one has ever understood me the way Emerson does. No one has ever looked at me with so much intensity and curiosity. There was real, palpable heat in that. I felt it every second.
“I want to find Emerson. I want to go back to him, but I don’t know if it’s right. And I don’t want it to get more complicated. I’ve already caused enough tension.” I would paint these questions out, if I could bring myself to do it. They’d be jagged waves under a dark sky. “Am I wrong to want him?”
Eva glances down at the seeds. “I don’t know if I have the right experience to talk to you about that. When I was—” She shakes her head. “You were so young.”
This is the eternal argument, isn’t it? At one point, I was young. A child.
“Just tell me, Eva. I’m not five anymore. I’m not even eighteen. I’m twenty-three. Talk to me. Please. I need my older sister.”
She meets my eyes, and the pain there takes my breath away. Eva dismisses it with a blink, but I saw. It’s like the night I saw Leo’s scars. Once I knew, I couldn’t unsee the things it changed about him.
He’s not the only one who’s kept his guard up all this time.
“I don’t know how to…advise you about men. It didn’t go that well for me when I fell in love the first time,” Eva admits. “The only time, really.”
“What happened?” I stare at the birds. They’re getting down to the lowest branches now. Tentatively circling Eva’s hands, almost like they recognize her. Why wouldn’t they? She’s here all the time. She’s Leo’s best friend.
