Dylan freezes, the hoop in his hand. “Am I really that bad?”
“What?”
“I am terrible, right? Ditching you every night. I’m sorry.”
“Hey, it’s fine. I just like teasing you.”
Dylan gives me a sideways glance. “All right. If you say so.”
“Besides, your grandpa is really improving my chess game. Although he prefers poker. Last week he got Daphne and Ruth to play, and he cleaned us out in half an hour.”
“Yeah, you got to watch your wallet with Grandpa.” Dylan closes the gate of the goat enclosure behind us and we head for the house.
“We were playing for cookies. Your sister almost got him in the last hand, though. So close.” I snicker at the memory of Daphne’s frustration when her grandfather revealed a straight, beating her three tens.
“How’s she doing, anyway?”
“Your sister? Fine. Why are you asking me?” I actually feel a rare flush of guilt at this question. And it’s not because of all the dirty thoughts I have when I’m with Daphne. It’s the fact that an asshole is threatening her, and her family doesn’t know.
“Because she might talk to you? She doesn’t talk to me. I thought deciding to switch schools was supposed to be a good thing for her. But she just seems so tense this summer.”
“Did you ask her about it?” I hedge. It’s not my place to tell him Daphne’s secrets.
“Nah, she’d never tell me. I’m the fuckup and she’s the overachiever. I’m the last person she’d tell if something was wrong.”
“Oh.” I don’t have siblings, so I don’t really know how that works. “I’ll try to pay attention,” I lie.
“Thanks,” Dylan says. “Now let’s get our beer on.”
Later, after watching a shoot-em-up with Dylan, I turn in for bed. The night is still, and the only thing I hear through the open windows is a chorus of frog song, punctuated by the quick flash of firefly light outside my bedroom window.
This is the safest, most serene place in the world. So I purposely leave the bedroom door unlocked as I climb into bed.
I’m challenging myself. Aversion therapy is a time-tested way of getting over a phobia. Studies have demonstrated that the majority of phobia sufferers can experience relief from aversion therapy, sometimes quickly.
It’s not like I have to plunge my hand into a box of spiders, here. All I have to do is sleep with the damn door open.
But ninety minutes later, I’m still staring at the ceiling, wondering what the hell is wrong with me.
At one thirty in the morning, I get up to lock the fucking door.
After that, I fall immediately asleep.
Twelve
Daphne
That weekend I do some babysitting for my little nephew. And I feel crazy tonight. Sitting alone in the stillness of my older brother’s home isn’t good for me. I’m full of buzzy energy.
It’s probably because I’ve never plotted revenge before.
Okay, that's not strictly true. Anyone with a twin brother has plotted revenge. But this is on a whole new level. It requires a party, a theft, and delivery of an anonymous email that I will try to spoof so that it appears to originate from inside the Harkness system.
It’s a lot to plan. I’m either a genius or a psycho. Possibly both.
As soon as I see Griffin’s headlights turn into the driveway, I slam my laptop shut with a guilty click.
Audrey enters her kitchen a minute later, where I'm still sitting at her table. "How was he?" she asks, meaning her son.
"Fine," I insist, even though it took me an hour to get my nephew to go to sleep.
"Fine, like easy? Or fine like your eardrums will eventually heal?"
I laugh. “The second thing. But I'm a softie. When he whimpers, I run back into his room.”
Little Gus just doesn't like to go to sleep without his mom and his dad at home. But he’s only one, and his mom is pretty great, so it's hard to blame him.
"How was the dinner party?" I ask as my sister-in-law sits down opposite me.
"It was chill," she says. "Just an excuse for May and Alec to see some friends, I think. This is for you." Audrey puts two twenty-dollar bills on the table.
I make a sound of petty outrage and push them back toward her. "I don’t need your money. I like to spend time with Gus. Besides, I was mostly reading in your kitchen, which is much quieter than my kitchen."