Credence

He scowls down at me but keeps going.

I glance back at her again. My dad squats down next to her, showing her how to bait a hook. I have to give her credit. She is indulging him. I fucking hate fishing.

“I wonder what she feels like when she’s happy,” I tell him. “When she gives herself to someone and lets herself want it.”

I’d love to see what she looks like when she’s alive.

“I hated that yesterday, you know? Seeing her like that.” I don’t know if he’s even listening, but I keep watching her. “She needs us.”

I need another presence in the house if I’m going to make it through another winter here.

I turn back to Kaleb, and he’s stopped. He looks down at me.

“Don’t run her off,” I warn him. “I mean it. If she stays, I’ll stay.” And then I add, “For the winter, anyway.”

Tiernan

“You said you didn’t want to fish,” my uncle says behind me.

I reel in the line, glancing over my shoulder and seeing him approach.

I turn back around.

He found me.

My flannel, tied around my waist, blows against my thighs as the skin on my bare back and shoulders prickles.

He stops next to me, baiting his hook.

After the boys darted off to cliff dive before, Jake tried to get me to fish, droning on about how the reel and rod work and how to cast a line, but I barely listened. Kaleb’s jump off the top of the waterfall made my stomach drop even more than it already had during my interaction with Noah this morning.

I hadn’t wanted him to leave the shower.

I waited for him to touch me.

“You don’t like help, do you?” Jake asks me.

I draw in a breath. Nope. Which is why I decided to sneak over here when you weren’t looking and do it myself.

I watch the water flow where my line disappears under the surface. Do fish actually swim in streams with this much of a current?

“You’re not asking, you know?” he continues, trying to catch my eyes. “I was offering.”

“I’m a loner.”

He snorts under his breath. The current pulls the line, and I reel it in a few inches as he casts his own, the spool singing loudly.

He clears his throat. “So how is it you can shoot, but not fish?”

“I never cared to learn.”

“And now?”

I throw him a look. “I don’t want to be the only one who doesn’t know how.”

I don’t want the boys doing everything for me. And learning new things keeps my mind busy. I can do origami, play three songs on the ukulele, type seventy words a minute, and it only took me three months to train myself to do a handstand.

“Competitive, huh?” he asks.