Chapter 2

ISLA pov

Julian was in the shower Tuesday night when his phone lit up on the nightstand, face-up, bright enough to catch my eye from across the room.

‘Did she find out?’

No name. Just a number I didn't recognize, six digits that looked vaguely familiar and that I couldn't place. I was standing in his closet holding one of his ties, picking one out for a client dinner Thursday, which felt like a strange thing to have been doing thirty seconds earlier and I read those three words twice, like they'd rearrange themselves into something less alarming the second time.

The water shut off. I put the tie back on the rack.

He came out toweling his hair, loose and easy the way he always was after a shower, picked up the phone, read it, and let out a short breath that could've been a laugh if it had any actual humor behind it.

"What?" I said.

"Camille." He set the phone down, not hiding it, not turning the screen away, which I noticed and then felt a little ridiculous for noticing. "She's using me as cover for something. Again."

"Cover for what?"

"She's seeing someone. Older, apparently, which our parents are going to lose their minds over, so I'm the excuse for where she is on Thursday nights." He dragged the towel over the back of his neck. "’Did she find out’ means our mother. Not you, before your brain goes there."

"I wasn't asking that."

"You were thinking about it." No heat in it, just tired amusement, the way you talked about a sibling you'd been covering for since you were both kids. "She's twenty-nine and still can't tell Mom she's dating a guy. I keep telling her it's pathetic."

"Why doesn't she just tell her?"

"Because Mom will ask him about his five-year plan within four minutes of meeting him, and Camille knows it." He pulled a shirt on. "I told her I'd cover for one more month. She owes me about six favors at this point."

It made sense. It made enough sense that I felt a little silly for the ten seconds I spent standing in his closet, certain I found something. He kissed my forehead on his way to bed like the whole thing had already left his mind.

Camille showed up for dinner two nights later, no warning, letting herself in through the side door with a key I genuinely forgot she still had until I heard it turn in the lock.

"I brought wine." She held up the bottle like it settled the matter of showing up uninvited. "Don't look at me like that, I texted Julian."

"He didn't mention it."

"He never mentions anything, that's kind of his whole deal." She was already in my cabinets, pulling down glasses like she lived there, which some weeks she basically did. "Where's Mabel? I brought her that slime kit she's been begging for."

"Bath."

"I'll steal her after." She poured three glasses without asking, which was fine, I wanted one anyway, and settled onto a stool at the island the way she always did, like it was hers. "Julian tell you I'm losing my mind right now?"

"He mentioned the guy your mom doesn't know about."

"Elliot." She said the name like it cost her something. "He's forty-one, Isla. If my mother finds out before I'm ready, she will actually combust, and then somehow it'll be Julian's fault for not stopping it. That's how it works in my family. Everything's somebody's fault, never just a thing that happened."

"Sounds exhausting."

"You have no idea." She grabbed a piece of bread off the cutting board without asking, talking with her mouth half full about Elliot's job, his ex-wife, some trip he wanted to take her on that she wasn't sure she was ready for. She was funny when she wanted to be, self-deprecating in a way that made you root for her, and by the time Julian got home and pulled her into a hug at the door, calling her "menace" the way he had my entire marriage, I'd more or less forgotten I felt uneasy about a text on his phone at all.

Mabel came thundering downstairs in wet pajamas the second she heard Camille's voice, demanding the slime kit be opened immediately, and Camille let her, right there on the kitchen floor, glitter slime ending up on the cabinets within about four minutes. I should've minded more than I did.

She stayed two hours. She ate half our leftovers straight out of the container. She used my good lotion in the downstairs bathroom and left the cap off, same as always, and when Julian walked her out to her car, I stayed in the kitchen wiping down counters that didn't need it, half-listening to the low murmur of their voices drifting in through the window screen.

I heard her laugh at something. I heard him say something back I couldn't make out. Right before her car door shut, I heard her say, clear as anything, "You're the only one who actually gets it, you know that?"

It's a normal thing for a little sister to say to her big brother. I told myself that while I finished the counters.

Later, getting ready for bed, I noticed the lotion cap still missing from the bathroom, and the spare key sitting on the counter where Camille always tossed it instead of putting it back on the hook by the door, a habit, I realized, watching it catch the light, that meant she never actually had to ask permission to come back.

I used to think it was sweet, how close they were.

Standing there that night, I honestly couldn't tell you anymore if that's still what I thought.