Page 31 of Parallel

“Yeah,” she says. “That’s it. But I’m fine.”

I give a small laugh. “I’ve never heard someone so disappointed to not have a seizure.”

“No,” she muses, her voice distant and distracted. “It’s good, obviously. At least I’ll be able to make it upright through the wedding. I just thought…do you think I could see other pictures?”

“Of the house?”

“No,” she says, hesitating. “Of you guys. You and Ryan, your parents. The treehouse, maybe. Do you have pictures of that?”

People always seem worried when they mention Ryan to me, as if I might have just forgotten that my twin is dead until their reminder. I hear the apology in her voice but it’s unnecessary. A piece of me wants to share my past with her, wants to throw open the doors and let her be the one person I let inside. “Sure,” I reply. “Give me a sec.”

I go into a favorites file on my phone and hit several in a row. A picture of me and my parents when I graduated. My dad in front of our house, captured wearing a hat of my mom’s to mow the lawn. Then me and Ryan—as teenagers out on the dock, both of us sun-burnished and way too full of ourselves. As kids, leaning out of the treehouse with big semi-toothless grins.

She laughs. “What is your dad wearing?”

“My mom’s hat,” I reply. “He has very little shame, obviously.”

There’s a moment of silence, and when she speaks again her voice is full of dread. “Oh.”

I shoot forward in my seat. “What’s the matter?”

“Nick?” she whispers, the sound distant and barely audible.

I hear a crash, and then nothing. I shout her name but hear only background noise. “Someone pick up the fucking phone!”

There is only silence in response.

16

QUINN

“How was the first day of school?” asks Nick, leaning against the locker beside mine, lanky and relaxed in the way only someone older and cooler than you can be. Despite that easy stance, concern darkens his blue eyes, furrows his brow. He’s always been protective of me, although we’re only a year apart, and he’s even more so now that I’m in public school for the first time. But his protectiveness is big-brother-like, which I find highly annoying. I’ve seen the way he looks at me when he thinks I’m not paying attention, so who does he think he’s fooling?

“Perfect,” I reply.

“You found your classes okay?”

I feel a trickle of evil joy in my chest as I look up at him. “I did. And you’ll never guess who just asked me out during Spanish.”

Anything pleasant in his face bleeds away. “Who?”

“Colin Campbell.” Nick and his twin brother are already stars at our school—both gorgeous, both straight-A students and star athletes—but they are juniors and Colin is a senior. A popular, hot senior. This is apparently a coup of some kind, but mostly I’m just relieved there’s a male somewhere in this high school who doesn’t want to pretend I’m his sister. Who won’t watch me like something he wants to devour and then rub my head like a favorite pet.

Nick’s eyes narrow. “He’s a senior. You cannot date a senior.”

“I’m fairly certain I can, since I said yes,” I reply, slamming my locker shut and heading for the front doors. It’s still summer-hot outside, and I have to pick my way through lounging students to get to the path I take home. Nick is on my heels, his eyes the color of a summer storm.

“Where’s he taking you?” he barks.

His distress is a balm to my soul. I’ve spent a solid two years trying to make him admit he likes me. I shrug, the very picture of ambivalence. “Some party.”

“He’s going to try something. He’s at least going to try to kiss you.”

He sounds pissed and it serves him right. We’ve just reached our cut-through in the woods, but I stop and turn toward him, shifting my backpack to my other shoulder. “Remember the time Ryan dared you to kiss me, and you did it, but acted like you were vomiting afterward? That is the grand sum of my experience. So, I hope Colin tries something, because that’s a shitty memory to have as my only kiss.”

He slaps a palm to his forehead. “For fuck’s sake, Quinn. I was nine.”

“Yeah,” I reply. “And I’m 15. So I’m ready for something better.” I turn to walk away and find myself spun back toward him before I’ve even had time to process it. His mouth lands on mine without hesitation or uncertainty, as if I’m a meal he’s been waiting for years to consume.