Tension mounts in the air around us, almost tangible. I wonder if he feels it, too. If he feels anything at all besides innocent friendship. I’m not sure what possibility scares me more — that he’s totally oblivious to this state of emotional suspense… or that he does feel it, but would rather pretend otherwise.
“Lucky?” I say lightly, forcing a laugh. “Even though I nearly flattened you?”
His arms tighten around my back as he snorts. “For such a small person, you land with a surprising amount of force.”
“Hey! Are you calling me fat?”
“No. Just…dense.”
“I am not dense!” I scowl. “You’re dense — in the head!”
His chuckles vibrate my entire body. “Good comeback, Jo.”
“Oh, shut up,” I hiss, even though I’m fighting off chuckles of my own. “I guess in the future, we need to sort out custody of the rafters. Write out a contractual agreement for who gets to use them whenever we have a stupid fight. How ‘bout I get to sulk up here on weeknights, you get weekends? We can rotate major holidays. Do you want Easter or Christmas?”
I’m joking, but he doesn’t laugh. Beneath me, his body goes stiff — as though he’s just remembered to be angry. A second later, his arms unlock from the cage they’d created around me and drop to his sides.
Ceasefire, over.
I instantly want to snatch back my stupid words. To rewind ten seconds to the quiet sanctuary of his embrace, when things actually felt normal between us for the first time in far too long.
From the unyielding set of his muscles, I know there’s no point in even trying. Biting my tongue, I force myself to roll off him. To sit up. To reach into the darkness, seeking out the familiar metal edges of the camping lantern.
I turn the knob and dull light suffuses the loft. I blink at the sudden change in brightness, my eyes struggling to acclimate. When they do, I see Archer is already sitting at the edge of the rafters with his back to me — spine ramrod straight, staring fixedly out the windows to the ebony ocean beyond. Dressed in gray sweatpants and an Exeter t-shirt, his bare feet swing in the air. His dark hair is tousled with sleep.
“You can have it,” he says haltingly. “Full custody. I won’t come here anymore.”
Tears spring to my eyes. I blink them away before they can fall. Taking a deep breath, I try to steady my voice before I respond. “What does that mean?”
He doesn’t say anything.
“What does that mean, Archer?” I repeat, scooting closer to him. I’m careful not to brush my shoulder against his as I swing my legs over the edge.
I stare at his face in profile. He looks tired. Deep shadows are etched beneath his eyes, evidence of more than one sleepless night. As I take in the uncompromising set of his jawline, the rigidity of his posture, I wonder how his mood could shift so quickly from laughing with me to loathing me.
The truth is, as hurt as I was on Friday, as angry as I was afterward… there was never a doubt in my mind that we’d work through this fight. That, eventually, we’d smooth things over and they’d return, if not totally to normal, than at least to a semblance of it. But as I look at him now, in this moment, I feel the first tendrils of uncertainty begin to swirl inside me.
Maybe he doesn’t want to fix it.
“It means exactly what it sounds like,” he says in a hollow voice. “I don’t need this place anymore.”
I flinch, as though he’s dealt a physical blow. He might as well have. He said,I don’t need this place anymore.Didn’t he mean…
I don’t need you anymore.
“W-why?” My voice quivers. “Why are you being like this?”
“Like what?”
“So— so cold to me. I don’t understand what’s happening. I don’t understand why you’re acting like such a jerk lately!”
He doesn’t look at me as he takes a breath. His voice is empty of all emotions, stripped down to its most essential elements — vowels, consonants, meaningless letters. “I’m just being realistic. We aren’t kids anymore. No matter what school I end up at, I’m not going to be able to run to the rafters and hide whenever things go wrong in my life. And neither will you.” He pauses. “It’s time to grow up. It’s time to move on.”
“Fine,” I retort thickly. “If that’s how you really feel.”
“It is.”
“Great!” I’m trying very hard not to cry. “Then leave. Get out of here. Go ahead andgrow upandmove on—” My words crack off. My hands fist in the thick material of my sweatshirt, just so I can stop their shaking. When I remember it once belonged to him, I’m overwhelmed by the desire to peel it off my skin, to toss it dramatically into the sea.