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Whose performance am I watching?

Gracie has the bad habit of sleeping with her window open whether it was a midday nap or the dead of night. When she was a kid, she'd sleep by it and prepare herself to jump at any given moment. Back when she was an only child, it wasn't uncommon for her parents to shake the house awake with their violent screams. They settled as she got older, as they got more kids, too. Maybe it was a reflex, then.

The case of Gracie Cedar's mind should be fucking studied.

It was both an escape and a way in, either for John B who hasn't been able to sleep alone in his room since his father went missing or JJ whose own hands were too rough to patch himself up after his father was done with him.

The older they get, the easier it is to jump in and out of the ledge. If Gracie ever brings her hookups to her own room, she makes sure they don't make a sound. That way nobody sees them and her parents can't call her a slut; that way, she's not as lonely anymore in her house of glass. She feels trapped even with the window open.

   She's shaken out of her nap by her little brother's voice. He's small but his vocals carry. He yells "I'm home!" loud enough to startle her awake, and she groans as she falls off the bed and onto the floor.

Gracie can hear him laughing in the kitchen and already starts plotting her retaliation. She's half-hungover and half-sad and, as she looks around, she grimaces at the sight of her room. It looks like some tornado went through it, ravaging the small space. There were clothes and books on the floor, all hand-me-downs from her cousins that she had to separate. The good stuff goes to her siblings and the less good stuff, to her. She dreads it.

For a second, she curses their existence. It's okay, she does it all the time. Gracie is a great sister, but she wishes regularly that she wasn't. Then hits herself with the palms of her hands for the thought. It's an hourly reoccurrence.

It smells odd when she leaves her room, like home-cooked food a thirteen year old boy definitely can't manage from the scraps they have in the refrigerator. She frowns and fixes her hair, long enough to pass her shoulders but too short to be pinned back effortlessly. She knows it's useless because, as soon as John B sees her, he'll mess her hair up anyway. He does it all the time, especially when he picks up Cody from his summer practice all exited from the waves in the morning.

So, when she rounds the corner and a pair of arms doesn't immediately grab ahold of her shoulders, it's enough to put a frown on her face.

"Cods?"

A tuff of brown hair peaks from the dining room. "Here!" She finds her brother sitting on the chair, arms folded on the table and chin resting atop, watching as a figure parades around the kitchen.

There's a pan and a pot on the stove, and the remainder of chopped vegetables on the counter. It's clearly amateur work, but it's a richer plate than either of her parents ever made them. Gracie doesn't need to look at the boy facing away from her, working the stove, to know who he is, and she can tell that he's clearly trying to avoid letting her see his face.

Gracie doesn't exactly hate Rafe Cameron, but she doesn't like him, either.

He tries though, she sees it. After rehab in the winter, he's held on to his job as assistant coach of the Kildare County Middle School soccer team and it's clearly because he likes the boys. Rafe's sober and well; a little quiet. No one understands why he hasn't been home since New Year's or why he's spent the last year off the grid. No one knows where he's been or what he's done.

But the Cedars do. He's in their kitchen all the time.

   "Cameron," Gracie shakes her head and rounds the table to hug her brother. That is the only way she ever acknowledges him. She messes up Cody's hair and offers him a smile that makes Rafe's stomach hurt. "How was practice?"

   "Coach R said I'm the best goalie he's ever seen," Cody exclaims. His bottom teeth are a little crooked and his sister cringes internally every time she sees them, knowing they'll never get fixed. "Tell her, Rafe," he urges him.

Rafe laughs, just a little. "He's the best goalie I've ever seen."

Gracie shakes her head at that. She's told him a million times not to get attached to that Goddamn Kook and to stop inviting him into their house. She remembers all the things her brother never witnessed, like his eggshell temperament and agressive tendencies, especially when it came to the teenagers on the south side. It bothers her that he's there almost as much as it bothers him.

He's never said a word about it.

Not about how he's living with his former drug dealer on the Cut, how all he's had for the past months is a mattress on the ground, how he lost all his friends when he shipped himself off to rehab. How he lost himself even. Gracie will grant it: she barely recognized him when he first dropped Cody off.

It became sort of a habit, yet she still acts surprised every time it happens. It was mostly Mondays and Thursdays, and Gracie found out not even three weeks ago that it had been Cody who first told John B off, then continued to do so. Gracie doesn't know that John B knows—it's a whole unspoken thing between Cody and him.

Everyone, everywhere searches for a source of happiness to offer Gracie. It's a party or it's a boy. It's all the same fucking thing at the end of the line.

So, yeah, she's a little angry when she sees Rafe in her kitchen again. But in retrospect she's angry all the time so she swallows the words back. "I'll pay you back for the groceries," she settles on telling him, eyes scanning the newly filled refrigerator.

"Don't worry about it."

Cody examines her bothered face and concludes that she definitely remembers, but he reminds her either way. "Grace?It's today, by the way."

The brunette nods absentmindedly, reaching into the cabinet for a cleaned-out coffee tin. She turns her back to Rafe, scared he'll see the money and do something stupid. Something like the old him. She certainly doesn't take into account that he's a good head taller than her and definitely catches a glance of it.

John B and her call it 'coffee fund' and they hope it'll eventually be enough to whisk them away from the nightmare island. Kildare was growing mold in their bones more and more, and the longer they stayed the harder it would be to scrub it off. It's already in the furniture in the hardwood floor, so what else do they have to lose?

The coffee fund feels empty when she pulls out a hundred dollar bill and puts the container back. The summer practices were not free and the services cost a fortune.

   "There you go." She hands it to Rafe, then continues, lower, "Thanks for waiting."

Cody doesn't know that Rafe has been pushing back the deadline for weeks. Even their main coach, Davis, has no idea. Gracie thinks all Rafe does is distract his boss for the few weeks she needs to get things in order; he's been paying Cody's lesson out of his own pocket for a while now. The hundred, he'll save it for next week's groceries, the one he'll buy when he drops Cody off on Monday.

It's sad in so many ways, his desperation for a home. It's a wonder what he sees in the Cedar house.

   He's still got mud on his knees from falling out on the field. The smile he offers Gracie is nothing of his usual arrogance. "Don't worry about it," he repeats.

   Plates clink in Cody's arms. Gracie purses her lips and walk to the table, leaving the boys in the kitchen. "Stop looking at my sister like that, Coach R," the thirteen year-old teases, knocking his elbow with his. Rafe is so tall he makes Cody look like a little kid.

   "Like what?" The Cameron scoffs. He turns off the stove and places the dish on the counter.

   "Like you wanna kiss her."

In retaliation, Rafe grabs the towel hanging from the dishwasher and whacks him on the back of the head with it. Cody laughs so gleefully it startles Gracie and she can't help but smile at him as he sits at the table, placing a plate overflowing with food in front of her.

Gracie doesn't know if she should pray. She doesn't know who to thank or who to hate. It's a complex thing.

As any thirteen year old soccer player would, Cody digs into his plate like he hasn't eaten in years. Gracie is a little slower, a little softer, and she takes a second to appreciate the bite. For a second, she pretends her mother made it, that she's sitting across from her telling her a story. When she opens her eyes, she finds Rafe there instead, standing awkwardly like he doesn't know what to do.

Like he's waiting for her to kick him out again.

But Cody has placed a plate for him on the table and tells him for the fourth time to sit. He even curses this time. He uses the heavy words like all kids do, pretending he's just as adult as the rest of them. 

To kick him out would be too rude; he's never cooked like that before. Yet Gracie can't find it in her to say the words, and settles on looking at the chair instead. She stares at him, then at the seat she's offering. Simple as that. If he wasn't as attentive, he wouldn't have noticed.

He sits after a second, then shoves the fork in with just as much urgency as the younger Cedar. If Gracie was any more observant, she would've noticed how he looked bigger but not necessarily healthier, like he's been eating less and working more. It shows. It also shows that he's filled his plate only halfway so that there would be enough for the youngest of the family whose rage was already monumental at only eleven.

   "How was your day, G?" Cody asks. He's always hated eating in silence. He makes the most of it when his father isn't there to chastise him.

   Gracie swallows the bite like it's painful. Maybe it's just Rafe's eyes on her. "Good. I just got a bag of clothes and books from Aunt Maggie. I'll go through them later today."

She waits for him to say he'll help, but he doesn't. He never does. It makes her angry and she dreads his place at the table, only for a second.

   "How was your day?"

   Rafe is startled by the question. No one has ever wondered how his day was before. The boys were an exception, but he always told himself they did it to for their own sake. The question coming from Gracie made his heart pound. "Good."

   She raises a brow. "That's it?"

   "Well..." he composes himself with a cough. "I guess. I didn't do much. Set up the field for the boys. We mostly did drills."

   "Are you even capable of forming a full sentence?" Gracie jokes. She surprises herself when she does it. She's never been that hospitable with the Kook.

A laugh bubbles past Rafe's throat, and dimples carve his cheek as he looks down at his plate. The smile is contagious and Gracie doesn't even realize she's returning it until her cheeks hurt. Cody watches, quiet, scared they'll shut down if he reminds them of his presence.

   "Don't know."

That made them laugh even more. Half his face is basked in the sun, his hair is disheveled and the shirt he's wearing is stretched out at the collar. In that light, he almost looked like a Pogue.

Gracie's laugh is broken by a notification on her phone that resounds in the kitchen like a sledgehammer to a windowpane. John B texted that he's on his way, that all their friends are piled in the back and that he's found a place for them to hang out for the evening. She suddenly feels sick to her stomach and puts the fork on the table. Her plate isn't even done.

   "Give the rest to Jo," she instructs her brother. "John B's on his way." Then, she stares at Rafe and almost winces at the way his smile instantly dropped. "Don't stay too long."

    "What the fuck, G?"

She ignores her brother and smoothens her shirt with one hand, grabbing the house keys out of the bowl by the door on her way out. She locks it behind her, figures Rafe will leave out the back door anyway.

It's not the fact that he looks like a kicked puppy, it's the fact that he's taking up all the space in that fucking house. She's scared her brother will love him more than he loves her, and maybe it'll even be better because at least Rafe doesn't have moments where he wishes Cody doesn't exist.

None of that matters. Gracie's a great performer. As soon as the van drives up to the front of her house, she grins from ear to ear. There's John B driving like always, with JJ, Pope and Kie piled in the back like sardines. It smells like weed already; Gracie doesn't have to think too hard to understand who rolled a joint before she even made it out of her house.

With a groan, she climbs into the passenger seat. Her hip is still bruised from bumping into the counter last night as she ran out of the kitchen to avoid her parents who, for the first time in literally ever, got home at the same time.

   The seats are dedicated in that van, it's an unspoken thing. Another unspoken thing is John B messing up her hair as soon as he sees her, which is something she's been readying herself for since the morning. "Thought you'd come by," he tells her, then steadies his hands on the steering wheel again.

   "Cods brought his coach again," she recalls with a shrug, reaching back to grab the smoke JJ's holding out for her.

   "Rafe?"

The blonde boy tenses at that. He shares a look with Pope, who tells him to let it go. However Kie seems just as bitter as he is, if not more.

   She peaks her head through the seats and frowns at Gracie. "I don't understand why you keep letting him in."

   Gracie shrugs again. "Cody likes him."

   "Cody likes snakes," JJ adds. "You gonna adopt a snake, G? Have it slitherin' all over your kitchen?"

He trails his hands up her arms, making her groan as she pushes him off. Her hands automatically reach up to the mirror, and she pulls it down to fix her hair. She does her best to ignore what he's just said. There are enough snakes in the Cedar house.

   "I still don't get it. He's a Kook and a drug addict," Kie pushes, rolling her eyes. It's no secret she's got a bone to pick with the Cameron name in itself, but her problem has always laid with Rafe's little sister, Sarah—the only other girl friend she's ever had.

   That gets on Gracie's nerves. "He's clean now."

JJ repeats it under his breath in a mocking tone. It's John B's turn to shove his arm back and hit him on the back of the head. "Hey, Kie," he asks, "what's the address again?"

Gracie mouths a soft tank you for diverting the conversation away from the boy she's sure is still sitting at her kitchen table with her little brother. She oftentimes fells ashamed when she thinks of him being able to see all the horribleness in that house like the cracks in the hardwood and the lack of framed pictures. She wonders if he's got pictures of the family that denied him in that little trailer he's crashing in, in the bad part of the south.

That doesn't fucking matter anyway. At least it's what she tells herself. She goes back to thinking about her friends and how much she loves spending time with them like this, like nothing in the world matters. If she didn't have Cody and Jo, then she could travel the rest of the world with them when they magically stumble upon millions of dollars.

But she's got Cody and Jo. And her parents. And that island, which she'll forever be stuck on. She resents them for it every day, but only for a couple of seconds at a time.

JJ was talking about pizza when they got to the construction site and Gracie snapped back to Earth, unsurprised. That boy only had two things constantly occupying his mind: food and weed. Maybe beer. Maybe his abusive, son of a bitch father. Still, Gracie feels safer in his house than hers, as haunted as it is.

The blonde grabs her by the waist and hoists her on his shoulder up the stairs, laughing as she shrieks and holds on to the railing. Kie and John B vanish inside the house, whilst Pope takes a special interest in the tools laid on a table out on the patio. The house is surrounded by wraparound wood and metal scaffolding, but Gracie can see the potential. Another house for yet another rich couple she'll have to put up a performance for at the restaurant.

Kie's still somewhere inside, but when Gracie sits by the edge of the second story, she can clearly see John B balancing on the edge of the roof. His arms are stuck out on his sides, on leg propped forward. If he breathes wrong, he'll fall. She's almost jealous.

"That's, what, a three story fall to the deck?" Pope wonders, ripping his eyes off the tool table. "I give you about a one-in-three chance of survival."

John B laughs and holds his finger up to the wind. "Should I do it?"

"Yeah, jump," Pope falsely encourages him. He holds up an electric screwdriver and says: "I'll shoot you on the way down."

"You'll shoot me?"

Finger guns. He's such a loser. Gracie shakes her head and steals JJ's sunglasses off his face, looking up at the boy and rolling her eyes. She knows he won't do it, but sometimes he wonders how far he could go just for the hell of it. It must run in the family or something.

"Bet G. Cedar would love it if I fell. Then Rafe can drop Cody off every day." John B adds, a wide grin on his face.

"Never mind jumping, I'll push you." Gracie flips him off.

He laughs again, hand on his stomach so it stops hurting. JJ tells her bitterly to ignore the Routledge, then goes back to drinking his beer. Simultaneously, Kie comes out of the house and jumps onto the deck. She adjusts the stack of necklaces, untangling the strings and beads from her thick curly hair.

"They're going to have Japanese toilets with towel warmers," she complains, face pulled into an irritated grimace.

Kie's rich, but she can't stand it. Gracie loves her with all her heart, but she doesn't exactly understand why someone who has everything would run around pretending she has nothing. To Gracie and the others, that's not something they have to pretend. It gets irritating sometimes when she's always wearing new clothes and new jewelry and there's Jo in the living room complaining because she wants the same expensive pair of sunglasses as Kiara. But Gracie never says a word of it out loud. She's told John B about it, like, once and she never will again.

She's scared they'll make her a bad friend, all those thoughts.

   She's lucky Kie can't read her mind. The girl continues talking, clearly bothered by the county's use of the land. "This used to be a turtle habitat, but who cares about the turtles I guess?" she rambles on, hands propped on her waist.

   JJ protested. "I can't have cold towels."

   "Forget cold, how 'bout you focus on getting clean towels first," Gracie quips. She crumples the can of beer in her hands and then tosses it in the trashcan on the patio.

Pope and Kie both cheer her basket, then the latter steps back near the railing and frowns at the boy with the thick hair still smiling and balancing on the roof. His converses were so used the soles might as well slip off.

"Can you please not kill yourself?"

"I can't take care of the kids by myself, J. Routledge," Gracie calls out, agreeing with Kie. The ghost of a smile lingering on her mouth was enough to make him laugh.

Yeah, John B takes care of Jo and Cody a lot. He picks them up and drops them off and, whenever he collects some good tips tending rich people's boats, he buys them little stuff they like. Surprisingly enough, John B was better with kids than he gave himself credit for. He loved them and they loved him. And, oh how Gracie loved him.

But John B wants to take it as another opportunity to tease her. He opens his mouth to say something stupid, probably talk about the Kook whose fall from grace keeps him in her kitchen, but ends up swallowing his tongue. She sees the hesitation; she can almost taste it.

"Don't spill that beer. I'm not giving you another one," JJ adds. It's a lie and John B knows it.

Maybe he spills his beer to test him, maybe it's really an accident. They'll never know, but it falls anyway and splashes Gracie just enough for her to jump to her feet as he curses: "Shit!"

JJ rubs a hand over his face and groans loudly. "Of course you did. Like, right when I told you not to."

"Way to go, Bird," Gracie laughs.

The nickname makes him flinch, but not quite brutally enough for them to notice. That's his father's, he wants to say. He doesn't mind it coming out of her mouth that much, just makes him miss his dad more.

Okay, so maybe John B resents Gracie a little bit sometimes because Big John was more of a father to her than he was to him. Sometimes. That dread doesn't come as much as hers, but it still does. If he hadn't known her parents, he'd theorize they were real family. After all, they feel all the same things: the dread; the fear; the love. John B snaps his jaw shut. He still smiles, though.

If he'd prayed for a distraction, he got it. The sound of the sirens alerted them long before the blue and red lights did. The Pogues wonder how they could've possibly known they were there then they remember, they're Pogues! It's a given.

Pope's the first to talk, body pressed against the wraparound's railing. "Security's here. Let's wrap it up." And with slight knocking on the wood, he vanishes inside.

"The boys are early today," JJ exclaims. "Humour Dumpty, let's roll!"

He jumped off the wooden structure easily then gave a hand for Gracie to grab as she made her way off. She's a volleyball player; she kind of has weak knees. She grabs Kie's hand as they made it down the stairs, whooping and giggling like children.

"You little pricks!"

They drum on the woods and the wall but it still doesn't drown out the bliss they simmer in as they try to avoid the officers one by one, dodging them like players on a field. It's a hot day and they're already sweating, so there's no harm in a little running.

Inside, they lose the sun. When Gracie finds it again, she barely makes it past a man much taller than her, slipping through her fingers as JJ yells out that he's not a hugger. It makes her laugh, but she's far too focused on the fence to look back. She climbs it with ease, a tell that she's done this a respectable amount of times. Pope doesn't do it so gracefully and his landing is harsh. He gets a mouthful off the sprayed grass. JJ sneaks up from behind him, bending just badly to hit his back and tug at his shirt to urge him up.

The van—affectionately labeled the Twinkie—stops with all its glory in the middle of the street, making odd noises and shaking weirdly when Kie opens the back door for them. "Come on, guys, bus is leaving!" she calls, tapping the outside of the door with the palm of her hand.

Gracie always sits in the passenger seat. It's a more respected law than the no Pope-on-Pogue that drives everyone else insane. "I'm in!" she declares and bites back a grin as she watches JJ and Pope pile up in the back room area.

The man doesn't stop chasing them, even as they're driving down the street. It seems to amuse John B and JJ more than the rest of them, and they point him out with laughter bubbling in their chest. Gracie can't help but look out the window and, at the sight of him, almost feels bad.

JJ's emotions are a lot more limited, so he doesn't particularly feel bad when he asks John B to slow down and pulls the door open again. He takes a long sip of the last beer standing, grins widely, then holds his arm out the door.

"You guys are gonna give him a heart attack," Kie sighs despite the smile twitching at the corner of her lips. She tries to pull JJ back, but her attempts are fruitless.

"You're so close, you can do it!" JJ taunts, laughing at the man who was growing sweatier by the minute. Then, bored of messing with him, JJ throws him the beer and is delightfully surprised when he catches it. "There you go. They don't pay you enough, bro."

Kie doesn't budge. "Stop."

They let him be, but JJ is still buzzing with excitement like a little kid before his first game. "Oh, come on! That sort of initiative is just begging to be punished."

The teenagers explode in another fit of laughter. Gracie pulls her legs up the seat and settles down first. Staring out at the window made her angry; the drive between the rich and poor side of the island always did.

"So..." Pope draws it out, "what now?"

Gracie looks at him through the rearview mirror, and shrugs. "I have to go check on the kids," she tells them. A part of her always wishes she'll get back home and find them sitting around the dining room table with their parents. She's wished it for about seven years now; she should know better.

   "Tell you what, how 'bout I drop you off at home, you get the kids, and then we have a night out on the dock like we do on the weekends," John B proposes. It's just a Thursday, but he feels like she needs it.

   "Tell you what," she smiles at him, "you're my favourite person ever."

Her statement causes the ruckus she expected, and all her friends were soon protesting it by claiming that they were her favourite person ever.

It doesn't die down until they get to the Cedar house and everyone tenses up at the sight of a huge, shiny truck parked in front of the house. It never moved. He was still there. Gracie's jaw hurts from how tight it is and she hesitates for a second, wondering if she could just stay in that car for ever and ever.

Night hasn't fallen yet, but it will in less than an hour. She spent the entire day out with her friends but she worked the entire night, too. All that ache and sadness for a hundred dollar bill she lost anyway. She's sure that if she shouts, no one will even hear it.

The sun sets behind the chestnut trees in the front yard, basking the old house in a sweet hue. The house is big for one, but not enough for five. It's not overfilled with love or anything, so if space is weighted by feelings, it's empty. Big, but not big enough and empty, but not empty enough. The mat says welcome but nobody has ever felt warm stepping into that house. Quite the contrary, it swallows the heat from the outside and spits it out, and all of a sudden it's colder than a fall morning. It must be a Cedar thing.

Inside is even worse, people usually refrain from entering. One foot in the door, the lack of space is clear. Still, it's too big for one girl to clean up all by herself with no help. There's never any help, anyway. So the dishes are usually stacked in the kitchen, on the coffee table in the living room, on the counter, even by the windowsill.

Pope can hear her sigh as he shuts the door behind him. He volunteered to come inside with her after they recognized the truck and Gracie was glad it was him. "What's wrong?" he asks, calmer than John B or JJ would've.

Gracie and Pope don't have much in common, maybe because she's a tragic ending and he's a soft beginning. It's happened a couple of times for Gracie to sit him down in her room while she did her makeup and he's always surprised with the sad music she plays in front of the mirror. He told her that, if he was a girl—if he was her—he'd cry his mascara off every time. She just laughs and says that girlhood gets more and more devastating the more you grow up.

He doesn't understand it because he's a boy. Three out of the five of them are. Sometimes, Gracie resents them for it. She's really, really good at that.

   "It's just...it's just that house." It haunts her.

Jo's the first one out of her room, hands stained with acrylic paint—her parents didn't let her use oils in the house. She's sporting a smile wide enough to showcase her missing teeth and her hair is pulled back in two braids, topped off with a bow. She looks so delicate in that light, she gets it from her sister.

   "Gracie!" She engulfs her in a hug, arms tossed around her waist. Her sister embraces her back, but she can't shake the frown from her face. "I missed you. Hi, Pope" She hugs him, too.

   "Hey, Jo," he smiles at her.

Her brother steps inside the house through the screen door that leads to the backyard, and he's followed by that insanely tall boy whose truck hasn't budged since the morning. Cody's sweaty and has a soccer ball tucked under his arm, and dirt on his shirt, knees and shins. He's smiling widely and hugs her with one arm, then fist bumps Pope who calls him a superstar.

Behind him, Rafe stands awkwardly like he's not sure where to go. His hair is a mess over his face and he's clearly hot, but won't take his hoodie off. She wonders what he's hiding, but she doesn't remember any bruises on his arm or anything from that morning. Maybe she should notice him more.

He clearly notices her.

   "Before you say anything, Grace, I told him to stay. We just hung out in the backyard and played soccer a bit. Promise we didn't break anything," Cody blurted out before Gracie had a chance to say anything.

   "And he fixed my braid after Cody pulled at it," Jo adds, sticking out her tongue at her brother.

   "You know how to braid?" Gracie feels insane for how shocked she is at such a simple statement.

   "I have two sisters."

   He looks down at her and shoves his hand in his pockets. Cody tusks. "You're such a buzzkill, G. Pope thinks Coach R's cool, right, Pope?"

   The boy threw his hands up in surrender, not wanting to throw himself in the middle of that. "I plead the fifth."

Gracie doesn't take her eyes off him. She can't bring herself to. Jo slips under her arm, asks her what they're doing. So Gracie tells her that they're going to the Chateau for a bit and Rafe takes it as his cue to leave.

   "See you Saturday morning, kid," he tells Cody, who high fives him and vanishes in his room to change. Jo catches on, drags Pope to her room to show him her newest painting. If he wanted to stay, he doesn't show it.

So it's just the pair of them standing there, in the middle of the living room, amid a pile of mugs on the coffee table and beer from their clumsy father. Neither looks away from the other. It turns into some kind of competition.

   "They didn't want to stay home alone, did they?" Gracie sighs, her voice resembling a whisper.

   Rafe shakes his head. He looks down at the ground. He plays with his hands. He doesn't know what to say or do. "It's okay, I didn't have anything to do anyway."

   "I can pay you for this." She frowns and fists through her pockets for money but her hands come up empty.

   "Don't worry about it."

   Gracie shakes her head, and can't help the scoff that spills from her lips. "This is definitely not a 'don't worry about it' moment, Rafe," she utters.

He swears that he just got bored, but they both know it's a lie. He just didn't want to go back to the trailer and the mattress and the drugs he couldn't touch or see.

Rafe tells her not to worry about it again and his cleverness has the same effect it had in the morning, and he finds out all of a sudden that Gracie has dimples, too. They're more prominent than his and he swears she's the most beautiful girl he's ever seen. He can't say it out loud; he's got nothing to offer her anymore.

In that moment, Gracie calls for her resentment but it doesn't answer. She puts a hand on her stomach and feels it getting smaller.

   Cody comes out of his room changed, and Jo and Pope trail behind him. "That's my cue," Rafe says. His voice is hard but not rough, it's actually quite comforting. "See you on Monday."

   "See you on Monday," Gracie replies, gaze falling to the floor.

They watch him get out of the house and close the door behind him, and Gracie exhales so loudly she's sure it shook the ground like an earthquake. It would be nothing compared to the everlasting tornado that stretches from one side of the house to the other.

   Pope steps closer to her, looking conflicted in his thoughts. He hasn't seen Rafe since his public downfall, and only heard things about the new him from John B, never Gracie herself. "He's...different."

Different good, he meant to say. Rafe looks softer and he's definitely quieter. Pope can tell that he's sober. And he can also tell that Gracie's proximity makes him nervous; it's not a foreign thing.

   She shakes her head to herself. "Let's go." The kids are urged out as soon as the truck, the only thing he managed to keep, drives off. Cody's still talking about him even then.

The Chateau isn't a far walk, so they cross the street and get there in the blink of an eye. John B and JJ are already settled around the fire in the backyard, and Kie comes out to join them as soon as she sees Gracie and her siblings with Pope trailing behind them.

It's Jo that calls out John B's name first and sits between him and JJ to show them her newest painting, on the screen of Gracie's old, cracked iPhone. It's a lakeside landscape with hues of pink in the sky, and she's talking about it with a huge smile as Kie sets in front of her a glass of strawberry milk in her favourite cup, just like she likes it.

Cody shakes his head at his little sister, calling her a baby and earning a shove from the eldest. He sits next to her and gladly takes a handful of the chips laid out on the table, the bagged ripped open in the messiest way. Gracie messes up his hair, then steps over his outstretched legs to sit next to John B on the log, hands out near the fire.

   "What happened? You look pensive," John B tells her, zoning out of Jo's story.

   "The kids didn't wanna stay home alone," she confesses. When her hands are finally warm, she runs them through her hair then presses them against her cheeks like a little kid. "Rafe stayed with them. Just like that. Didn't even ask for money or anything."

John B laughs under his breath. By the time Jo's done with her storytelling, she sits up and allows JJ to sit more comfortably, and takes the spot next to Kie on the hammock instead.

   "Maybe he's just a good guy," the Routledge proposes.

   Gracie grimaces. "He's Rafe Cameron." 

That name is an insult. For so many years, he's worn it on his sleeve like it was a title to be proud of. He got with all the girls on Figure Eight and left them crying afterwards, and he took more drugs than the human body can take until he collapsed all by himself. He caused his own demise. He wrote his own ending. It's a wonder how he got back up.

Truly, his survival is inexplicable. He went from a huge house on the north to a small trailer in the south. Nothing in his name, nothing on his back, nothing in his hands. Just a ring that sat on the floor by the mattress, that he stopped wearing eventually and never reached for again. How hard can his life be, finally clean yet still stained from the thing that killed him once before?

It's sad, she grants it to him. Thinking about it gives her a headache. She assumes that someone who's never been loved before can still thrive after that kind of downfall. It's kind of reassuring, because at least she knows, following that logic, that she can survive anything.

JJ laughs loudly at a joke Cody says and it snaps her back. She suddenly feels cold again, so she brings her hands back to the fire. It's Pope that crouches next to her, brows pinched just a little.

   "Gracie?" he calls for her.

She hums.

   "He's not that Rafe Cameron anymore. Or, at least, I don't think he is."

Cody tells another joke and, though it's funny, she can't bring herself to laugh.

She's lost: which performance should she put up now?