The problem with weekends is that they disappear too fucking fast. By the time Sunday afternoon rolls around, it still feels like I've only had Ashley and Connor here for a day and yet we have a matter of hours together before they leave tomorrow morning. Ashley's flight is at noon. They'll be gone by eight. Which means we have sixteen hours left, and half of those will be spent sleeping.

This morning was full-on: we walked into town for breakfast at Cafe Au Late where we bumped into Riley, who drove us out to the lookout when her shift was over, followed by a hike up to the overlook. That took longer than I thought. Ashley is not a hiker, and I misjudged how much shorter her legs are than mine. Connor ended up giving her a piggyback for the last few hundred meters of the ascent, and we spent a long time at the top with one of the best views in the world. By the time we got back to Lou's, her lessons were over and her car was gone, a note on the kitchen table: having lunch with kate, I'll see you later x

I folded that note into my palm and savored that kiss, tracing its lines with my fingertip. I didn't get a chance to ask her about the whole girlfriend thing last night: dinner was a raucous affair, with Ashley taking control of the conversation and propelling us into an evening of sharing increasingly loud and hysterical stories of past summers as we drank and laughed and Lou played footsie with me under the table. By the time we crashed into bed at midnight, I was too exhausted to do anything but be her little spoon and fall into a deep sleep.

Now, at four o'clock on Sunday afternoon, we're in the Takahashis' garden. Ashley and Connor couldn't come all this way and not do exactly what I did: sneak into our old garden and spin on the tire swing that's only there because of us. Connor can't fit like he used to, too broad in all directions, and he almost gives himself another concussion in his attempts to swing with one leg through the hole. I send a picture to the family chat, the only place where Mom and Dad still exist together, but neither of them interact there much anymore. All four of my brothers reply, though, with various degrees of amusement and jealousy and, from Nolan, yo little did u feed connor some kind of height serum or was he always that big?

I reply with a laughing emoji and say, he had a late growth spurt.

Omg I could really do with one of those, Nolan says. He's not that short — five foot eight, same as me — but compared to the rest of the guys in our family, he's pretty small. Dad's six one; Emmett and Cole are both five eleven and Grayson towers over us all at six three. What I don't tell Nolan is that, considering he's nineteen and his growth plates have closed, his chances of gaining a couple inches are pretty much nil.

Mom sends me a private message: Glad you're having fun, honey. Have you thought any more about coming to Rapid City? There's always space for you and I'd love to see you. I miss my baby girl xxx

Guilt stabs me in the chest. I do miss my mom. I haven't seen her since before the whole divorce announcement. Maybe I do need to go to her, if only to clear the air between us and talk everything through, to figure out what happened between her and Dad and to come to terms with her being halfway across the country.

Thanks mom, I text. I'm still thinking abt it, i did apply for jobs there just in case but haven't heard anything yet & im staying here with lou for a bit longer (made some friends!!). I miss you too. Love you

It's been almost a week since I sent off all those applications. Easily over a hundred. Not a single reply yet. All I need is one rejection, for one place to tell me no and give me permission to stay here guilt free. Because then at least I'm trying, right? I'm making the effort to be responsible and it isn't my fault if everybody turns me down.

We're still in the wrong garden when Lou gets home and follows the sound of our voices. She stands on the other side of the fence, her arms folded, and it's the exact scene that played out when I first got here. Already that feels like forever ago, when I slowly came face to face with her and fell in love.

She meets my eye. Gives me that secret smile. I leave Ashley swinging and Connor halfway up the tree — he is part cat; he can't resist finding the highest point wherever he goes — and I hop over the fence.

"How's your inner child?"

"She's healing," I say. Lou holds my elbow and kisses me softly.

"She deserves to," she says, and I kiss her again, reaching up on my toes to close the inches between us. My hands go to her hips to steady myself; she laces her fingers over the small of my back and I could stay like this forever, but I don't have forever.

"You guys want a drink?" I call over to my cousins. When I get two affirmative yells, two requests for iced coffee, I take Lou's hand and lead her to her own kitchen. She sets about making the drinks — she does it better than me, after all — and I sit on the counter.

I'm about to make small talk, to ask how Kate is and what she had for lunch and how her lessons went this morning, but it's an entirely different thought that jumps out of my throat. "You called me your girlfriend."

Well. No time like the present, I guess.

Lou stills, halfway through pouring soy milk over ice for Connor. I love that she remembers from yesterday morning, that she doesn't have to ask again. "So you did hear me."

"Huh?"

She's smiling, that funny little smile where I can tell she's trying not to but her lips can't help but wish to meet her eyes. "That was two days ago. You didn't say anything. You were so tired, I figured you didn't hear. But you did."

"I did. And then I forgot. But then I remembered, and I can't tell if you were joking or being cute or if you were serious, so can we, like, talk about that?" My heels are rhythmically thudding the cabinet door. Lou comes over and places her hands on my knees to still my anxious feet. She eases them apart to stand closer, her hips pressed against the counter and her lips inches from mine.

"Did you like it when I called you my girlfriend?" she asks, her voice low. "Or did it scare you?"

"I liked it."

"Then I vote that it stays. Because I liked saying it." Her finger is under my chin, tilting it up. "Because I like you, Charlotte." She closes her eyes and leans forward the slightest amount, all that's needed for her soft lips to touch mine. My palm is on her chest, over her heart, and I can feel its beat. Steady. Calm. Confident. Mine is all over the place, but not Lou's. If I'm the storm, she's the anchor. "I like your cousins, too, but I'm starting to wish they weren't here because I would very much like to fuck you on this counter."

"Right here?"

"Mmm. Right here. Right now." Her lips vibrate against my cheek. Heat floods me and I have to swallow it down, though the blush will remain on my face. "We'll just have to wait."

"Mmhmm. Yup. Yup." My heart does that thing where it feels like it somersaults in my chest, a heavy flip flop that takes me by surprise. It's a weird feeling. A good one. I lift my arms to drape them over her shoulders and I smile up at her and I say, "They might not notice."

Lou laughs.

As if on cue, I hear footsteps and then Ashley's voice.

"So that's what's taking so long. False alarm, Con — no-one's died, they're just eye-fucking in the kitchen."

"Not in front of my coffee!" Connor calls before he appears in the doorway too. I like that Lou doesn't spring away from me; she doesn't act like she's been caught, just steps back and returns to the soy milk.

"Your coffee has maintained its innocence, don't worry," she says, turning to the fridge to take out the jug of cold brew. She holds it up to him before pouring it into the icy milk. "It didn't see a thing."

*

After a golden hour dinner on the dock, we relocate to the living room and put a movie on. I try not to think of what happened the last time Lou and I watched a movie in here, which is pretty hard when we're on the same sofa, Connor and Ashley sharing the other one. In the name of all things nostalgia, we end up watching Cheaper by the Dozen 2, a childhood favorite, and I can't ignore the similarities between Steve Martin's onscreen family and my own.

"Oh my god, Charlie, Sarah Baker is literally you," Ashley says. "Total little closeted lesbian tomboy."

She's right. I groan and cover my eyes, burying myself deeper into Lou's shoulder. I even used to wear my hair like that, either under a cap or in two awkward bunches because I thought I was supposed to like it long but it kept getting in the way. Middle school me had an unusually large collection of caps. I never had the whole glow-up and date with a boy thing, though. I cringe when Sarah Baker is put in girly clothes and make-up and gets her hair curled. Let the poor kid be the tomboy she is.

"I bet you were adorable," Lou says. I'm glad she didn't know me back then. By the time she moved in, I was a lot more me. To be honest, there isn't much that differentiates me now from who I was at seventeen. I always looked older than I was and I've had the same haircut since tenth grade.

Connor backs up that thought when he says, "Charlie was as Charlie is."

"Charlie," Lou says. Quiet. To herself. "Everyone calls you Charlie."

"Yeah." I look up at her. It's dark enough in here that her eyes look like pools of black, until the screen brightens and I catch a flash of blue.

"Am I the only one who calls you Charlotte?"

"Mmhmm. My parents do, too, sometimes, but yeah. I'm Charlie."

"You never corrected me. I've been calling you Charlotte all this time."

"I never liked it until you said it."

She rubs her thumb in circles over my hip bone. "Charlie suits you."

Ashley throws a cushion. I grunt when it hits me square in the stomach. "Get a room, you two."

I would very much like to.

But even when bedtime rolls around, I don't end up in Lou's room. It's my last night with my cousins for god knows how long so the three of us end up in the guest room like the sleepovers we used to have, when Ashley and I would share a bed and Connor would make himself comfortable in an armchair or on the floor and we would talk until the first of us fell asleep. Whoever was still awake would drop their voices to a whisper, until another drifted off.

"If you do end up staying here," Ashley says as she makes herself comfortable under the covers, her curls tamed into a short, fat plait, "there's no excuse for us not to see each other more than we have been. You have to come to Portland sometime."

"I will. I promise. If I stay. I can't believe I haven't been already."

"You are woefully under traveled. How many states have you been to?"

"Um ... six?" I take a moment to think about it, listing them out in my mind. Childhood in Montana; a couple vacations in Washington; summers in Idaho; college in Texas; a day trip from Fisher to Wallowa-Whitman National Forest in Oregon; a week in New York. "Wait, no, eight! I stopped in New Mexico and Utah on the drive up from Texas. Nine if you count the hour I drove through Colorado.

Connor says. "Have you ever been to Wyoming?"

"Nope." Ridiculous, I know. For eighteen years, I lived a hundred and fifty miles from the border and I never made it that far. We never went on a family trip to Yellowstone.

"That settles it, then. You guys are coming to stay with me sometime. I have the perfect three-day Yellowstone itinerary and I live two miles from the airport."

"I didn't even know Yellowstone had an airport," Ashley says.

"It's basically a shack. And you can only fly to Salt Lake City and Denver. And it's only open from, like, June to September. But it's there, and so am I."

"Damn, I was totally planning to come in October," Ashley says, in an aw, shucks kind of tone that makes me laugh.

"Perfect!" Connor grins and says, "You can fly into Bozeman from Portland; I'll come get you from there. It's only an hour and a half."

We talk for over an hour, creating hypothetical itineraries for all our potential trips: camping in Yellowstone and skiing in Big Sky and swimming in the Great Salt Lake; gambling in Vegas and hiking at the Grand Canyon and roasting our asses off in Death Valley. The world is our oyster, and I guess I like seafood more than I thought.

Ashley's the first to fall asleep. When Connor realizes, he stands and smooths down his pants and whispers, "I'm gonna head to bed."

I'm too comfy to move, and Lou will be asleep by now. I might as well stay here with Ashley. "See you in the morning."

He hovers near the doorway. "Thanks for this, Charlie. I didn't know how much I needed it."

"Fisher?"

"Yeah, Fisher, but also just getting out. Seeing you guys. Doing something different to the same stuff I do every day. I don't wanna just talk the talk — we've gotta make at least one of these trips happen."

"We will," I assure him. "Wherever I end up, I'll come stay with you at some point. I want to see those geysers, and I think I owe it to Wyoming."

He smiles, hand on the door. "You do. But you owe it to you, too, Charlie."

I'm not sure what he means. I'm still thinking about it when I hear him start to snore. I'm the last one to fall asleep: I won.

*

if you live in / have been to the us, how many states have you seen? i'm up to 25 - more like 30 if i can count ones i've only driven through, and i'd love to try to see them all!