alyssa

My whole body is stiff and aching when I wake up the next morning, but it's fine. Manageable. I'll probably manage to swipe some Ibuprofen or something—Dad won't be any the wiser to the events of yesterday.

My heart thuds once in my chest then stops. Unless Tanner tells him, at least.

I'm still in my clothes from yesterday, so I rip them off, chuck them into their own corner, and tear into a pair of leggings and a sweater I can wear later. So long as no one can spot the already-faint scabs on my legs, we'll be fine. My hair is knotted underneath when I reach to pull it out from my collar, and it legitimately takes a second to untangle my fingers. Then, I race out to the living room as nonchalantly as possible, my bottle of sunscreen in hand.

"Morning, Dad!" I yell. We're a very loud family, but it's fine. Makes it easier to compensate when I'm not at my best. Tanner snorts loudly from in front of the stove, so I saunter into the kitchen. He doesn't look up at me, but he's smiling wide and mocking. "What?"

"He's taking a shit," Tanner mutters. "Also, don't be so excited. You sound high."

I roll my eyes, reaching up to the medicine cabinet for some Ibuprofen. Tanner swats my hand away. "Bitch, I already got you some."

"Oh."

"Yeah, you're welcome."

I swat him back. Twice. "Thank you."

"You're such a shitmuffin."

"Yeah, well, now I am a medicated shitmuffin."

Tanner side-eyes me freely. "You think that's better?"

"Don't judge my habits."

"Make me."

"Asshole."

"Bro I will literally rip your—"

The toilet flushes loudly on the other side of the house, cutting us off. There's a cup of coffee next to Tanner, so, even though I absolutely despise coffee, I steal his mug and down two Ibuprofen. There's way too much cream in it, and I blanch, but I down it regardless.

I try to stretch like I normally would, putting my shoulders way back, but my spine down by my pelvis twinges, and my legs shudder beneath me for a second. I don't think Tanner notices the breath I suck in, the sharpness of it in my throat, and I hardly have enough time to brace myself on the kitchen counter.

"Alyssa?" comes Dad's voice from behind me. Tanner and I both freeze, both stop breathing. "Are you okay?"

"Oh, Dad," I say lightly, turning around and leaning casually against the counter. "Um, good morning. How was your shi—your shift last night?"

"Good," Dad says gruffly. "I still need to shower, though. I feel like the big Lebowski."

"Ha," Tanner says. "You look like you need to take care of Noobmaster69. Like you refuse to leave New Asgaard. You—"

"Tanner, we get it," I say, flapping my hand at the air behind me. "So, what do you have to do today?"

Dad shuffles around me. It always amazes me how he's so tall and bulky, and Tanner and I are so tiny and slight. We look like Mom, I guess, even though I don't remember Mom looking like either of us. Maybe Tanner and I just ... look like each other. Because, as it stands, we don't look anything like Dad.

"Just work," he says. "Speaking of work, how was your first day?"

I can feel Tanner behind me perking up. "Oh it was wonderful," he chirps, and my throat tightens. "It was so, so fun, Father!"

"It was fine," I tell him. "Um, nothing much happened. It rained? Rained quite a bit? So ... I went home."

"And she brought a girl," Tanner teases.

"A girl?" Dad says. "That was fast. Do we need to have a talk?"

"Dad! Oh my gosh no." He's totally got it all wrong. Gross. "It wasn't anything like that. I just ... chatted a bit. She dropped me off. That's all."

Dad doesn't look impressed, but he's still smiling. At least when he smiles, I can see where Tanner and I came from. That we're actually his. "Just, behave yourself," he says, and I see the strain behind it.

I know Tanner said he didn't mean all the crap that came flying out of his mouth yesterday, but also, I know it's kinda true. I am selfish. And a coward. Honestly, just an all-around bitch.

Tanner sips his coffee in silence, content to observe us and our discussion. "Sounds good," I tell him, flashing him two very cheesy thumbs up.

Dad checks his watch, then adjusts his hair slightly. It's texture is wiry, suitable to the grey that's been coming in the last five years or so, and is a complete contrast to Tanner and I's natural curls. "I have to get going, but Tanner is going to save some pancake batter for you, okay?"

"We'll see," he mutters, then takes another very very enthused sip of his coffee. "I make no promises."

Dad hugs us both quickly, snatches his rickety truck's keys, then bolts out the front door.

"I'm not hungry," I tell Tanner, "so feel free to have as many pancakes as you want." In the Hargreaves house, pancakes are somewhat of a tradition. If someone makes them, they're happy. And happy is good. So share the happy. It's very I Am Not Okay With This in retrospect.

Tanner narrows his pale brows at me. "You sure? You need to eat."

"I can eat when I'm dead."

"That was more offensive and gross than funny. Seriously. Eat."

"Fine," I snap. "I will take this orange." I snatch one of the slightly-spongy tangerines from our practically empty fruit basket.

"You will take that orange and that banana. And you will eat them both."

I groan, but take a very bruised banana.

Tanner in the meantime shakes his head. "I would have thought you would be all into eating right now. Pancake overload. Gotta keep that bubble butt bubbly for your new boo or whatever."

"Shut up," I tell him. "Not funny."

"Oh, hot swim pool girl!" Tanner says, one hand against his forehead in extreme dramatics, the other busy flipping a rather massive pancake. "Take me now!"

"Shut up!" My cheeks are burning. My legs are sore and fizzling.

"Lay me down in bed! Spoon meeee kiss meeee love meeeee!"

My head buzzes. "Tanner—"

"Hot swim pool girl, I like your hair. I think you and I should—"

"Tanner!" It comes out a shriek. I clap a hand over my mouth, eyes wide.

"Bruh," Tanner says slowly, "calm the fuck down."

"Sorry," I say. Why did I do that? Where did that come from? One second, everything felt hot, and the skin of my legs felt like it was crawling, and the next, I shrieked like some kind of operatic dolphin on ecstasy. "I didn't mean for it to come out like that."

He regards me for a moment before giving me a standard eye roll. "Whatever. Just don't be weird when I mock you like a good brother."

"Whatever."

"Do not 'whatever' me! Ree!"

"Whatever." His back straightens as he rises to the challenge, grinning vivaciously. "Tanner, whateverrrr."

"Biatch," he hisses, slapping my shoulder, and I finally laugh. This. This is good. This is easy. This, I can do.

"What should I say to her?" slips out from me without preempt.

Tanner clearly wasn't expecting it, either. His grey-blue eyes are wide, surprised. "You mean hot pool girl?"

"Is she hot?"

"I mean, is she?"

"She's cute. Definitely cute." Actually, probably definitely hot. Elliot looks like she could be one of those moody runway models, what with her impossibly lithe frame and stark features, all mashed together in some enticing combination. And with her height and the way she carries herself, she oozes this weird awkward-confidence that is as attractive as it is confusing.

Max. Remember Max? Heartbroken. Ow. Waaaaa. Big tears.

"You are totally going to form a crush on her," Tanner says with a sigh. "And then I'm going to have to have The Talk with her, and that is gross and very unpleasant and I would very much like to not have to do that? Thanks."

"You're very strange, Tanner. Like, I feel like I'm probably maybe a little strange—"

"I am good strange. I am sexy strange. I'm so sexy, I'm basically Doctor Strange."

"You just disturbed literally every fiber of my being."

"Good." Tanner, still in giant pyjamas he was wearing within less than an hour of me getting home yesterday. With his somewhat leisurely at-home day, Tanner can afford the luxury of staging in his pyjamas all day. It must be pretty nice.

That's a lie—it is definitely nice.

Our first week here, I didn't leave my pyjamas once. I was upset about leaving Max and dealing with (supposedly) a "fun new adjustment," but I knew the truth. I had uprooted my family here, and it was maybe a little of everyone's fault—especially Max's—for our move, but it was most definitely majority my fault.

"Do you think you like her, though?" Tanner asks with false nonchalance.

"Maybe?" I say, and I'm kind of shocked to hear it come out of my mouth. But, it's true. I like her, I do, and while I don't want to feel like I'm betraying Max—which I kinda am and kinda am not, all at once—it's there. And inkling. A slight beginning. It's strange, and thrilling, and I hate myself for it, but I can't ignore the feeling.

Maybe I like her. A little bit.

Even if I most definitely should not.

"I just met her, though, so I dunno. She's chill," I add, hoping it covers.

Tanner shakes his head, piling up a third pancake. "You are such a thot."

"Watch your mouth, whorecracker," I tell him, pointing for that extra Gucci emphasis. "I am a confused, heartbroken teen who super misses her partner, and if there's someone in this new town who can find it in their heart to be nice to me, then, well, yeet."

"Can I get a hoiyeahhhh," mutters Tanner under his breath while he douses his pancakes in the cheap syrup he prefers over the nice maple stuff Dad gets every year at the Woodbury Arts Festival.

"Hoiyeahhhhhh," I mutter back.

"Ew," Tanner says. "Grody."

"You know I rock."

"Eh. You rock in a grody way."

"I know you love me."

"Yes. And the sky is purple and made of hedgehogs."

"Shut the fuck up."

"Fuck the shut up."

I decide to take my squishy orange and bruised banana to the front deck. The air smells less like rain and more like sand and heat today, and the wood of the deck itself is absolutely drenched, about ten shades of stain darker than it was yesterday pre-rain.

Gosh, I don't even remember Elliot carrying me up here.

The back of my neck prickles when I think about her, and it is so absolutely bizarre. I love Max. I know I do. What else would it be? Leaving them about ruined me, I swear. I spent this last week in Hulhazy Front drowning in my own tears and wallowing in blankets and consuming the same poor Netflix rom-coms over and over and over again. (Seriously, "SPF-18"? Terrible. So. Terrible.) And the week before that, back in Woodbury, I was already mourning the move.

I packed all my boxes while cloaked in the birthday blancho Max made for me—a tie blanket with a circle cut between the two layers of fleece, making it a poncho but also a blanket, hence "blancho"—sniffling and wading through tissues and completely fuzzy in the head. Leaving Max was absolutely devastating. Thinking about Max is absolutely devastating.

Thinking about Elliot, though? A new kind of devastating. A non-terrible kind of devastating.

"Alyssa," Tanner says for probably the billionth time, now tapping his butterknife against his coffee mug. I didn't even realize he'd come out here with me. "Alyssa, could you ... wake up a bit, maybe? Sorry, I just ... you're weirding me out."

"Sorry," I say absentmindedly, hardly meaning it. The smell of fresh oranges again, just like last night, mixed with lingering rain scent, drifts towards me on the porch. It's weird, because it smells like Elliot.

As I think about how it felt for her to cradle me against her chest like that, I press my thighs together and tell myself it's all completely due to the weird tingling sensation still present in my legs from yesterday's attack. I just need to stop thinking. In general. Yes.

Tanner sits on our soggy porch swing next to me, looking very serious whilst daintily carrying his mini pancake platter. "It's okay if you like her, you know."

"I know." It's not, though. I mean, there's Max. I am a Max girl. I am Max's girl.

"Like hell you do."

"Hey, I resent that! I know plenty of things, thank you!"

Tanner just shakes his head. "I just want you to be happy, Ally Bally."

I lean against his side a little. He doesn't throw and arm over my shoulders, but he leans back into me, and it's more than enough. "Well, good for you, because I'm pretty damn happy right now."

Tanner shoves me away lightly, but he's smiling more. "You deserve good things, Alyssa Hargreaves."

"You deserve them too, Tanner Hargreaves."

"Even though you smell," he adds quickly, then jerks his pancakes away from me before I can do any damage.