I'm fourteen. Rose is fourteen. Kieran is twelve, and this year she likes him better than me.

I know him too well to share the sentiment, but I understand it. I have Rose's height, but I am slender rather than skinny; I have her wit, but I can soften the sting when it suits; I am doing better in school, which I would never say but I know she somehow knows, and I have a boyfriend, which she never quite did. Mom, Dad, and I are early adopters of the direct brain interface with the sphere, which means we spend a lot of time nursing headaches and hallucinations. We are poor company. But Kier is too young for the direct interface—which means stupid goggles and no haptics, but he likes the nerdy look and basks in Rose's newfound attention. So it's Kier who comes up to me in the middle of the night, when I'm not in the sphere, and says "Rose says you have to stop."

This makes sense in context: I'm down in the mud room, looking for footwear in the dark, dressed in a pretty paisley wrap over a bikini I've been barred by Dad from wearing to the beach—which is, honestly, all right by me; in daylight, in public, I'd be embarrassed. But it is not daylight, and I'm expecting an audience of one.

"Why does Rose," I ask, pushing my foot into a sandal, "care what I do?"

"Well, you're doing the same thing she did, at the same age, for the same reason, the night she died."

"Jesus, Kier!" I nearly forget to stage-whisper. "Tell Rose I know from the fucking riptides. I'm not stupid." I immediately realize, but do not acknowledge, that I have just called my dead sister stupid.

"Rose says that drunk beach sex isn't fun, that you're going to want to swim afterwards to clean up, and that you are stupid."

"Tell Rose I'm not getting drunk, and I'm not having sex." This is, strictly speaking, a lie; I don't know whether either is on offer, nor have I decided what I'll do if they are. "Aidan and I are just meeting up to talk. As friends." This is a lie by any standard. "Remind Rose that I already have a boyfriend."

"Rose says that Aidan has vodka, but no condoms."

"That's because friends can have a drink without having sex." True in principle.

"Rose says she's going to wake Mom and Dad unless you get your ass to bed."

"Tell Rose that Mom and Dad aren't in the sphere, dipshit."

"They don't have to be in the sphere, dipshit," Kieran says, crossing his arms over his chest.

I get my ass to bed. When Aidan asks me what happened, I blow him off. Amazingly, Kieran doesn't rub it in, or even mention it at all, ever. I will turn fifteen before I can stand to speak to Rose.