The front door is wide open.

I drop my crutch and run into the house, ignoring the bolt of pain in my leg. An empty box of Lucky Charms has been knocked over onto the kitchen table, surrounded by garish, brightly colored marshmallow shapes and cereal loops. My clothes are everywhere, covering the floor and the kitchen counters, my black Valentino dress hanging from a light fixture over the sofa. The TV is on and showing an episode of Friends at full volume. Flies buzz around an open bottle of Coke, and a slice of half-eaten pizza rests on the back of a DVD case on the floor.

“Esme?” I shout, running to the bedroom. It’s empty. I push open the bathroom door, and a turquoise wash bag with a cartoon of a cat on it saying You’re PAWfect is open on the floor. I try not to think about my sister’s solemn face, the way she takes everything so literally, her infuriating honesty, and the weird noises she makes when she’s embarrassed, or frustrated.

I limp out onto the porch, scanning for any signs of when she was last here. When I get down onto the beach, I stop in my tracks and the world flickers around me for a moment. My rose gold slip dress and Dylan’s Ohio State sweatshirt are in a wet heap on the sand in front of the house, the waves already licking them. When I get closer I can see Esme’s phone resting on top, raindrops skimming off her glittery Union Jack case. I run toward the ocean, fear like I’ve never known it propelling me through my pain.

My sister is bobbing in the ocean, about twenty yards out, her hair fanning around her. I fall onto the wet sand, the word no caught at the back of my throat as fear tears through me. The feeling is primitive, raw, unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. Before I know what I’m doing, I’m up again and running into the icy water as thick raindrops continue falling from the sky. Seaweed snakes around my ankle, and I trip over a large rock embedded in the sand, landing on my bad knee as the waves crash over me. I propel myself forward with my arms until I’m swimming, the wound above my eye stinging from the salt as the water whips my face. I push through the fiery pain until I’m slipping underneath the waves, swimming like a mermaid through the darkness. I must be close. I break through the surface again and look around. I can see Esme’s black hair drifting in the water around her. She’s so close. I reach out and grab my sister by the shoulder, pulling her toward me. She gasps for air as I wrap my arms around her.

Esme shouts something over the sound of the rain hitting the water, and I think she’s fighting me off, splashing and writhing under my grip.

“Come with me,” I say, tears streaming down my face. I wrap my arms around her again.

“What are you doing?” she shouts in between coughs, but I won’t let go and we both sink beneath the waves again. I kick hard, my arm gripping Esme around the waist, and I only let go of her when I feel the sand beneath my feet. We break through the surface at the same time, and Esme spits out salt water while I rub my eyes.

“We’re okay,” I say, breathing heavily as Esme shakes her head, staring at me as if I’ve lost my mind.

“You’re psychotic,” she says, but she lets me throw my arms around her neck.

“I’m so sorry. I should have told you. It was a really bad plan,” I say, half sobbing and half laughing with relief.

My sister lets me hold her for a minute, and then we both sink onto the sand as the rain tumbles down over us.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

Esme doesn’t speak to me for most of the journey home, closing her eyes and pretending to be asleep almost as soon as we get inside my car. It’s just as well, as the adrenaline-fueled fight through the waves has left me drained, and I don’t yet know how to form the words I need to say to her.

We’re on the freeway when my sister opens her eyes again.

“Where are we going?” she asks quietly, because the gunmetal sky and the rainwater rivers flowing next to the freeway have rendered Southern California unfamiliar, turning it into anywhere else on the planet.

“Home. I’m taking you home, of course,” I say, and maybe because she knows I don’t have one, she doesn’t argue with me.

“Do you remember when I used to make up stories about Patrice the mermaid for you when you were a kid?” I ask when we’re almost at my parents’ house.

Esme is quiet for so long that I think she’s asleep, but after a while she shifts in her seat.

“Yeah, except I thought Patrice was a pirate,” she says.

“No! Patrice was a mermaid. She stole from the pirates,” I say, horrified.

“Doesn’t that make her a pirate too?” Esme is staring at me strangely. “She even had her own ship. Her name is practically an anagram of ‘pirate.’”

“Patrice used to steal the booty from the pirates to hide in her shipwreck under the ocean,” I say, trying to remember. I shake my head. “Shit, I guess maybe she was a pirate.”

Esme smiles slightly and closes her eyes again.

* * *

? ? ?

My parents nearly buckle at the knees when we walk into the house, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget the look on both their faces when they see my sister. Even through the protective shield of my own relief, I understand that I will never be the person to trigger such a simple, primitive response from them—that too much has happened, or hasn’t happened up to this point.

Esme already seems panicked by the display, frozen in the hallway with her hair hanging in clumps around her shoulders and her mascara smeared down her face in spindly spider legs.

“What happened to you?” my mom asks, horrified. She turns to me. “What did you do to her?”

“Mom,” Esme says loudly before she slides down against the wall in the hallway, ending up next to a pile of shoes and the old newspapers my parents keep forgetting to recycle. We all stare down at her, none of us knowing quite what to do with our love for this small, broken girl. I meet my mother’s eyes, and a flash of recognition passes between us.

My dad steps forward to scoop Esme up, and, to my surprise, she lets him. He walks with her down the hallway to her bedroom, leaving my mother and me alone by the front door. My mom stands with her arms hanging by her sides, like she doesn’t know what to do with them if they’re not reaching for my sister.

“Thank you for bringing her home,” my mom says quietly, and even though her words are simple, I’m surprised by their force.

“You’re welcome,” I say, then, after a moment: “You painted the house.”

“Your father did it after you left,” she says.

“I kind of miss the pink.”

“I knew you would say that,” she says. My dad has appeared in the hallway, and my mom turns to him. “I told you she’d say exactly that.”

“I’m not getting involved,” my dad says, and we all just stand there for a moment because none of us has the energy to keep it going.

“Is she okay?” my mom asks, making a move toward Esme’s bedroom.

“We have to let her sleep,” my dad says, gently steering my mother back toward the kitchen.

We sit down together at the kitchen table, and nobody offers to make tea.

“Is this about the suspension?” my mom says, staring blankly at me. “Because I can email the school about it. I’m sure it was all a misunderstanding.”

“Not really,” I say, and maybe it’s cowardly, but right now I can’t handle being the one to tell them that they couldn’t protect their daughter. The thing is, I’ve spent my whole adult life trying to shield them from that very realization, and I suddenly feel exhausted, as if all the years of effort have caught up with me at once. I don’t know how to pretend anymore.

“I’m so tired,” I say. “I think I have to rest for a while too.”

“How long is a while?” my mom asks, and both the hopefulness that has crept into her voice and the guilt it elicits are too much for me to bear right now.

“I don’t know, Mom,” I say, and I start to limp down the hallway to my old room. My parents follow me right up to my bedroom door, and I can hear them hovering in the hallway, between the two rooms, as if they can somehow now protect us both from the intruders and monsters and evil spirits that have already chewed us up and spat us out.

* * *

? ? ?

My dad brings my dinner to me on the beanbag tray with the spaniels on it, softly knocking before he opens the door and places it at the foot of my bed. On the way out he squeezes my shoulder as he passes, but he doesn’t ask anything of me and for once I’m grateful for it.