“Can I tell you something? It’s just—but—like—part of me worried, when you said you wanted to come here for the summer, that you didn’t even really want me to come along? Like I was crucial, because it’s my uncle’s cabin, but you really didn’t care that I was here. Like it would have been better for you if it was just you and Ros. And I was just a cog in the machine.”

“He’s not your uncle.”

“Dude. Are you even listening?”

“Sorry. Yes. I’m listening. Touchstone—I’m really glad you’re here.”

“Yeah,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Okay.”

“I’m serious,” I said, and I reached across the table and grabbed his hand, made sure to lace my fingers in with his. His palm was sweaty, but I didn’t flinch.

“Celia, you don’t need to hold my hand,” he said.

“Andrew Holt Touchstone. You’re my best and oldest friend. You are so much more than a cog. I’m sorry I’ve been distracted with Ros. I’m sorry I’ve been…”

Obsessive? Jealous? A terrible friend?

“But I don’t want you to think for a second that your being here is ancillary to the plan. You’re part of the plan. You are the plan. You made me an egg, okay? You’re part of it. You’re part of us.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It’s okay, you don’t have to, like, make me feel better or whatever. I know what you’re saying.”

“The contract says the Triumvirate,” I said.

“Can you let go of my hand now?”

I squeezed it tighter. When I’d lost my voice in first grade, clammed up for weeks, Touchstone was the one who finally got me talking again. He came up to me on the playground and offered me some of his chocolate orange. I took a slice, and my manners came back to me suddenly. Thanks, I said. You’re welcome, he said. We’d been friends ever since. He’d swept into my life and helped me solve my problem as though he were magic, and I hated that I had done him wrong.

“There are three of us. That’s who we are. We’re not the… Twoumvirate.”

At this, he managed a small smile, but pulled his hand loose from mine at the same time.

“We should go,” he said.

So I drove him back to campus, the air between us so thick that no words could get through, even if I had them.

Footnote