I follow Ms. Birdie into the kitchen and pull out my phone. I scroll through the most recent pictures of Coley and Frankie while she fills the sink with warm soapy water. Her second birthday back in March. Coley wearing Ma’s heels and carrying Frankie’s gigantic purse. Coley and Frankie on the beach in Galveston this summer. Coley posing in my glasses. Ms. Birdie makes the appropriate “aww” noises and mumbles “so precious” at least twenty times while she washes the dishes. Coley’s bright green eyes shine at me through the phone screen, and I feel a tug in my chest.

“I think I’d like to get settled in and go to bed,” I say. “Thank you for the delicious meal, Ms. Birdie.”

“Don’t you mention it, sweet Elijah,” she says, pursing her lips. Her eyes look like they want to say more, but instead she calls for Julian.

“Yes, ma’am?” He appears in the kitchen doorway shirtless with a towel around his neck.

“Can you show Elijah into the guest room, please?”

He doesn’t answer right away, and I see a look pass between him and Ms. Birdie.

“It’s this way,” he says without looking at me.

I grab my black duffel from the couch and follow Julian down a short hallway. The muscles in his back flex while he walks, and my fingers remember what it was like to touch his warm skin. Does he remember?

“It’s here,” he says, flicking on the light and pointing to the next door in the hallway. “That’s my room.”

“I remember,” I say, a pit in my stomach.

His eyes are angry and hurt and sad and confused all at once. I search my brain for something to say, anything, that will brighten his face. Make things between us okay.

“I’m… I won’t get in your way,” I say again, knowing that’s not the right thing but desperate to say something.

“Whatever,” he says, shaking his head and disappearing behind his bedroom door.

I drop my bag just inside the guest room doorway and glance inside. The bedspread is white with pink rosebuds and yellow daisies. The window overlooks the patchy backyard, the rickety shed, and a clothesline stretching from the corner above my window to the massive oak ten feet away. A bag of clothespins dances on the line in the evening breeze, lit up by the light spilling from the kitchen window. I pull the heavy, matching curtains tight, drowning out most of the light, and switch on the rosebud lamp on the night table.

I sit down on the bed and think about Julian just next door. I stare toward the door and wonder if he can feel me thinking about him through the wall. I desperately want to knock on his door and make a joke or say something sarcastic. Just to see him smile at me once.