That first summer, the prospect of Michael’s upcoming adoption made everything seem new and exciting. But now, a year later, everything was different. Ann realized that absorbing another person into the family, even someone she cared about as much as she cared about Michael, wasn’t as easy as she thought it would be. All her parents seemed to care about lately was the idea of family. They talked about being together like it was some sort of higher calling.

Money was tighter and her parents were busy. They’d always had a lot going on, but now they had all the appointments with lawyers, social workers, and therapists that legal adoption required. Ann noticed that Poppy and Michael had grown closer in the past year, so close that sometimes Ann felt like a third wheel around them, a feeling that was uncomfortable and disarming.

Unlike Ann, neither Poppy nor Michael was part of a big clique, both of them preferring to hang out with the granola crowd at the Coffee Trader on Downer Avenue. They made knotted bracelets out of embroidery thread, shared inside jokes and secret handshakes, and liked to make each other disgusting potions with milk, syrup, and turmeric in the kitchen. Michael seemed loose and comfortable with Poppy, but when Ann walked into the room he’d freeze up, and Poppy would act like she was interrupting them. All her life, Poppy had followed Ann around like a lost puppy, wearing her clothes, imitating her gestures, wanting to hang out with Ann and her friends instead of making her own. Ann was used to shrugging Poppy off, only now Poppy didn’t seem to care if Ann lived or died. She missed Poppy, but she was too proud to say so. Instead, she slammed doors and walked around in a huff, expecting Poppy to understand why she was upset, hoping Poppy would care.

She didn’t. She had Michael now.

Something was off with Michael, too. She felt him pushing her away. He wouldn’t sit on the same couch with her, or come into her bedroom to talk late into the night the way he used to. He’d started running with some of the faster guys on the varsity team, and when he wasn’t chumming around with Poppy, he’d sometimes hang out with them. He’d grown taller, more muscular and lean, more confident. His thick brown hair stretched to his shoulders. Suddenly Ann’s friends wanted to spend a lot more time at her house so they could be around him. She could understand why. Truthfully, she felt the same way they did. Michael—her brother—was so good-looking that Ann sometimes felt shy around him. She averted her gaze, afraid of his intensity, afraid of the way he made her feel, afraid of the closeness they once shared, but missing it all the same.