“I sent those texts,” Harper said. “I was just flirting, I didn’t know—”

“Why don’t you go ahead and come with us?”

Harper looked at her mother. She was looking out the window from behind the blinds seeing if any cars were passing by.

•••

Barrett drank a beer and stared at the ceiling while lying down on his couch. It was dark. The room was cast in a pale blue light emanating from the television that he wasn’t watching.

There’s this feeling that’s like loneliness but isn’t. When I was lonely and I was younger all I cared about was drinking, and so I drank a bunch. Then I saw Amelia, and then I just cared about Amelia. And even though I always knew nothing I did seemed to really impress her, I felt comforted by the act of loving her, of caring for her, of trying to make her like me. There was still a void that I felt between her, but I had direction, passion. I loved her and the love itself shot me toward her. There was a logic to my emotions, I wasn’t just flailing around in the dark, reaching for anything to draw meaning from. It was something I could locate and understand within myself, and even if I never directly acknowledged it, I understood it. I told myself one person is always chasing another in relationships, and I just thought one day she would give in.

I think having Edi changed things for both of us. For her, it must have been something like surrender, her life turning to concrete around her feet, but for me, I found someone more dependable to love. Amelia was a wispy thing, either pushing or pulling, never content. I loved Edi so much, and I loved Amelia for giving her to me. I never said it enough, of course. I mean, I said it every day to both of them, but not in that rich, syrupy way I felt it. I couldn’t ever really melt down and buckle down and cry in front of Amelia, telling her how bad I needed her. I think it would have made her guilty if I did that. I think she loved me too, in her way. The best she could. The best a person like me deserved, anyway.