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It was July 2027.
Things were going so well it almost felt suspicious.
The kind of well that made Emerald double-check the locks at night, like happiness might slip in and steal her shoes. The kind of well where Zoe was sleeping eight hours and waking up without apologies. Where Arvin was flirting with the mail carrier and swearing the pain in his knee was "just weather." Where the diner had a line out the door most Saturdays, and Carrie only threatened two customers the entire month.
Emerald was... happy?
They had good groceries. Real olive oil. Strawberries that didn't taste like wax. Zoe had developed a dangerous relationship with expensive salt. Emerald had written three poems that made people cry and one that got picked up by a journal with a name like Tectonic Milk.
Even the sex had softened. Less frantic. More reverent. The kind where you kiss a shoulder just to say, I see you, and not because you're trying to win something.
The air felt lighter. Like maybe--for once--the fight wasn't everything.
Emerald Margaret Jones had never seen so many sequins in one place without a DJ booth or someone vomiting behind a fence.
The Global Human Fund Annual Gala & Silent Auction--a name that belonged on embossed invitations or marble plaques, not in Emerald's mouth--was held in a converted art museum, the kind that had once been a slaughterhouse, then a textile factory, and now charged eighteen dollars for cocktails and called it "philanthropy." Zoe had invited her. Said it would be low-key. Said there would be canapés and rooftop stargazing. She had not said black tie. She had definitely not said my mother will be there, wearing silk like a weapon and three generations of disdain.
She had mentioned--offhand, like a joke she wasn't sure was funny anymore--that she might need to make nice after that little video went viral. The one where she called the Global Human Fund
"a vulture pecking at the corpse of human kindness."
That one. Yeah.
Emerald stood beneath a chandelier that looked like it had testified in a corruption trial, trying to keep her balance in vintage heels that pinched in one place and gaped in another. Her dress--burgundy silk, thrifted in Old City, altered by hope--clung in a way that was almost flattering if she didn't breathe too hard. The neckline was reckless. The hem was uncertain. She'd added a denim jacket thinking edge. Now it just looked like a cry for help from someone who couldn't read a fucking invitation.
And then... Zoe.
Zoe moved like the room had been built around her. Like every step she took was a correction, not a motion. Her tux fit like seduction had a tailor. Her walk wasn't exactly confident--it was inevitable. Heads turned, but not fast. Not obviously. Like everyone felt her presence at the edge of their awareness before they saw her. Like she was something you sensed before it touched you.
There was a glide to her. A slow, impossible ease. A kind of stillness-in-motion that didn't make sense in a room this loud. Emerald watched her hips, her shoulders, her wrist grazing a champagne flute--and felt something tighten low in her belly that had nothing to do with shame and everything to do with fuck.
Zoe looked back.
She always looked back.
A half-smile. A flash of teeth. A glance like a promise no one else would even recognize as a sentence.
Emerald didn't belong here.
She knew that.
But neither did Zoe.
Not really. Not in any way that made sense.
And maybe that's why Emerald stayed.
Not to belong.
But to orbit.
To witness.
To ache for something that hadn't revealed its name yet.
She clutched her wine glass like it might offer directions. The wine inside was clear, cold, and probably a tax write-off. She'd asked for red, but the bartender had smiled with pity and said, "We're doing whites tonight, hon." That 'hon' had wrecked her. That 'hon' was Philadelphia for 'You do not belong here.'
All around her, people floated.
Not walked. Floated. In gowns like clouds of violence. In tuxes that looked airbrushed. They weren't rich in the normal sense--they were event rich. Presentation rich. The kind of people who talked about other people's trauma with a tone of investment. Glossy lips mouthed phrases like "sustainable access" and "grassroots impact" while fingers clutched flutes of champagne that probably had names. Nobody looked drunk. Everyone looked prepared.
Emerald had spent the Uber ride over obsessing about her hair, her dress, whether she'd shaved close enough, whether her boots would've been better, whether she should've skipped the apricot lip gloss, whether she should've stayed home and cried into a hoagie like the gods intend.
Zoe had kissed her cheek when they arrived, said, "Five minutes to schmooze and apologize and deflect, then I'm all yours," and vanished into a gleaming sea of shoulders and flashbulbs and women who pronounced her name with fake enthusiasm and that international-syllable lilt: "Zoëeeeh!"
Now Emerald was alone.
Floating in place.
Like a football on a fucking polo field.
She tried not to clutch her wine glass like it was a weapon. Tried not to keep tugging the top of her dress into place, as if modesty might reconstitute itself from static cling and wishful thinking. Tried not to flinch every time someone drifted too close in a cloud of perfume that cost more than Zoe's rent and probably killed bees.
Emerald scanned the room for that familiar blond riot--Zoe's halo of chaos and confidence. Those cardinal-red lips. That smirk like she'd invented sex and dared you to prove otherwise. But all she saw were exes, board members, one too many wrap dresses, and at least two people who had definitely issued statements on behalf of Gwyneth Paltrow.
"Are you looking for someone?" came a voice--cool, precise, and shaped like expectation.
Emerald turned.
The woman stood alone, perfectly still in the way only the truly powerful ever are. Mid-fifties, maybe. Greek cheekbones carved like a ruined statue someone still prays to. Black hair in a glossy updo that screamed personal stylist, though not one who tolerated lateness. Her gown was navy satin, simple in theory but moving like an argument you lose before it begins. Diamond studs blinked at her ears. No necklace. The throat was bare. Unapologetically.
She had eyes that had seen dynasties collapse during brunch and sent thank-you notes afterward.
Melina Mercouri, if Melina had done two stints on a presidential advisory board and could kill a man with a syllable.
Emerald knew her instantly.
Dr. Athena Iliopoulos.
Zoe's mother.
And, possibly, the most terrifying woman in the hemisphere.
Zoe's mother.
She did not look amused.
"I'm just, um--" Emerald gestured with her wine glass, accidentally sloshed some. "Trying not to spill. Or panic."
Athena smiled. Thin. Surgical. "First time at one of these?"
"First time at any of these."
"Ah."
That was all. Ah. The kind of 'ah' that held entire genealogies of judgment in its syllable.
Emerald straightened. Tried to find her spine under the denim jacket and rapidly melting self-confidence.
Athena's gaze flicked to her shoes.
Then back up.
"You're the... flamingo girl," she said, like the phrase had been relayed to her in a file folder by someone whose last job was CIA.
Emerald laughed. Short. Loud... I' Fuck.
"I guess I am," she said. "The... feathered intruder."
Athena blinked once. "Charming."
The silence stretched.
Emerald swallowed a mouthful of wine. Too fast. Coughed. Jesus Christ.
Athena sipped her drink like hydration was for the poor. "So," she said, voice warm as frostbite, "tell me, Emerald. What exactly do you do?"
Emerald stared.
What did she do?
She waited tables. She wiped ketchup off laminated menus. She refilled tea. She tried not to cry over people who kissed her then left without cleaning up the mess. She wrote poetry on receipts. She has never been on vacation. She had a savings account with $83.12 and a free checking promo t-shirt.
She smiled.
"I make Zoe laugh."
Athena tilted her head.
And for the briefest moment--the briefest moment--something in her expression cracked.
Something like approval.
Or maybe just recognition.
Then it was gone.
Athena turned back to the room. "Well. The board will find that... refreshing."
Emerald didn't know what that meant.
But she held her ground.
Even when Zoe reappeared five minutes later, breathless and glowing, and linked her arm through Emerald's like she was staking a claim.
Athena raised one brow. Sipped her wine.
Zoe grinned. "Mom. You met my date."
Athena's smile didn't reach her eyes.
"She's memorable."
Zoe vanished again.
Not maliciously--just gravitationally. Like the event had its own tide, and she was the moon. She got swept into some circle of soft laughs and sharp blazers, one of those slow-moving orbits where people said things like "cross-sector resilience" and "meaningful partnerships" without choking on their own pretension.
Emerald was left near a sculpture that looked like a crucified boba straw and cost more than her yearly rent.
A woman in a silk cape brushed past her, trailing a scent that screamed bergamot and backroom deals. A man in a chartreuse tux complimented her dress, then visibly recalibrated when he clocked the denim jacket. His smile dropped two social strata.
Emerald didn't mean to drift. But Zoe was busy--posing, laughing, leaning conspiratorially into a circle of people who all smelled like eucalyptus and inherited wealth--and the crush of bodies, the heat of the room, the chandelier's low sparkle like it might fall at any moment... it got to her. She slipped away, wine glass sweating in her hand, heels already mutinying.
She found herself by a koi fountain no one was watching. The water glittered like gossip. A fish blinked at her.
"Those shoes," said a voice nearby, soft as velvet soaked in something stronger. "They're vintage, aren't they?"
Emerald turned, and there she was.
Vera Zorina deClerc.
The ballerina. The icon. Twenty and terrifying. Standing barefoot on the marble like it was a stage, a column of silk and bone and radiant, terrible poise. She was sipping something lavender from a coupe glass and didn't blink often. Her hair was wound into a knot that should've collapsed under its own elegance. It didn't.
"Yeah," Emerald managed. "Philly AIDS Thrift. Ten bucks."
"Of course," Vera said. "All the best things are found under someone else's grief."
Emerald blinked. "Sorry, what?"
Vera smiled like she'd swallowed the moon and wasn't done yet. "You look like someone who once wanted to be a dancer."
"I--maybe? I took ballet when I was five."
"You quit."
"I got bored."
"No," Vera said. "You got embarrassed. Someone laughed when you fell out of relevé."
Emerald froze.
"Didn't they?" Vera asked, still smiling. "That kind of moment sticks to you."
"How the hell--?"
But Vera was already spinning, slow and effortless, a pirouette that didn't disturb the air. She stopped on pointe--barefoot--and said, "My mothers danced. That's how they met. Swan Lake, two dancers, one stage, one spotlight. Enemies at first. Passion makes a poor negotiator."
Emerald laughed nervously. "Your mothers?"
Vera looked at her like the question didn't make sense.
"They fell in love," she said. "Skipped curtain call in Rome. Vanished for two months. When they returned, I was already beginning."
"Beginning what?"
Vera sipped her drink. "Gestation. Existence. You know. The usual."
"... Sorry. I don't mean to pry, but--"
"No sperm," Vera said gently, as if correcting a child's grammar. "Just desire."
Emerald stared.
Vera tilted her head. "You don't believe me."
"I don't not believe you."
"That's the right answer," Vera said, pleased. She plucked a koi-shaped ice cube from her glass and slipped it between her lips. It melted instantly.
Zoe found her then, sliding behind her like a wave returning to shore. Her palm pressed against Emerald's back. "There you are. I was starting to think you'd been recruited."
"I was," Emerald said, eyes still locked on Vera. "For... something."
"Vera," Zoe said, nodding. "You still telling that story?"
"It's not a story," Vera said.
Zoe rolled her eyes. "It's not not a cult pitch."
Vera just smiled and walked away without walking--she glided, disappearing into the chandelier-glow and cocktail chatter like a hallucination fading in daylight.
Emerald exhaled. "She's lying, right?"
Zoe shrugged. "If she is, it's the only lie I've ever heard that feels like a hymn."
She tried to sip her wine. It was warm now. Of course it was.
Maybe she's not the weirdest thing in the room.
"Emerald Jones?" came a voice behind her.
She turned too fast, like a freshman caught vaping in the auditorium.
The man approaching her looked like he was grown in a lab for moderate centrism: perfect jaw, artfully graying temples, the kind of face that belonged on a "Meet Our Partners" page with a caption that said disrupting inequity through empathy and analytics. His smile was tight. Sincere in the way air freshener is sincere.
"I'm Conrad," he said. "Zoe's old boss at Endeavor Ethical. You're the poet?"
Emerald blinked.
"... Sure."
"You wrote that piece about structural grief, right? The one Zoe read at the Brooklyn benefit?"
Oh. That.
Fuck. Yes.
That night she was high, sunburnt, and had forgotten she even sent it. Zoe had begged to read it. "One minute," she'd said. "One fuckin' minute. Let me sound like I feel things."
Emerald thought she was bluffing.
She wasn't.
She'd stood under the lights, her voice cracking on "Grief is the ghost of what loved you back," and Emerald had watched the whole room forget how to breathe.
Now that ghost was shaking her hand.
Conrad said, "You've got teeth in your work. I respect that."
Emerald smiled. "Thanks. I floss."
He laughed. The kind of laugh that showed all his veneers. "No, really. You're young, but there's precision. Intent. You could do something with that. Ever thought about a fellowship?"
"I, uh. I serve hash browns."
He chuckled. "Well, if you're ever ready to trade in the fryer for a foundation, call me. I love developing raw voices."
Something about the way he said raw made her feel like meat. Still, she pocketed the card. She was hungry enough for attention to ignore the expiration date on sincerity.
Then came another one.
They descended in flocks. Important People™. Like they'd gotten a whiff of emerging narrative tension and wanted to be part of it before it got optioned for a Netflix limited series.
There was the Documentarian with oversized glasses and a voice like a podcast that made you feel guilty for fast-forwarding.
"I'm doing a piece on queer frontline workers post-COVID--do you mind if I ask how grief informs your praxis?"
Emerald blinked. "I... make coffee."
The Documentarian nodded sagely. "Exactly. That's the frontline."
Next was Tawni with an "i," who ran a nonprofit for women impacted by global masculinities.
"I've read everything Zoe's tweeted about you," she said, adjusting her triple-layered choker. "I love that you're not trying to be visible. There's so much power in refusal."
"I'm just shy."
"Exactly."
And then--like fate just wanted to fuck with her--someone handed her a mic.
It wasn't an ambush. Technically.
Zoe had signed them up for the "Emerging Voices" segment. Emerald was supposed to say a few words about accessibility in art. Something bite-sized. Something raw. Something Authentic™.
She stood there, under the lights, denim jacket too hot, wine glass trembling in her hand.
"Hi," she said into the mic. "I'm Emerald Jones. And, um--"
A hundred upturned faces.
Perfectly moisturized.
Waiting.
"I write poems sometimes. Mostly on napkins. Usually about girls I shouldn't text back."
A few soft laughs.
She tried again.
"I didn't grow up with gallery spaces. Or mentorship. Or good lighting. But I know how grief tastes. I know how rage sounds in the voice of a woman who can't leave the apartment but still tips her waitress double."
Silence now.
Focus.
"I don't know how to fix the world. But I know how to document the pieces that crack. And sometimes... that's enough. Sometimes a poem is the difference between collapse and continuity."
Pause.
Breathe.
"I guess what I'm saying is--I'm not here because I belong. I'm here because Zoe said I did. And sometimes that's the only bridge you get."
She handed the mic back. The applause was polite.
But Zoe's face--across the room, jaw tight, eyes glassy--was not.
Zoe looked at her like she just tattooed a moon on her ribs.
Later, someone told her that speech got her three new Instagram followers and a passive-aggressive tweet from a poet named Cam who said, "Some girls wear poverty like a corset."
Emerald retweeted it with a picture of a hoagie.
And a caption that said, "Bite me, Cam."
Maybe she's not the weirdest thing in the room... Just the hottest one in a denim jacket.
Zoe's Apartment, 8:43 a. m.
Zoe Jane Iliopoulos was nude and unbothered.
The kind of nude that wasn't begging for attention. The kind of nude that just was. Like light through a window. Like gravity. Like the fact that she didn't own matching socks and didn't care who knew.
Sunlight spilled into the loft in crooked, golden shards--angled through industrial blinds and catching on everything soft: the curl of her hip, the curve of her shoulder, the lazy drape of her tits as she bent to retrieve Emerald's underwear from under the couch like it was a treasure in a very specific, very slutty video game.
She hummed as she moved. Off-key. Half-words. Catching only the sticky vowels and synth echoes of Pink Pony Club as it looped through her head like morning prayer.
"I wanna go... where the boys dance in heels..."
She found her own bra tangled in the fake fern. Still clasped. Proud of it. It had survived the gala. It had not survived Emerald.
Zoe beamed like someone who'd won something she hadn't realized she was playing for.
She padded barefoot across the concrete floor, pausing to pick up Emerald's heel--just one, like Cinderella fucked a poet and forgot the fairytale rules. The other was still in the bathroom, dangling off the side of the tub like it had opinions about shower sex and no patience for subtlety.
Zoe was bruised in three places. Nothing dramatic. Just little fingerprints of pleasure, like the universe finally decided to mark her as touched. A violet bloom on her inner thigh. A red half-moon on her shoulder where Emerald bit down. A faint line across her stomach from the zipper on that godawful thrifted dress that somehow made her look like the last girl in a prom movie who actually gets laid.
She hummed louder.
"I'm gonna keep on dancing at the... Pink Pony Club..."
The kitchen was a graveyard of abandoned wine glasses and half-eaten olives. Her emergency cheese--never touch a woman's emergency cheese--was gone. She didn't care. She was grinning. She'd been grinning since she woke up and Emerald was still there. Still asleep. All wild curls and slow breath and a hand curled against Zoe's hip like it belonged there.
Zoe picked up the dress next. Emerald's. Still warm, somehow. Still smelled like sweat and wine and nerves and whatever scent she wore that made Zoe want to cancel her plans for the next five years.
She folded it gently. Laid it across the back of the couch like Shroud of Turin.
She didn't fold the denim jacket.
She held it instead. Wore it for a second. Felt the weight. The story in the seams.
Then she whispered, to the sunlight, to the dust, to the absent girl in her bed:
"You wreck me in the best fuckin' way, Jones."
And the light caught her then.
Fully.
Zoe Jane. Nearly nude. Smiling. Humming a queer pop anthem in a loft that still smelled like last night's sweat and cinnamon lube.
She twirled once. Just for her.
Nipple ring glinting.
Scar on her left ankle visible.
Free.
And happy.
Like maybe--for once--the story didn't end in fire.
It started in sunlight and crumbs and the hum of something honest.
Emerald stood in the doorway, barefoot and silent.
The hardwood was cool under her toes, and the hem of the towel she'd half-heartedly secured around her hips was already starting to betray her. Her hair was still wet, curls clinging to her neck, her cheek, her collarbone like something remembered too late.
She had come out looking for coffee.
Instead--
Zoe.
Zoe in the denim jacket.
Just the jacket.
Nothing underneath but skin and soft light.
It hung off her shoulders in that loose, off-center way that Emerald had always worn it--like armor borrowed, like a flag half-lowered. But on Zoe, it looked different. Dangerous and holy. Reverent and stupid. Like something that mattered.
Zoe hadn't seen her yet.
She was standing in front of the big window, humming, spinning once, slow and barefoot, caught in a moment that wasn't meant to be witnessed.
And Emerald?
She almost cried.
She didn't know why exactly. It wasn't the nudity. That was--okay, yes, hot. Very hot. Like scalded coffee on your fuckin' thighs hot. But it wasn't that. It was this tiny, dumb, breakable thing in her chest cracking open because Zoe--Zoe Jane fucking Iliopoulos--was wearing her jacket.
Not borrowed.
Claimed.
Zoe turned then. Just slightly. The half-twirl slowing. One hand brushing her own thigh absently, like she didn't know she was being watched.
And Emerald saw the smile.
Soft.
Private.
Like maybe--maybe Zoe felt safe enough to be alone in her skin, for once. To be silly. To be herself without having to dominate the room to survive it.
That was it.
That was the moment.
That was what punched the breath from her lungs.
Because Emerald had seen Zoe be beautiful. Zoe be loud. Zoe be myth.
But this?
Zoe, humming Pink Pony Club, nude in a denim jacket too big for her, smiling like a girl who actually liked the morning?
That was sacred.
Emerald's breath caught. Sharp. Almost painful.
And Zoe heard it.
She turned fully.
Their eyes met.
Zoe blinked, caught mid-step, like she'd been twirling through a dream and just realized someone saw her land.
"... Hey," she said, voice rough with sleep and surprise.
Emerald couldn't speak.
She just looked at her. Like prayer. Like regret. Like hope wearing yesterday's eyeliner.
Zoe took a slow step forward. The jacket shifted. Revealed one perfect breast before it fell back into place like the moment was shy.
"You okay?" Zoe asked, quieter now.
Emerald nodded. Then shook her head. Then nodded again.
Zoe was in front of her now. Close. Radiant. Real.
Emerald reached out. Touched the lapel of the jacket. Her fingers brushed denim and skin and trembled.
"You look..." Her throat closed around the rest of the sentence.
Zoe leaned in. Rested her forehead against Emerald's.
"I know," she whispered. "I'm fucking magnificent."
Emerald laughed. It came out broken. Beautiful.
And maybe a little wet.
Zoe kissed her--just once. Not for heat. Not for show. Just to keep the world from falling apart again.
Emerald whispered into her mouth:
"You wearing that jacket might be the hottest thing I've ever seen."
Zoe smiled.
"I was gonna make coffee."
Emerald nodded.
"Yeah. Okay. But later... maybe keep the jacket on."
"Only if you keep the towel."
Deal.
Arvin's Backyard.
Zoe Jane Iliopoulos should not have blended in.
She was wearing cream-colored linen pants that fluttered when she walked, a sleeveless black halter, and sunglasses that looked like they came with their own security detail. Her hair was up--messy, but curated--and she had a gold anklet that caught the light every time she shifted her weight. She looked like she'd just wandered off the cover of a queer Italian travel magazine and accidentally landed in a South Philly backyard full of potato salad and folding chairs.
And yet--
She belonged.
God help them, she belonged.
Arvin had clocked her immediately. Gave her the once-over. Decided she could stay.
"She brought hoagies," he said to Emerald. "That gets her a pass."
"She didn't make them."
"She picked good ones. That's soul work."
Now Zoe was by the grill, drink in hand, animatedly explaining why mesquite smoke was "the genderqueer of woods." Arvin was nodding, fascinated. Lottie was trying not to cry from laughter. Carrie was glaring with the kind of reluctant respect that only Carrie could wield without blinking.
"She's too smooth," Carrie muttered to Squirrel, who was trying to wedge a lawn chair under Ramona while holding a lemon bar in her teeth. "Like butter on sin."
Ramona grinned. "You love her."
"I didn't say I didn't," Carrie snapped. "I just think someone should've frisked her for secrets before we let her near the family."
Meanwhile, Frankie from 9th Street was hiding behind the cooler like he owed her money in another timeline.
"She scares me," he whispered to Zach.
"She scares me," Zach replied, popping a deviled egg in his mouth. "And I'm married to Carrie."
"Did you see the way she cut that watermelon? Like a fucking assassin."
"She called it fruit feng shui."
"I heard her call mustard 'a power move.'"
"She's not wrong."
They both ducked when Zoe looked over and smiled.
Emerald was barefoot on the deck, sweating through her second tank top of the day, and watching it all unfold like a particularly lucid dream.
Zoe was fine. Better than fine. She was flourishing. She already knew everyone's name. She'd complimented Sara's earrings and got an invite to brunch. She had Ames telling her childhood stories about Emerald's first breakup ("He cried for three days and swore off girls until college." "I was twelve, Uncle Ames!"). She made Lottie snort water through her nose. She gave Casey a wink that nearly caused a theological crisis.
And Emerald?
Emerald was sweating.
Not just from the heat.
From the realization that this -this- might be what home looked like. Not the backyard. Not the grill. Not the folding table that kept losing a leg.
But Zoe, barefoot and laughing in her sunglasses, talking to Arvin like she'd been in the family since birth.
It should've been jarring.
It wasn't.
It was right.
And that--more than Zoe's flawless vibe or Frankie's panicked energy or Carrie threatening to baptize herself in spiked lemonade--that was what nearly made Emerald cry.
Because she'd brought girls home before.
But none of them stayed.
And none of them--God, not a single one--ever asked Arvin if she could grill the eggplant "a little slutty."
Squirrel had mustard on her cheek, ketchup on her wrist, and half a burger in both hands. She was glowing with the smug satisfaction of someone who had eaten two potato rolls, three lemon bars, and a bite of whatever Zoe had offered her earlier "just to try."
The scene was idyllic.
Zoe was telling Arvin and Ames a story about filming a perfume ad on a decommissioned Soviet submarine. Lottie was singing "Kiss Me" to Casey in the key of Too Much. Ramona had found the dog and was teaching it to sit in exchange for baked beans. Zach was dozing under a lilac bush, mouth open, dead to the world.
Then Squirrel, mouth half-full and grease glinting on her lips like highlighter, decided to drop a narrative neutron bomb into the patio tiles.
"I'm just glad my sister Arden finally left you alone," she said.
To Emerald.
Quietly.
Like it was a passing comment about the weather.
Like it wouldn't fucking detonate the universe.
The silence that followed was not natural.
It was engineered.
Birds stopped.
The grill went out.
Lottie let her beer hit the patio like a crime scene. The beer spill looked like a howling wolf.
Zoe looked up, confused.
Carrie--mouth mid-sip of wine cooler--froze like someone just told her the rosary had teeth.
Frankie from 9th Street screamed "NOPE," flung his folding chair over his head, and vaulted the back fence. There was a splash on the other side. A dog barked. Then silence.
Zach, emerging from his nap like a confused forest creature, looked around wildly. "Is there a tree? I need a tree. To climb. To die in. Or just live in forever now."
Carrie was first to recover.
"Your what?" she barked, eyes locked on Squirrel.
Squirrel blinked.
"What?" she said innocently, licking burger juice off her thumb. "Oh. Arden. Yeah. Full sister. Same mom, same sperm donor. You didn't know?"
Carrie stood up so fast her sunglasses flew off her head and landed in the potato salad.
"YOUR SISTRS?"
Carrie was so upset, she couldn't spell correctly, even when speaking.
Zoe turned to Emerald, mouth open in delight. "You dated Squirrel's sister? This family's a Russian novel."
Emerald had not moved. Not blinked. She was staring at Squirrel like she'd suddenly grown gills and started reciting prophecy.
Carrie paced.
"Wait. Wait. Wait. No. That can't be right. You--Squirrel--you're Debbie Collins. So, Arden is Arden Collins. That's--that's wrong."
Zach, still searching for the perfect tree, muttered, "Oh God. Oh God. They do look alike. If you squint. And drink. And it's night. And you if have emotional damage."
Ramona calmly picked up her lemonade. "I knew," she said.
Carrie turned on her like a car alarm. "U NEW?"
Ramona shrugged. "She told me during strap-on cleanup. I just didn't think it was relevant."
Squirrel, still chewing, wiped her hands on a paper towel and said, "Honestly? Arden's hot. But chaotic. Like--straddle you then ghost you kind of chaotic. Em's better off."
Emerald blinked.
"Em?" she said faintly. "You called her Em?"
Squirrel looked sheepish. "It was a phase."
Lottie dropped her plate.
Casey looked up at the sky like it owed her a refund.
Zoe sat back in her chair, sunglasses sliding down her nose, the grin on her face nuclear.
"I'm sorry," she said, holding her stomach. "I love everything about this."
Carrie was pacing again.
"Okay. Okay. Everyone calm down. Arden's not here, right? Zoe isn't Arden in a wig and a stolen jacket."
Zach, now halfway up a maple, called down, "Does anyone see her? Like... physically? Or spiritually? Is there a presence?"
"No ghosts," Zoe confirmed. "Just trauma."
Arvin, somehow unfazed, handed Zoe a beer.
"Welcome to the family," he said.
Zoe toasted him. "I feel like I passed a test I didn't know I was taking."
Emerald finally spoke.
One word. Quiet. Clear.
"... Sisters?"
Squirrel looked at her. Softened. "Yeah. I didn't know it was gonna be a thing. She's not around anymore."
Emerald nodded.
Paused.
Then said, "I need to lie down. And then possibly write a screenplay."
Zoe caught her hand. "Make me the villain."
"You're already cast."
From over the fence came a weak, soaking-wet voice.
"Is it safe?" Frankie called. "Can I come back?"
Carrie took a long sip of her new drink.
"No, baby," she said. "It ain't never gonna be safe again."
Squirrel, maybe in a bid to mop up the disaster she just tongue-slipped into existence, shrugged and added casually--too casually--
"Me and Harper never talk to her."
Another pause.
Short.
Deadly.
Then Carrie, because of course it was Carrie, repeated:
"Harper?"
She said it like a threat. Like Harper had personally insulted her cuticles.
Squirrel blinked. "Yeah. My little sister. Harper Lee Collins."
It was a mistake.
A fatal, glorious mistake.
Zach, still up in the maple, nearly fell.
Lottie choked on her seltzer and pointed at Squirrel like she'd just summoned a pun demon. "Wait. Wait. Your name is Debbie Collins, your little sister's Arden Collins, and your youngest sister is Harper Collins?"
Squirrel, now blushing slightly--finally--said, "Yeah. So?"
Carrie exploded.
"Harper Collins?! Like the fucking publisher? Are you serial fiction? Are you bound in hardcover? Do you need an ISBN?"
Zach, dangling from a branch: "Has she been translated into 19 languages?"
Frankie--now back over the fence, soaked and hiding behind a decorative planter--muttered, "Was she peer-reviewed?"
Lottie gasped. "Is she banned in Texas?"
Zoe cackled. Cackled.
"Oh my God. Is Harper the reason we had to sign NDAs at Pride last year?"
Carrie had one more... "Is she open to new ideas, or is she hidebound?"
Ramona leaned back in her chair, calm as ever. "She once mailed a zine to the mayor's office with glitter."
Everyone turned.
"Okay," Carrie said. "Now I need to meet Harper."
Squirrel shook her head, biting into her burger again, mouth full. "Nope. Me and Harper don't talk to Arden. She's the glitch branch. You meet her, you meet ghosts. She keeps getting banned from Discord groups for inciting... poetic unrest."
Zach squinted down from the tree. "That's not a phrase, Debbie."
"It is if you know Harper."
Lottie whispered, reverent, "Does she have bangs?"
"Of course she has bangs."
"Oh God," Zoe said. "She's powerful."
Carrie stood up and paced again, as if trying to physically run out her confusion. "So let me get this straight. There are three of you--Debbie 'Squirrel' Collins, Arden "Chaos Goblin" Collins, and Harper Fucking Collins the Manifesto Witch?"
Squirrel, chewing, nodded. "Technically it's Harper Siouxsie Collins, but yeah."
There was a moment of collective awe. Even the dog sat down.
Zoe leaned close to Emerald, who hadn't spoken in ten full minutes. "Baby," she whispered, "I feel like we're dating the wrong sister."
Emerald finally cracked. She laughed. She snorted. She half-doubled over, towel sliding dangerously off her hip. "No," she gasped. "No, this is my life now. I love it here. I hate it here. I need therapy. But also I need to read everything Harper's ever written, starting now."
Lottie, eyes wide, hands in prayer pose, said, "Does she... have a newsletter?"
Ramona nodded. "It comes printed on banana leaves and is delivered by raccoon."
"I'm subscribing," Zoe whispered.
Carrie threw up her hands. "I can't fucking believe you're publishing adjacent."
Squirrel beamed.
And then, very calmly, dressed another burger.
Everyone just watched.
Terrified.
In awe.
A little aroused.
Zach finally climbed down from the tree.
"I'm not sure what just happened," he said, brushing leaves off his shoulders. "But I think Harper Collins might be the final boss of this family."
Emerald leaned into Zoe. "If she ever shows up, you're not allowed to flirt with her."
Zoe raised a hand. "I swear. Unless she's barefoot and quoting James Baldwin. Then all bets are off."
"Zoe."
"Kidding.... Mostly."
From the cooler, Frankie groaned. "Why are all the hot girls haunted?"
Carrie looked down at him. "Because we fucking wrote the book."
Carrie lit a cigarette she didn't remember having and exhaled like she was trying to blow the bullshit out of the backyard.
She squinted through the haze. Past the folding chairs, the upended cooler, the still-bouncing lemon bar someone had thrown in surprise. Past Zoe in her linen pants charming Arvin's second cousin into loaning her a sailboat. Past Squirrel wiping mustard off her chin like she hadn't just detonated the family tree in the middle of burger hour.
"Okay," she said, loud. "Okay."
Everyone froze.
Even the dog.
Carrie took another drag, pointed the cigarette like a microphone.
"Who the fuck writes this shit?"
Silence.
Not awkward silence. Not guilty silence.
Just--blank.
Empty.
Like the script hadn't loaded.
Emerald blinked. Zoe raised an eyebrow. Lottie looked around like someone might answer from under a picnic table.
No one spoke.
Not a single fucking soul.
Not Arvin.
Not Zach.
Not Frankie, who had just re-emerged from behind a grill cover like a post-apocalyptic raccoon.
Not Squirrel, who was licking her thumb and definitely not making eye contact.
Carrie threw her hands in the air.
"I mean, seriously? We've got time-traveling Crenshaws, alien iguanas, fucking Harper Collins the girl not the publisher, and now apparently Zoe's immune to Philadelphia humidity like some kind of gay demigod--"
"Hey," Zoe said mildly, "I'm Greek. We invented inappropriate moisture."
Carrie ignored her. She turned in a slow circle.
"You people make me feel like I'm trapped in a novel co-written by Sylvia Plath and whoever wrote Mean Girls."
She pointed at Frankie.
"You jumped a fence and landed in a pool like a Looney Tune."
Pointed at Zach.
"You tried to climb a tree to escape a social situation."
Zach raised a finger. "That was survival instinct, thank you--"
"Shut up."
She pointed at Squirrel.
"You unleashed two plot twists and a fucking bonus sister like it was no big deal."
Squirrel held up her hands. "You never asked."
"I didn't not ask! I didn't know to ask! What am I supposed to say? 'Hey, Debbie, any chance your estranged sister is the chaotic bisexual ghost who broke Emerald's heart and maybe caused the sun to blink out over Kensington in 2023?'"
Ramona nodded. "That actually happened. I lost a ficus."
Lottie whispered to Casey, "Is Carrie breaking the fourth wall?"
Casey sipped her drink. "Babe, she owns the fourth wall. She's just redecorating."
Carrie turned back to the group.
"I want names," she said. "Addresses. Someone in this yard is writing this story, and I swear to God if I find out who it is, I'm gonna make them explain the fucking iguana."
No one moved.
The air held its breath.
Even the flies backed off.
Then--Zoe.
Zoe, calm as sin. Took a sip of her lemonade. Licked the rim like she was tasting a punchline.
"Maybe," she said slowly, "you're not supposed to know."
Carrie's eye twitched.
Zach reached out, very gently, and handed her a deviled egg like it was an offering to an unstable deity.
Carrie stared at it.
Then took the bite.
Still glaring.
Still searching.
But chewing, at least.
And from somewhere deep in the backyard--beyond the folding chairs, the half-collapsed lawn game, the shrine Lottie had made out of popsicle sticks and fairy lights--there was a faint sound.
Typing.
Just for a second.
Then silence.
Carrie narrowed her eyes.
"I heard that."
No one responded.
Somewhere, a raccoon took a note.
The living room was a half-sunlit mess. One heel under the coffee table. Two open bottles of white. Zoe's bra still hung from the fake fern like it had been sacrificed in a minor domestic ritual. The window was cracked open, and Philly air--thick with humidity and burnt toast from the deli downstairs--drifted through like a half-hearted ghost.
Zoe was on the floor, stretched out like a cat that had never known shame. Emerald was curled into the corner of the couch, legs tucked under her, hoodie stolen, coffee in hand.
They weren't really talking. Just... humming around a vibe.
Zoe was scrolling. Her sunglasses were still on, even though they were indoors and the light wasn't that bright. Emerald suspected this was part of some larger affectation known only to bisexuals with cheekbones.
"Do you think Gracie Abrams is queer?" Emerald asked.
Zoe didn't look up. "Define queer."
"I mean, like--does she write those songs because she's emotionally wrecked or because she fucked a girl in a hotel and still smells her shampoo in her dreams?"
Zoe paused. Tapped her screen once. Then said, "Both."
Emerald nodded. "Yeah. That feels right."
Zoe turned her head slightly, considered the ceiling like it had betrayed her. "I feel like if Gracie ever dated a woman, she'd ghost her for six months, then write a song called 'April 9th' that sounds like crying into a croissant."
Emerald sipped her coffee. "And the girl would still play it on repeat."
"Oh, absolutely," Zoe said. "She'd leave the playlist on while she's getting railed by her new girlfriend. It's part of the healing."
Emerald laughed. "You say that like it's experience."
Zoe lifted her sunglasses. "I am someone's 'April 9th.'"
They lapsed into silence again. The good kind. The kind where the jokes already happened and the air held a thin mist of leftover laughter and last night's heat. Zoe slinked onto the couch. Got close.
The air felt lighter.
Like maybe--for once--the fight wasn't everything.
Like maybe joy didn't need an alibi.
Not in July 2027. Not in this slouchy hoodie, not on this couch, not curled up with Zoe humming softly and the whole world refusing, for once, to break.
Which is why Emerald didn't question it--
not when Zoe looked up and to the left, like the idea was hiding behind the ceiling fan, not when she blinked slow and smiled like someone remembering a childhood dream--
not when she said, soft as prophecy:
"We're going to Greece."
And that was it.
Not a plan.
Not a maybe.
Not a question.
Just a declaration from a woman who wore sunlight like lingerie and made decisions with her bones.
Emerald blinked.
Felt something shift in the room.
Like the summer had just turned toward myth.
She didn't answer.
She just leaned her head against Zoe's leg and whispered,
"Okay."
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