The Girl Who Pulls the Tides - ONC 2021

chapter 14

It's another sleepy Saturday morning, the world outside moving sluggishly in the haze of the pink-and-lavender sunrise. I'm splayed out across the couch, flipping through my leather-bound journal, its pages wrinkled with sea salt and memories. There are only a few pages left until I reach the end of the journal.

I stop on the most recent page—the only page not brimming with scrawled notes. Instead, it's a drawing, a self-portrait that Evyana sketched that I can cut out and add to my Study. I, personally, have absolutely no artistic abilities, but Evyana certainly does. She drew the picture using my black felt-tip pen and a pencil; the pen for the hard lines, the pencil for shading. It fills the whole page, showing the top of her head to her collarbones, with the sky shaded in behind her. Her eyes are open wide, their brightness perfectly captured on the parchment. Her hair is long and dark, falling around her shoulders in inky-black sheets. Her nose looks Grecian, a straight line cutting between her sharply sculpted cheeks. She's smiling; her full lips turned up at the corners.

"Who's that?" Jack asks, looking over my shoulder.

I immediately snap the journal closed. "Nobody. It's none of your business."

He drops down on the couch beside me, grinning. "Well, which one is it? Is she nobody, or is she none of my business?"

I shrug, feeling my face get hot.

"Judging by the hearts in your eyes, I don't think she's nobody."

I kick him in the side, trying to ignore the way my heart flutters against my ribcage.

"You never tease me," I say, giving him a skeptical look. "And why are you smiling so much? Are you possessed?"

Then he chuckles—actually chuckles!

Something is seriously wrong.

"I feel like I haven't seen you in forever," Jack answers. "You've been so busy with your schoolwork."

I gape at him overdramatically. "Are you saying, dear brother, that you've missed my company?" I make a joke of it, even though my heart swells at the sentiment.

"Maybe," he responds, shrugging one shoulder. "I just hadn't realized how quiet it is without you here."

"Are you calling me loud?"

He shakes his head. "You're not loud, Fi. You're just...big."

"Hey!" I yell. "I'm no taller than you are!"

He rolls his eyes. "You know what I mean. Not big physically. But your presence is big. You fill up a room. You naturally fill in the silence. No one could ever feel lonely when they're with you."

Jack never says anything about his feelings, so this makes me want to hug him tightly enough to squeeze all the sadness and seriousness out of him so that he's always like this; smiling and teasing and open.

"So..." Jack says, pointing to my journal. "Who is she?"

I groan, pulling my legs up beneath me. "If I told you, you wouldn't believe me."

"But was I right?" He asks. "Do you like her?"

I hide my face in my palms and let out a muffled, "...So much."

"I called it," he says, sounding smug.

I lift my burning face up from my hands. "How'd you even know that I was...not straight?"

He shrugs, "I dunno, Fi. You're my sister. I pick up on things."

"And...you're okay with it?" I hold my breath, waiting for his answer. "With me?"

"Of course," he says like someone might say, 'Duh,'—without any hesitation, like it's obvious.

And as soon as the words leave his mouth, I climb across the couch and launch myself at him, flinging my arms around his shoulders and pulling him into a tight hug. I can't remember the last time we hugged. And I can't remember the last time I thanked him for everything he does; he works all day to make enough money for rent and food and the occasional new shirt. He makes me breakfast every day because he knows that the school meals are awful. He does the dishes when I forget to, and he doesn't make me feel bad about it. He said "of course" like it was the easiest thing he's ever said in his life.

"Thank you," I tell him, my words muffled into his shoulder. And they're the truest words I've ever spoken.