“You probably shouldn’t be hanging out with me where people can see,” the man is saying. Daphne is bad at figuring out how old people are, but she thinks he’s too old to still be in school. She doesn’t recognize him from church, and she wonders where Emma met him. Mom is always complaining about Emma’s friends, but it seems to Daphne to be a way of complaining about Emma without saying that directly. Though maybe Emma has friends Daphne doesn’t know about.
“It’s not like we’re doing anything wrong. I don’t care if people see us,” Emma says. She crosses her arms. The sun turns her shoulders freckly in the summer and sends golden darts through her hair. Daphne has only two states—pale and burned. Her mother urges her to stay out of the sun, to keep her perfect porcelain skin protected.
“Yeah, I’m not sure that’s true,” the man says. Boy? She can’t tell. He scratches his arm, looking off to the side. “People in this town gossip. Your dad would be pissed.”
“I don’t care.”
“Maybe you should,” he says.
“I don’t. I don’t care what he thinks. I hate him.”
“Don’t say that, Emmy,” he says. Daphne narrows her eyes. Emma doesn’t let anyone call her that. But Emma just huffs.
“It’s true. I hate them. Both of them. I wish they were dead.” Emma sounds like she’s ready to cry.
“Everybody hates their parents sometimes,” the man says. “You won’t be a kid forever. Once you’re eighteen, you can get out of the house. Go wherever the hell you want.”
“Mom would never let me. She wants to control my life forever,” Emma says bitterly. Her voice is ragged, and she bites her lip hard the way she always does when she’s trying not to cry. “She won’t let me go until one of us is dead.”
Fear wiggles its way through Daphne’s body. She doesn’t like the way Emma is talking. She doesn’t like that Emma is saying these things to a boy Daphne has never met or seen before, and she doesn’t like the way he reaches out, touching Emma’s shoulder gently.
The fear is formless and nameless. It’s like she can feel something rushing up behind her, but she can’t see it. Her chest seizes. Her breath wheezes in her throat. She can’t draw in enough air.
“Emma,” she tries to say, but it barely makes a noise. Panic scrabbles through her. She thrashes up the hill toward Emma, her breathing making a horrible whistle. Emma looks up, startled. Daphne says her name again, and Emma rushes toward her.
“Where’s your inhaler?” Emma says, sharp and authoritative. For an instant she sounds like their mother. Daphne shakes her head. “You forgot it?” Emma says, frustrated and anxious.
“What’s wrong?” the boy asks, worry drawing his brows together.
“She’s having an asthma attack. I have to get her home,” Emma says while Daphne struggles to breathe, the world closing in until all that is left is the sensation of not enough.
“I’ll drive you. Come on,” he says. Emma grabs Daphne’s arm, dragging her away. Now people are looking. People are seeing them following this boy, seeing Daphne keel into the back of his car while Emma rubs her back and murmurs words that Daphne doesn’t hear. Mom is going to hear about this. The thought makes the fear surge higher, and Daphne gasps and gasps.
He drives, looking at Daphne in the rearview mirror every minute or so. Emma keeps talking to her.
“I shouldn’t go in,” he says when he pulls up to the house, like he’s apologizing.
“I know. This is fine. Thanks, Gabriel,” Emma says. Daphne wants to thank him. She can tell that the worry in his eyes isn’t just for her. This is a risk, somehow, though she doesn’t entirely understand it.
Emma pulls Daphne along. Daphne’s feet drag. Every breath is a question mark. But they burst in through the front door and Emma leaves her leaned up against the doorway. She races inside shouting for their mother.
“What on earth is going on?” Irene Palmer says, stepping out from the dining room. Daphne tries frantically to draw a normal breath. Irene’s lips press together.
“Daphne needs her inhaler. Daph, is it upstairs?” Emma asks, afraid but focused. Daphne shrinks in on herself.
“She doesn’t need that thing. She needs to pull herself together,” their mother says, folding her arms so that her fingertips rest neatly on her elbows.
“She can’t breathe,” Emma says.