Page 199 of Chaos

“Tell me about him.”

“Finn?”

He hums.

“You know him. You met him.”

“Tell me what I don’t know.”

I don’t want to. I’m scared to. I’m not sure I deserve to, but Silas is staring at me in that insistent, inarguable way and there’s nothing else to do, and maybe if I think about Finn in the lovely way he lives in my mind, I’ll stop thinking about the very real possibility of himonlyliving there.

Tears clog my throat, but words struggle their way out around them. I recite every little thing I can think of. Random things. Things that mean nothing to Silas, but are lodged so steadfastly in my brain.

Like how he loves Australian reality shows and shits on their American counterparts. How he lets me help make dinner except I’m not actually helping, he just gives me some inane task to make me happy and then he does all the work. How Wordle isn’t a competition, but he lets me win anyway, he pretends he doesn’t know or he gets it wrong on purpose because he likes how I smile when I get it first, how I snicker and jeer and poke him triumphantly. He likes teasing me until I’m angry, he likes me angry, and he’s the first person, theonlyperson in the entire world who does. There’s only one saddle in the entire barn that he’ll use because he claims it’s molded to the shape of his ass. He spins his tools twice before he uses them, every single one, every single time. He always carries sugar cubes in his pockets now, and he always offers me one.

When I run out of breath or words or both, I repeat them all in my head. Again and again and again as I sit quietly, as Silas lets me sit quietly, as he holds my hand.

And despite my earlier areligious claims, I fucking pray.

I’m not sure how long passes before the door behind us creaks open—long enough that the intricate patterns on the stained-glass window are imprinted in my brain so thoroughly, the image lingers as I turn around.

I wish I hadn’t. One look at Lux’s drawn face, and I feel sick.

I stand so abruptly, the pew rattles. Dread rushing through my veins like poison, I back up clumsily until my back hits a wall. “What?”

Lux exhales shakily, and my legs give out. I sink to the ground, my knees tucked to my chest, my arms hanging limply at my sides, my neck hardly capable of holding up my heavy, exhausted head.

Footsteps. A murmur of my name. Another assuaged exhale. “He’s out of surgery.” Two palms smooth over my knees. “He’s okay.”

My own breath leaves me like a dry gust of wind, stuttering and stale from being held in my lungs for so long.

“He’s okay,” Lux repeats, and I parrot the phrase.

I set my hand on top of hers, letting them linger for a second before peeling them off. Before lifting my gaze to her, then to Silas, then back, making sure they know I’m talking to both of them. “Leave me alone now.”

And I must sound exactly how I feel because they do.

47

Her name is the first thought on his mind.

The first word on his lips.

The only thing that pulls him through.

I don’t movefor a long, long time.

No one comes to find me for a long, long time.

When someone does, when I feel eyes burn my skin for the first time in what feels like a year, I assume it’s Lux’s watchful gaze.

It’s not.

As boots I don’t recognize appear in my line of sight, I crane my neck back, flinching when I find a face I do recognize peering down at me.

Wearing plain jeans and a shirt adorned with the Akello Cattle logo, Finn’s mom sets her mouth in a tired, strained smile. “You must be Lottie.”

I would deny it, if I thought she didn’t already know exactly who I am.

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