Page 66 of Chaos

Tickling fingers jab me in the ribs. “Don’t test me, Charlotte. I’ll drag you there by your hair if I have to.”

I almost don’t tell her, just to see how much weight that threat holds. Just for the tangible proof that she cares. “I already got checked out. Finn took me.”

“Oh.” Her surprise is deafening—as is the question she doesn’t ask, so much louder than the one she does. “And everything’s good?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Good.” Lux briefly squeezes me tighter before grimacing. “Go shower. I’m not sleeping next to a wet dog all night.”

“You’re staying here?”

She backs up until her calves hit my bed and she drops down onto it. “Yup.”

I turn around, the dresser digging into me as I slump against it, frowning at the pajamas I finally plucked from the drawer. “I’m not gonna slip.”

I’m not gonna drink, I mean, but we both know that. Just like we both know I’m not quite telling the truth. We both hear the silentbut I want tothat I’m not quite brave enough, honest enough, to voice.

“And I’m not gonna sleep if I’m worrying about you leaving in the middle of the night again.”

“I wasn’t gonna do that either.”

“Good to know.” Crossing her legs beneath her, Lux drums her fingertips against her kneecaps. “I still wanna stay.”

Why?I want to ask.

I don’t want you to, I start to lie.

“Okay,” is all that comes out instead.

When I slope back into my bedroom a half hour later, Lux has already tucked herself beneath the covers. Despite the fact the sun has barely set, I slip into bed too, facing her as I curl up on my side with my hands clasped between the pillow and my cheek, staring at the faded print of an old Fleetwood Mac t-shirt.

For a while, neither of us say anything. Neither of us make much of an effort to sleep either; I can feel Lux’s gaze burning into my face. When she sighs, I tense instinctively, preparing myself for a scolding, for disappointment, for lots of things, but not, “You used to sneak into my bed when you were little.”

“Really?” I murmur even though I remember. It’s harder to remember a night I slept alone than it is to recall sharing a bed with one sibling or another. Sometimes, and mostly towards the beginning of our life in Serenity, the five of us would squish together, each of us seeking comfort from the only people who ever gave us any.

Lux hums. “You did it a lot after—”

Her abrupt cut off makes me frown. “After what?”

Even in the near-dark, I make out the face she pulls, like she suddenly regrets bringing it up. But she can’t exactly backtrack now, she knows damn well I won’t let her. Rolling onto her back, she sighs at the ceiling. “You used to call me mama.”

I go completely still. “What?”

Lux crosses her arms over her chest, fingertips drumming against her elbows. “You were five, I think. No, six, because we were living in Vermont, in that house with the creepy basement, you remember?”

I shake my head. I don’t remember many of the finer details from the years we spent bouncing around different houses, different states, different caregivers when Mom needed a break. Lux, Jackson, Grace, and Eliza, that’s what I remember. Us being together. Taking care of each other. That’s it.

“Anyway,” Lux continues. “We’d just gotten home from school and I was making dinner and helping you with some reading exercise or something and when we were done, you looked at me and you said,‘thank you, mama.’And I asked why you called me that and you said your teacher had asked your class about parents and what they did and everyone saidtheir mommies cooked them dinner and helped them with their homework and took care of them, and you said I did all of that for you, so I was your mama, right? I can’t remember if I corrected you, but if I did, you didn’t listen because it went on for a while. When Mom got back from wherever the fuck she’d been, she overheard you and she got so pissed. Tried to keep us apart. But every night, you’d sneak in with me.”

I… Fuck, I don’t even know what to say to that. “I don’t remember that.”

“I’m not surprised. You were so young.”

And she would’ve been… eight? Nine? Nine years old and her little sister was calling hermama. “That’s so fucked up, Lux.”

“I know,” she agrees, head flopping towards me as she flashes a soft, sad smile. “Didn’t feel like it at the time.”

Of course it didn’t. It felt normal. That was normal for us. Jackson and Lux were our parents, for all intents and purposes. They raised us. That was what we knew, that was our life, and we didn’t question it for a really fucking long time, not until we got old enough to know better, and even then, nothing changed. They still took care of us.

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