Chapter 22 #2
“It was.” I shrug. “Well, except for the time Andy fell into a creek trying to catch a frog and Dad had to carry her three miles back to the car, while soaking wet. She reeked like swamp water for days. I told everyone at school she was turning into a bog witch.”
“How is Andy doing?” Sophie’s smile reaches her eyes for the first time today, and I realize how rarely I see her truly relaxed.
“She’s good. She actually mentioned you yesterday, said she had fun at karaoke…” I let the invitation hover between us. “She and Declan are also disgustingly in love. She has this countdown calendar in her room—days until Paris Boy returns—with little hearts drawn on each square. It’s nauseating.”
“You two seem close.”
“We are now. I wasn’t always the world’s best brother. When she started dating Declan, I acted like she’d personally betrayed the family honor or something.”
“What changed?”
“Everything.” I focus on the trail ahead, not wanting to excavate too much of last year’s wreckage.
“Injury, depression, therapy—the holy trinity of forced self-reflection. Turns out I wasn’t actually the center of the universe.
Shocking revelation, I know. Andy deserved someone, and I was being an asshole about it. ”
We walk without speaking for a moment, just the percussion of leaves and Hazel’s distant negotiations with what sounds like an extremely uninterested squirrel. But being here, with Sophie, just feels so natural and nice and like everything I want and can’t have (except from the friend zone).
“You’re a good brother,” Sophie says finally. “Not every guy would admit to being wrong, let alone actually change.”
“I’m trying to.” I watch Hazel balance along a fallen log, arms pinwheeling. “What about you and Hazel? You two seem pretty tight?”
Sophie’s expression softens into something achingly tender. “We are, but I probably hover too much. Since Mom’s diagnosis and the move, I’ve been... overprotective. I keep waiting for her to show signs of trauma or maladjustment, but she just keeps thriving.”
“And is she? Traumatized?”
“Not even slightly. New school, new friends, new activities—she adapts like water. Meanwhile, I’m still trying to figure out where the good coffee shops are.
” She kicks a pinecone with unnecessary force.
“I don’t think I can do it again. Move, I mean.
After I finish my degree, I’m planting roots here in Pine Barren. ”
The words land hard, knocking something loose in my chest. My throat tightens. I see it suddenly—two futures spreading out like diverging trails. In one, I’m lacing up skates in some anonymous hotel room in a pro hockey city, while Sophie builds her life here.
Focus on now , I tell myself. This moment. Her happiness. That’s what matters.
“SOPHIE!” Hazel’s shriek could wake the dead. “I FOUND THE COOLEST BUG EVER! COME SEE!”
Sophie goes rigid beside me, every muscle locking up. The color drains from her face. “Oh shit.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I hate bugs.” The words come out strangled. “Like, full-body, completely irrational, make-a-fool-of-myself hatred.”
“Seriously? The future nurse who’ll deal with compound fractures and infectious diseases is afraid of bugs?”
“Blood doesn’t have antennae,” she hisses. “Or wings. Or pincers. Or whatever nightmare appendages this particular hellspawn possesses.”
Hazel waves frantically. “SOPHIE! IT’S MOVING! HURRY UP!”
As pure panic transforms Sophie’s features, I touch her shoulder gently. “I’ll go investigate the monster. You find us a spot for lunch.”
Relief floods her face so completely it’s almost comical. “You’re my hero, Mr. Altman.”
Then she rises on her tiptoes and presses her lips to my cheek. The contact shoots straight through me—her mouth soft and warm, and it feels like my skin burns where she touched me. And when it’s over, she hurries off toward a sunny clearing, while I stand, frozen, with my hand halfway to my face.
“WHY ISN’T ANYBODY LISTENING TO ME?” Hazel’s impatience snaps me back to reality. “IT’S GETTING AWAY!”
I jog over to where she’s crouched beside a rotting log, her entire body vibrating with excitement over what appears to be—Jesus Christ—an endless river of insects pouring from the ground. I maintain what feels like a safe distance from the seething mass.
“That’s... definitely something,” I say.
“It’s a whole colony of field ants,” she breathes with reverence. “See how they’re kind of reddish-brown but also black? And they’re medium-sized for ants. Not like carpenter ants, which are huge, or pharaoh ants, which are tiny and yellowish.”
“How do you know all that?”
“From my bug encyclopedia.” She doesn’t look up, completely transfixed by the insect highway. “Did you know there are over twelve thousand different species of ants? And they can lift twenty times their body weight? If I could do that, I could pick up Mrs. Cranston from next door.”
The mental image of tiny Hazel deadlifting an elderly neighbor makes me laugh. “That’s... a very specific application of super-strength.”
“She always gives me those gross butterscotch candies,” Hazel explains with deadly seriousness. “So I’d just relocate her away from the candy bowl.”
“Strategic thinking. I like it.”
“Oh! And fire ants aren’t even real ants. Well, they are, but they’re actually in the wasp family. Isn’t that weird?”
I watch her trace the ant trail with her finger, hovering just above the stream of bodies. There’s something captivating about her complete absence of disgust or fear.
“Who got you the bug encyclopedia?”
“Sophie.” Her voice goes soft. “She got me three different bug books last Christmas, right after Mom got sick.”
“That was nice of her.”
“Yeah.” Hazel pokes experimentally at the dirt near the anthill. “I think she thought books would make me stop being sad.”
I’m not sure how to respond to that. It’s such a Sophie thing to do—trying to fix everything with careful research and practical solutions while probably ignoring her own feelings entirely.
“Were you sad?”
Hazel shrugs, suddenly looking very small. “Sometimes. But not like Sophie. She’s sad and scared all the time, even when she pretends she’s fine.”
“Sophie’s not?—”
“She is.” Hazel looks up at me with eyes too knowing for eight years. “But I’m not scared of Mom’s MS. I’m not scared of anything.”
There’s such certainty in her voice, such unshakeable faith that everything will work out, that I admire it. And, suddenly, I wish I could bottle it up and give a small dose to Sophie.
“Sophie’s one of the bravest people I know,” I find myself saying.
“Well, duh. She is brave. She’s just also worried about everything.” Hazel’s eye roll could win awards, then she grins. “I wonder if they’d attack if I?—”
“HAZEL! MIKE!” Sophie’s voice carries through the trees. “I found the perfect spot!”
“Coming!” Hazel drops her investigation stick and springs up, then gives me a conspiratorial look. “I’ll come back for the ants later.”
“I’m sure they’re already planning their defense strategy.”
As we head toward Sophie’s voice, Hazel bounds ahead, pausing to announce more nature facts while I follow, processing everything I’ve learned about the Pearson sisters in fifteen minutes.