I wake up the next morning in Ava’s bed.

Her sheets are softer than mine. Her everything is softer than mine. She’s in the bathroom when I open my eyes, and I stare at the ceiling for a moment, trying to remember what happened, if it actually happened or was just another terrible dream.

Ava comes out of the bathroom. Her hair is dripping wet, but she’s dressed. She grins at me as she sweeps it off her shoulders and ties it in a knot, although it’s too short for some of the strands to hold and a few wisps fall to rest gently on her shoulders. “Morning.”

“Morning,” I say quietly, and she goes into the closet. While she’s in there I scramble into the clothes that I had been wearing the night before, that are lying on the ground next to the bed. When she comes back out she sees me sitting on the bed, and smiles slightly, picking up her package of cigarettes that’s lying on the bedside table. She lights one. “C’mere.”

I stand up, and she gestures to the couch. I sit next to her, and she takes a long inhale before tilting her head back and blowing smoke out at the ceiling. “Don’t make this weird, Aber.”

I don’t say anything.

There’s a knock at the door.  It’s Bayan’s knock, he always does the same one, where he rolls his knuckles against the door and then does two quick raps after.  Ava says, “Yes,” standing up, and goes over to meet Bayan as he comes in with a big tray with breakfast for me and Ava.  She takes it, grinning at him.  “Thank you, Bayan.”

He nods, closing the door quietly behind him, and Ava comes back to the couch, placing one tray in front of her and one in front of me. We have the same things, eggs and toast and orange juice and yogurt with granola, except she has two little cups next to her spoon. She picks one up and dumps the contents into her hand. It’s a small white pill, and she throws it into her mouth and then washes it down with the orange juice. When she sees me looking at her she grins. “For the lungs.”

“Right,” I say softly, stabbing an egg with my fork. “What’s that one?”

“Also for the lungs,” says Ava, “but I give those to Keol.”

I raise my eyebrows, and she shrugs, her mouth full of yogurt. When she swallows she says, “You’ve heard him coughing lately, I think he needs some too.”

“Why don’t you ask-”

“My mother? Have you met her?”

I shrug in agreement, and she laughs slightly. We don’t talk much for the rest of breakfast, but when we’re finished she moves closer to me, and she takes my hand. I look at the floor.

“Aber,” she says quietly.

“Yes, Miss Ava?” I murmur, and she laughs slightly, lifting her hands and running her fingers through my hair. She slides her hand down my cheek and turns my face to her, holding my chin so I can’t look away. “Don’t call me that.”

I don’t answer.

“Are you okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

She smiles, and drops her hand. I look at her. Her eyes have a look in them, and she takes my hand in hers again. “Do you trust me?”

I lean my head back, looking at the ceiling. I don’t know much about her, except that she’s better than her mother. “I think so.”

“Does that scare you?”

I look at her again, and then squeeze her fingers and shake my head. She smiles softly, and then lets go. “I’m always here, Aber, for whatever you need. You can talk to me about anything.”

I really should take her up on that. Anything? I can ask her anything? Hm. But what does she know?

I’m fairly certain she knows about Abigala. I haven’t told Nua or Keol, but Keol might know too. I have a feeling that Ava tells him things. I wonder if she wants to help.

Miss Lilly does not, I know that. She knows about Abigala. I keep thinking about the day that Ava chose me. When Miss Lilly came into the room and saw me, and Abigala said, “Wait,” and then, “My brother,” and then Miss Lilly said, “Aberworth Ahman.” She knew who I was.

Ava goes to her office after breakfast. I don’t know where her office is, and I just go back to my room through the bathroom. I decided to take a shower of my own, and then I lie on my bed for a while. Nua isn’t there; I figure he’s in the library. I have a book on my bedside table, but I don’t feel like reading much.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Soon it’s noon, and I have a feeling Bayan is going to find me for lunch fairly soon, so I start to wander down to the second floor, thinking about Abigala still.  I turn the corner, then freeze.  Ava’s there, and Keol, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.  Ava’s hand is on his shoulder, but he doesn’t look trapped.  They’re speaking to each other, their voices too low for me to hear, and they don’t notice me for a moment.  Shiv the cat is winding in between their legs, leaving orange hairs all over the place.  Keol grins once as he responds under his breath, and then suddenly her head whips around.  

Keol follows her eyes to me, and the smile slides off his face.  He stares at me, raising his arm to run his hand through his spiky black hair, and Ava drops her hand from his shoulder to let him.  She looks between us, then laughs once and spins on her heel, leaving us alone in the hallway.  

He’s gonna kill me.  

Ava disappears down the stairs, her stupid orange cat in tow, and I exhale.  “Keol-”

He holds up his hand, and then points to himself. “No. Me.”

He’s six years older than me, and he’s stronger, and she loves him more, he’s going to kill me.

I didn’t even know what I wanted to say to him, and it seems he doesn’t know what he wants to say to me. And then he sighs, closing his eyes, and says, “You spent the night with her?”

I flush. He pushes himself off the wall, taking a step towards me, and I take a step back. He stops. He’s gonna kill me. “Are you gonna kill me?”

He laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “I don’t own her, Aberworth. And neither do you. She owns us. Remember that. It’s never up to us. So we don’t get to be mad. We don’t even get to be jealous.”

I can feel the heat in my face, and open my mouth to respond, but he takes another step towards me. “She’s good, isn’t she? She really likes you. Maybe you’ll be the new favorite.”

I try to speak again but he stops me with an “A-a-ah.

“It’s up to her,” he says, dangerously quiet. “We don’t get a say. She can be as bored or interested, as much as, whenever she wants. With whoever she wants. So you can pretend like you know what you’re doing. You can pretend like you’re fooling her all you want. At the end of the day, we’ll both be here. And she’ll take her pick.”

His voice is low, almost a whisper, but I can hear because he’s up in my face. I resist the urge to take another step away from him, and he does it first. Something flashes in his eyes, but he just shakes his head. “And that’s all that matters. We don’t.”

He runs his eyes up and down me, and then he turns away. “Got it?”

And he doesn’t wait for an answer; he’s gone, down the stairs, after Ava. I slowly unclench my fists; I didn’t know they had been curled up so tight, and then I exhale shakily and go downstairs too. He says all of that now, and it’s fine for him, because he knows that at the end of the day Ava will always pick him. But what if she didn’t? That’s the fear, in the back of his mind, that’s been there ever since the first husband, since Nua, since me. But even so, in all that time, I’m fairly certain, it’s only ever been Keol. And I could use him. He’s close enough to Ava that she tells him everything. Maybe he could help me with finding Abigala. That, of course, would mean that I would have to find out if he knows about her, and if he didn’t, I would have to tell him. And I don’t know if I’m comfortable doing that. I trust Ava, at least enough, but I don’t trust her prominent at all.

Ava and Keol and Miss Lilly are all in the dining room when Nua and I get there, at the same time. He doesn’t take his usual seat at Ava’s left hand right away, though, and instead looks at me. I look back at him, and then sit where I usually sit. He smiles a little and sits down as well.

Bayan serves. He’s a damn good cook. There are some good things about here, I think to myself, before shaking my head. Ava looks at me but doesn’t comment, and I just keep eating. I would rather never have a hot meal for the rest of my life if trading it meant I could get back to my family.

After lunch I go back up to my room. Ava and Keol go down to the beach, and I can see them from my room. Are they ever not together? I don’t want to ask Ava, I suddenly realize, about Abigala. I remember her last night, this morning. She cared. But I can’t risk my sister, it’s too much. I want to ask Keol. He’ll understand more than Ava ever could.

It takes a day and a half until they’re apart. They literally spend every second of every day together, and half of it, it seems, in her bedroom. She’s moved right on. I don’t know how I should feel about it. I wonder if Keol will ever kiss me again. But that night Nua falls asleep way too early, and I put his book on the bedside table so it doesn’t get all wrinkled, and then I hear the door open behind me. I spin around, and see Keol sneak into his bedroom from the hallway. Before I can think he’s closed the door behind him, and I lean my head back. We haven’t spoken since a few days ago, the day I woke up in Ava’s bed, and I make a slight noise in frustration, and then go to his door and knock.

He jerks the door open, and says, “What?”

I raise my eyebrows. He sighs. “Lilly put sleeping meds in the dinner, so if you’re going to talk, make it quick before I pass out.”

I blink. “She what now?”

“She crushed up sleeping pills,” says Keol slowly, looking over at Nua, knocked out on his bed, “and made Bayan put it in the soup. Our soups. He told Ava, who by the way will be napping for the next sixteen hours, so don’t try anything.”

I flush. “Why?”

“Because we’ve been pissing her off,” says Keol with a shrug.  Ava's cat Shiv is in his bed, and he picks her up and moves her before falling onto his bed.  “Or she’s having someone come over tomorrow morning and she doesn’t want us bothering her.”

“That’s…”

“Insane, I know,” says Keol with a sigh, lying down. “We’re all tired, Aberworth, what is it?”

He yawns, and I fight the urge to yawn, and then finally I say, “I have a twin sister.”

Keol looks over at me, his eyebrows coming together, and then he sits up slowly. “You have a twin?”

“Yes,” I say quietly.

His lips split into a slight smile, and then he crosses his legs and gestures for me to sit on the bed next to him. “Does she know?”

“Which she?”

He shrugs and yawns again, and then coughs a little. “Either.”

“I’m pretty sure Miss Lilly knows,” I say slowly. “She was at the shelter. And I think Ava knows, too, but I’m not totally sure.”

“Why are you telling me?”

“Because I need your help,” I say quietly. “Actually, I need Ava’s help.”

“You should talk to her,” says Keol, his voice suddenly gentle. “She’d understand. Trust me.”

“I just want to know if she’s okay,” I say quietly. “My sister. Especially if Miss Lilly had something to do with it.”

Keol exhales, and I yawn. I can really feel the sleeping meds now that he mentioned them. “What do you want me to do.”

I look up at him, and he holds up his hands. “I didn’t say I’d do it, I just wanna know what you want.”

“I don’t know,” I say helplessly. “You know her better than I do, she likes you more, are you sure she’d help?”

“Yes,” says Keol with conviction, and then sighs again and lies down. “I can talk to her.”

“Thank you,” I say quietly, and then yawn.

“It’s kicking in,” he says with a grin, closing his eyes. “Go to bed, Aber.”

I smile slightly, and leave him alone. I turn the lamp off next to me and close Keol’s door, and then lie down with my head on the pillow. Two things hit me right then - first, that Keol called me “Aber” instead of my full name for the first time; and second, the goddamn sleeping meds.