Page 113 of Between Us

Looking back up, Adrian’s eyes are on me now. He’s offering me a small, affectionate smile and it really is the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen.

“How about some photo albums?” my mom asks no one in particular, pulling me from my thoughts. She sets down four giant books full of pictures from mine and Grady’s childhood.

Which means we are not the only two people featured in there… four other kids who are in almost every single picture with us, specifically one redheaded little girl who was glued to Grady’s side our entire childhood.

My eye meets my brother’s over Arielle’s head. He doesn’t talk about whatever happened between him and Vivi—outside of the stupid homecoming incidents when he took different girls as dates—but he doesn’t look totally cool with this situation either.

“Mom, how aboutno?” I answer, hoping my brattiness may save Grady from explaining to Arielle the history of our family and the Davies.

“Tu guardas silencio.”She doesn’t look up when basically telling me to shut up. I don’t miss the appreciative smile Grady offers me. “There’s no better opportunity than when AdrianandArielle are here.”

I’m certain my mom isn’t doing this to be malicious toward Arielle, or to cause problems for Grady. She just doesn’t seem torealizewhy he’d want to hide these from his girlfriend.

“I want to see them,” Arielle says softly, pulling one of the books toward her and flipping it open. It’s one from when Grady and I werereallylittle, before we moved to Amada Beach when I was three.

Quickly, I grab one from when we were a little older and push another toward Grady, leaving our high school album free for the taking. There might be a little bit of Vivi in there, but they’d mostly fallen out by then. It’s more so my friends, or Asher and Hudson, the Davies twins who are closest to Grady’s age.

My mom comes to take Stella from Adrian and leaves the four of us sitting around the dining room table, with a metaphorical bomb only Grady and I know about.

“Cute haircut, Storm Cloud,” Adrian leans back in his chair, tossing his arm around me and a quick wink my way. I roll my eyes, not trying to fight the smile that pulls at my lips.

At some point Adrian and Arielle switched albums, so he’s looking at me as a toddler. The bowl cut made me look like Coconut Head from that Nickelodeon show. Itwasn’ta cute haircut.

Arielle has our elementary years now, starting at the summer we moved here.

It started out more fun than I expected, with Arielle laughing and grinning along with the rest of us. That stopped about five minutes ago, right when we hit Grady’s sixth birthday.

We’d met the Davies family the summer before—or really, Grady met Genevieve Davies on the Fourth of July at a block party. It was just a coincidence that they lived right behind us. Most of the photos with Grady and Vivi during those two months included her brothers, her sister, and me.

From what I’ve picked up over the years, that fateful afternoon at Tossin’ Tomatoes pizzeria is what changed it all for them. In one of the pictures, I know it was seconds after Grady told Vivi she was his best friend for the first time. In another, they’re leaning over hisDexter’s Laboratorythemed cake with the biggest smiles, neither one of them looking at the camera. They’re both shyly side-eyeing each other in it.

It all seems innocent enough.

If it weren’t for the fact that the same little girl is in almost all of our memories as a family, up until Grady turned fifteen and I turned twelve. Her siblings and mom are in a lot of them too.Almostas many as Vivi.

Arielle notices, because she has two working eyes, and at the very least, one working brain cell.

I’m sure she has more than just one.But that’s all you need to catch the pattern—especially when it’s three brunette kids, two blondes and one bright redheaded girl. She’s hard to miss.

And now it’s awkward.

Grady knows. Arielle knows. I know.

Glancing at Adrian turning another page, I question ifheknows it. He’s more perceptive than he comes off, and he’s great at mediating a situation. So my money would be on him knowing exactly how weird this is now and what he’s doing.

We’re getting further into Grady’s high school years, but Arielle isn’t relaxing either. I can’t help feeling a little bad for her. Maybe it’s irrational—on both our parts—but I understand the jealousy associated with feeling like Grady loves someone else more. And it’s different for us, obviously. He’s my brother, though he wasmy best friend until Vivi. Around this time last year, he wasn’t even Arielle’s boyfriend and now he’s forever the father of her child.

I can’t help but wonder if it’s more than just this one little girl from Grady’s past. Maybe there are mountains of insecurities, and doubts, I’ll never understand because that’s not the relationship she and I have.

Either way, I wish I could tell her that I do understand.

“This has been fun,” Arielle says a bit dryly, “but I’m getting hungry.”

I watch my brother’s face tighten knowing that our mom offered to feed her multiple times.

“How about waffles?” I pipe in, surprising even myself. “Do you like waffles?” This time, I ask Arielle directly.

“Yeah, I do,” she nods, avoiding my brother’s gaze. “Waffles sound good.”

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