FIFTEEN

LEO WAS STILL NOT HOME WHEN GRIFF UNDRESSED AND CLIMBED into bed. He stared at the quiet blue slab of his brother’s mattress and wondered about Leo. If Griff had built a wall to disguise his few, limited desires, then Leo—being the better prepper—had probably dug a bunker. Reinforced steel. Large enough for a pool and dog park. The entire state of Florida.

Leo dreamed big. Griff couldn’t see his dreams anymore.

Hours later—the peck of a key at the front door, ka-thump of boots, hush of bathroom water, rumple of clothing—it all blended with the routine sounds of nighttime until the door to the TOE Box creaked open. Griff lifted his eyelids to find his brother cross-legged on the floor with his small black backpack.

“It’s late,” Griff said.

Leo looked up. “Yeah. SubWatch.”

Hard to imagine spending hours with Jonesy spitting sunflower seeds, spitting chew, spitting, listening, spitting. Leo was pulling things out of the backpack. Griff scooted to the foot of the bed. Hung his head backward off the mattress and saw his brother upside down. They used to do this together. See who could hang the longest, then whip themselves up for a giant head rush. They’d pretend they could float and walk on the ceiling. Climb over the doorframes. Pebbled paint on bare feet.

“What are you doing?” Leo asked.

Griff whipped his head up. Dizzy. Crawled back to his pillow.

“You should’ve come to the station,” Griff said.

“I’ve got to get my hours,” Leo said.

Leo scribbled something on a wide sheet of paper. He looked hungry in the pale light. Physically hungry. Shaky in the eyes. He rolled the paper like a scroll and placed it in a cardboard tube. Then something else. A flashing silver square. Leo held it, then set it down and climbed into bed.

Griff remained silent.

“Did you see her today?” Leo asked.

His tongue, heavy with sleep. The way they used to talk together in a tent, back when they still shared one.

“No,” Griff said.

Maybe it was fatigue, or the upside-down head rush, or the tent-feeling. He wanted to spill a secret. Tell Leo—“Today was a no-circle day.” As preppers, they kept paper calendars and recorded events in inscrutable symbols. Dashes. Asterisks. A little black dot stood for Bunker Meeting. The tiny fork meant Radio Station. Griff’s used circles for the days he saw Charity. Sometimes he’d touch the circle. Or trace it over and over. Days without them looked empty. Today was a no-circle day. He wanted to tell his brother.

“I hope she doesn’t leave the band,” Leo said.

Griff propped himself on an elbow. “Why would she leave?”

“Why wouldn’t she?” Leo asked.

Griff stared at the ceiling. He thought his brother never doubted anything anymore. If doubt had survived, what else prowled around in his brother’s mind when the lights went low? Griff’s went still with the sudden weight of it. Leo’s voice at the half shell. The way he’d looked hearing the band. Griff missed him so badly. Pressure against the back of his nose, throat, his eyes.

Griff exhaled a shuddering breath.

He wanted to release it all. The whole untamed reservoir. How he wanted out of the Preppers, wanted his own show, wanted to sail on a boat of any proportion into any possible horizon with Charity Simms and—brother, I want you to know how her lips brushing my cheek feel like flying—how mad and out of control I feel now, and how sorry I am for how awkward and how hopeless we’ve made this, how tired I am of winner and loser and what are you hungry for, brother? Do you love her? Do you feel alone and outside this whole mess of a town like me? Are you lost like me?

The lighthouse flickered in the window.

“Whoomp,” Griff breathed.

“What?”

Griff held his breath, and held the words in his mind. I sing along with the lighthouse. It struck him—that was the first thing he’d ever hidden from his brother. Griff opened his mouth, tasted the still air. He could say it. Awkward, absurd, and true.

“Stop talking to yourself,” Leo said.

Griff pinched his lips shut. Pressed them tightly. Closed his eyes and waited for the pressure to stop. Leo got out of bed. The small silver square, flashing in his hand. He wove it through the eyelet of the TOE Box, seated the hasp with a click. It was a padlock.