Oops, more angsty Quil. Good things are coming for him, I promise. We'll probably do some fast-forwarding soon, too. I know you all are anxious to see these two reunited.

I check the weather where you are, and the time you see the sunrise… All I really wanna know is, are you alone? 'Cause I'm in the dark. – "Where You Are" by Patrick Droney

Claire

"It's me. Thinking about you. Miss you." Click.

It's the strangest voicemail from Quil I've ever received, and not because he's drunk—I've gotten one or two of those before.

No, it's strange because the time for his missed call is timestamped 4:14 AM, and the time for his voicemail is 4:19 AM.

There are five missing minutes.

I blame it on Becca's late-night true crime binges that I even notice it in the first place. She even let me have a sip of her wine last night; it was red and bitter and disgusting.

I couldn't find my phone for most of the day yesterday, only to discover one of the two dogs had hidden it in their crate and the other had sunk their tooth directly through the screen. Becca and Solomon offered to replace it, but I know how to draw the line on hospitality (I think, as I sit here in a house I don't pay for and eat food I don't buy (but do help harvest, thank you very much)).

Sliding onto one of the hand-carved barstools that reminds me of something I'd find back home, I place my new phone in front of Sarah, the oldest Finau child. "Does this seem weird to you?" I say, explaining the discrepancy.

She just barely manages to lift her nose from her own phone to look at mine. She studies it for only a few seconds before responding, "It's probably a time zone thing. We're three hours ahead of Washington, remember?"

I do. All I do is remember. When I watch the sunrise and wait for Quil to wake up, hoping the clouds will hold off long enough where he is for him to see it too. When I'm in bed, the rest of the house already snoring, and wonder how he's passing his time without me.

Nothing makes it easier. Guilt eats at my stomach so much that some days, I don't even eat. When I do eat, I'm nauseated. I can't sit still, otherwise I break down. And my dreams – there are no good ones. When I wake from flashes of sea-salted skin, sheets tangled around broad shoulders, kisses I feel in the deepest parts of my soul, I'm left aching in multiple ways.

When I dream of my mother, her laughter, her music, that's even worse.

So I help on the farm, and I walk the little kids to the market a few streets over, and I play with the dogs, and I surf until my feet are raw and wrinkley, and I avoid everything that makes me feel like my heart is being cauterized inside my chest, until I have no choice but to collapse into bed at the last second and pray for morning.

"You're probably right," I tell Sarah.

But I still call Quil back later anyway, as soon as I get a minute alone. Dinners here are truly a family affair. Solomon will usually grill fresh-caught fish out back, and Becca will instruct Sarah and Amelia on how to slice the fresh vegetables for whatever side dish she's making. The twins will have plucked them straight from the garden earlier. Gabriel will pour drinks for everyone and set the table, and Hailey will attempt to make conversation with whoever's near her highchair. The dogs will circle underfoot, hoping for scraps. Hailey will oblige them because she thinks it's funny.

I will try to fit in, or stay out of the way.

Now, I've tucked myself in a far corner of the backyard, on one of the rusted swings. Above the treeline, the sky is fading from vivid oranges and reds into indigo and violet, as the last of the sun disappears.

I get the dial tone so long, I think it's going to ring out. The line clicks at the last minute, ambient noises filtering in from his end of the call.

"Hey!" I say loudly, weirdly nervous. Nervous from how I usually am when I talk to him. This isn't butterflies in my stomach—it's bricks. "I just got your call from yesterday. The dog ate my phone."

Quil clears his throat. "Hey there," he says, and it's almost normal. Almost like the warm butterscotch I usually get, but not quite. "Did you need something?"

"Oh, I—I was just returning your call." At his vague noise of acknowledgement, I know something's up. "It was just weird because your voicemail didn't pop up until, like, five minutes later."

"Oh," he says distantly. "Technology's weird like that, I guess. Happens all the time."

He sounds so cold right now. Vague. Flat. He always talks about my tell, but I can read him just as easily. "Are you lying?"

I listen as he takes a metered breath, crackling in my ear, before he blows the rest out in a gust like he's lost patience with even himself. "It was nothing. Something happened at the bar. Had to re-record the message."

Panic tightens behind my belly button, a sharp pang. "Is everyone okay? Bethany and the baby?"

Quil inhales deeply. "Yeah, yeah. Everyone's fine, Claire. She's good. Baby's fine. I'm here now, for dinner. Hey, look. I gotta go. We'll talk later?"

"Sure, okay. I love—"

"You too."

Quil

I end the call and turn to Bethany, a sour look plastered on my face. "That was not fun."

"I didn't say it'd be fun," she says from her spot on the couch. "I said I think the situation requires some space. It's not healthy for either of you right now."

I eye her bag of spicy Cheetos pointedly, and she flips me the bird seconds before Sadie comes barreling through the front door, fresh from a day in Port Angeles with her best friend Asher and his mom. Blue spins in an excited circle at her feet.

"Uncle Quil!" She throws herself on my lap, completely unaware that her ten-year-old body is all bones. "I forgot you were coming for dinner."

"Princess," I say fondly, despite my throbbing ribcage. The girl can throw an elbow. "How's it goin'?"

"Well," she says, shoving her wild, dark curls back from her face. Remnants of black nail polish cling to her thumbs only. "School starts in September, and my baby brother is coming then, too. It's basically my favorite month ever. I don't want to wait for it to get here."

Bethany cough-snorts and heaves herself to her feet, probably to check on Embry in the kitchen. Or, more likely, the food he's making.

Some suspicious neck-kissing sounds float to me from the kitchen, just out of our sight, and I scoop up Sadie and move toward the TV. "Mario Kart before dinner?"

"And cookies after," Sadie says, oblivious to her parents all but making out next to (on top of?) the chicken and gravy one room over.

My heart aches for Claire again, but Bethany's right, much as it pains me to admit. Claire wanted distance, and that's what she's getting.

So what if it feels like my heart got put through a pencil sharpener? These people, here in this house, always have space for me.

The days pass. Not slowly, but not quickly, either. June bleeds seamlessly into July.

At work, I try to gather intel on the Brady-and-Mia situation for the newest Pack bet. Far as anyone can tell, there might have been a hookup situation after karaoke, but it didn't end well, if Mia's extreme avoidance of him the next shift at work was anything to go by. When I asked Brady about it directly, he gave me a look so cold it temporarily stunted the ache in my chest from Claire and Hannah's absences, the way an ice pack would soothe a sore muscle.

And, Chief's been pushing us to study for our upcoming rank tests, so hydrant locations and rig equipment names float through my head at random times. I swear last night I woke up naming parts out loud.

When I'm not working, I'm either at Claire's, making sure Jon and Callie don't go off the deep end at the same time—preferably neither of them ever would, but beggars can't be choosers—or at Embry's, trying to take my mind off everything with ice cold beer.

Of course, that only works so long as Bethany isn't in the mood for beer (or, for that matter, Embry). If she is, it's best to stay far away. I may not know where every hydrant in Clallam County is yet, but I know about self-preservation.

I think.

Today is one of those days I've got nowhere to be but home, waiting until an acceptable time to go to bed, so I can do it all again tomorrow and try to hate my life a little less. All the other Pack members are busy with their own jobs and lives and families. That's part of the reason I loved having Claire so close to me, being a part of her family. We were in our own little world. Sometimes, now, it feels like we're in separate galaxies.

My phone lights up with a call, and I grab it blindly. At this point, I know better than to hope it's Claire. With Independence Day directly in the rear-view, I've been on call for work, on the off chance that an errant firework or popper finds the one patch of dry grass here and catches. Only I can prevent forest fires, after all.

"Yeah," I say into the phone, flipping channels with my other hand.

"Quil?"

The voice is slurred. I pull back to check the screen. "Callie? What's going on?" On her end of the phone, background noise cuts into her words so much I can't make anything out. "Cal, I can't hear you. Can you go somewhere quieter?"

"Quil!" Callie all but shouts into the receiver, and someone there with her giggles. "I need a ride home. Our DD is plastered." Her words aren't any clearer, just louder. My ear rings.

I pinch the bridge of my nose and squeeze my eyes shut. Don't be mad, Quil. You literally tell her she can call you any time, no questions asked, for this specific reason. It doesn't matter that she's only fifteen fucking years old, and so are most of her friends. That's totally fine. It's not worth losing it.

Keep it together, I always think. Keep it together for everyone else.

"Can you send me your location?" I reach for my boots beside the couch.

Callie giggles again in my ear. "I knew I could count on you, Quil. Always, always, can count on Quil." There's rustling as she handles her phone. She hiccups. "Okay, I sent it."

I've gotta give it to her, she's competent for an underaged drunk girl. "Got it. Sit tight and be safe."

"Okay, Dad."

We inhale at the same time. She sounded so much like her sister just now.

"I'll see you soon," I say, and end the call.

It takes me almost the entire forty-minute drive to get my thoughts together. My phone guides me to a waterfront house up by Pillar Point, and I pull my truck to a stop alongside others vehicles.

Callie sits on the front porch, head in one hand as she scrolls her phone with the other. In the corner of a porch, two teenagers suck face. Through the open door, heavy bass makes my feet vibrate. A collective cheer goes up about… something. Who the fuck knows? Probably flip-cup.

"Where'd your friends go?" I call by way of greeting.

She looks up at me with red, watery eyes. "They found a ride."

Anger makes my skin pull tight, and my knuckles crack from how fast I just formed fists. "They left you?"

"It's fine," Callie insists, standing on unsteady legs. She almost tumbles off the last step, but I catch her just in time.

"Let's get you home," I say, and she nods and tucks herself under my arm. She stays there for most of the drive.

It's late enough that when I finally get her through her front door, Jon is passed out on the sofa. Callie's still stumbling a bit, so I help her up the stairs and make sure she gets to her bedroom okay.

"It's probably not my place," I start, "but Callie, friends that leave you alone at parties like that are not actually friends."

She nods, arms crisscrossing over her torso. She looks so tiny right now. Helpless. "Thank you, Quil." She hesitates, then adds, with just a hint of uncertainty, "I love you, you know."

I smile. "Of course I know."

And then something in her face changes, shifts to study me more intently.

And then she takes a step forward.

And then…

And then Callie stretches up to her full height and plants her open mouth on my closed one. Her breath is hot and sticky and laced with alcohol and weed.

Wrongness tightens my gut to the point of physical pain, even as her cold fingers wrap around my forearms. I can't breathe. Is this what happens when I force some distance between me and Claire? Everything goes to shit?

I pry Callie away gently. It's second nature to reach up and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. The taste of her is going to make me sick. "Callie, hey."

"You don't want me?" Her eyes well with tears, and although she looks more like Jon, I recognize Hannah in her features now more than ever. Heart on her sleeve and in her eyes.

"Callie," I start, unsure where I'm going. I take another step back to hopefully gain distance, clarity. It doesn't quite work. "I love you, but…"

"But not this way," she finishes. "Not like you love Claire."

I'm glad she said it so I didn't have to. "Not like I love Claire," I confirm. "You're my sister. Claire is… my everything."

And that's just it, isn't it?

She is everything to me, even when she wants nothing to do with this life or the people in it. Even when she abandons me, I will never be able to quit her. I will never be able to kiss another woman without Claire's face in my mind. I see her in everything I do, everywhere I go. I am bound by duty and magic and fucking bullshit, honestly, to this life neither of us asked for.

"But what if she doesn't come back?" Callie whispers through her fingers, her eyes wide like she can't believe she did that, either. She looks terrified. Lonely. Lost.

I understand Callie more clearly than ever right now. She didn't kiss me because she wants me; it was because she misses Claire. She misses her sister with her whole heart, and I am the only link between them.

Hannah always used to say lying was never worth it, not even to spare someone's feelings. That would be like putting on someone else's life vest before your own. You can't save others at the expense of yourself, she'd say.

In her letter to me, she'd said the same thing in a different way because she knew how much I'd need to hear it, especially after she was gone. Learn to say no, even to people who love you. Stand up for yourself. Love yourself as much as everyone you meet.

"I don't know," I say, the honesty now not doing a damn thing to assuage the raging guilt in my veins. "I don't what happens next."

But I think, wryly, it's time I start saying no.