The water was perfect for skipping rocks-all smooth and glassy and still. One little pebble sent ripples all over the place, and ‘cause there wasn’t anything else moving, you could watch those little waves stretch all the way ‘til the banks, where they would disappear. Most of ‘em would overlap, and the ripples would criss-cross and link together, not pulling apart even when died at the edge of the pond.

I flicked another flat, smooth rock (perfect for skipping) across the water, and it jumped—one, two, three, four, five times before finally sinking under with a little ‘plop’. Then the ripples came, overlapping and getting all tangled together until I couldn’t tell which belonged to which rock-skip. They all died together in the end, so I figured it didn’t really matter.

The next rock was in my hand when I noticed I was the only one doing any skipping.

“Oi! What the hell are you just lying there for, Justin?” I said to the guy, who was all sprawled out on the grass like he was dead. “I came here to skip rocks with you, not watch you sleep!”

It stung a little when he didn’t answer me. Here I was, trying to cheer the idiot up, and he found some dumb clouds more interesting than me. The guy had always been weird, but he’d never snubbed me before.

I chucked a pebble at him—it hit him in the ear. That got his attention, at least. He kinda yelped and started rubbing the bruise, but didn’t yell his head off at me like he normally would. “What was that for, Emma?” he whined instead, and I almost thought he was a wounded puppy. He was a lot less of a pain when he was yelling, that was for sure.

“‘Cause you were falling asleep when I was talking to you,” I huffed, sitting down cross-legged on the grass next to him. “You deserved it.”

“I wasn’t sleeping,” he muttered, his voice losing the whine and getting something else—something weird, that I didn’t really like. “I was thinking.”

“About what?” I shot back at him, not really because I wanted to know, but because he expected me to. I didn’t want to make him even more sad than he was now, not with his green eyes looking all…distracted and wild. They really put me on edge. “About…you know?”

He did know. I could see it in the way he got stiff and uncomfortable. I regretted saying the stupid words the minute they came out of my mouth, ‘cause his eyes went even wilder, and the way he looked made me so sad.

“No!” he snapped, probably a little louder than he wanted to. I flinched a bit—a reflex—and he sorta…deflated. His face crumpled and his eyes went dull. “No,” he said again, only it came out more air than words—a big gusty-type sigh. It was another side of him I didn’t know about, this sad, droopy-looking Justin with the wilted brown strings of hair hanging down. I wished we could forget about the whole thing and just start skipping rocks again.

“I was thinking about where I want to live.”

I stared at him, trying to figure out where that had come from. “Huh?”

His head darted my way for a second, and he looked annoyed, but only a little. Everything on his face looked duller than it normally did.

“What do you mean, ‘huh?’ It’s not like I said anything weird.”

I looked at him, not really sure what to say next, even though there was something he obviously wanted me to say. The annoyed look got a little sharper…but not by much. Still, it was better than it was before.

“Aren’t you going to ask where I want to live?” He wasn’t looking at me anymore, but at the clouds that were starting to move a little faster across the sky. The wind was picking up, even though we couldn’t feel it yet.

There was no arguing with the idiot then. So I caved. “Where do you want to live?” I was starting to feel like I was walking on a minefield with him.

“I want to live where it’s warm and sunny,” he sighed, smiling a little bit, and that was the happiest he’d been for days. “The house won’t be like a mansion or anything, but it won’t be a shack, either. There’ll be a lake on one side a little ways away, and there’ll be grassy hills all over the place. Animals’ll come right up to the house and we won’t have to work or clean or anything.”

I could see him picturing his little dream home, with that smile on his face that I hadn’t seen in so long, and wasn’t for me even now. That hurt a little bit more than it should’ve, considering he was finally happy. He needed that now.

But then it all faded, and droopy-Justin came back. “But it can’t rain,” he said, really serious then. I frowned, and only wanted the smile there instead. “It can’t ever, ever rain.”

I looked at him a little funny. “What do you mean, it can’t rain?” It didn’t make any sense to me. “Wouldn’t that be the same as a desert?” I pulled up some grass as I talked, just ‘cause I could. “What d’you have against rain, anyways?”

His lips went down, and I think I probably got him mad by saying something stupid. It’d happened before, but this time seemed different, mostly ‘cause he was all quiet and not yelling at me.

“I don’t like the rain,” he said, almost out of nowhere, and he looked like he’d just taken a bite of a sour lemon. “It’s cold and makes you miserable, and you can get so sick from it you die.”

“Who dies from rain? That’s dumb.” I’d left the grass alone for now, ‘cause I was bored of it. The whole talk was making me antsy and nervous, though, so I started messing around with my hair to give my hands something to do. If I didn’t do that, I’d just give up on the whole thing and go back to skipping rocks, and I didn’t want to leave Justin alone.

“It’s not dumb!” he almost yelled, and it would’ve been like old times, if it weren’t for the way he looked so desperate. “Rain can do that to you. I hate rain. That’s why I’m gonna go find somewhere that’s happy and green without it!”

I frowned, ‘cause I knew something was going on hat I didn’t really get. I tried to figure the whole thing out for a second, but I didn’t really get anywhere, as usual. Justin’d always been the big thinker of the two of us. Sometimes he’d say weird things that I didn’t understand, but he would make me feel like there was something really big under it all. He’d get really pissed when I didn’t figure it out, but I didn’t see why that was my fault. If he had something to say, he should’ve just said it.

“Justin,” I said slowly, thinking over the words and wondering if I would set him off again, “it can’t be green without rain, right? Or it would be a desert. Everyone knows that.”

His eyes widened and he flinched, sitting up straight so fast I could hardly see him do it. “What?” he asked, growling a little. I could tell I hadn’t said the right thing again, but it wasn’t like I could take it back. “That’s not true.”

He didn’t yell or even come close to it like before, but what he said sounded a lot, I don’t know…harsher than it would’ve if he yelled. It was pretty clear by now I’d done something to piss him off, but how was I supposed to do something about it if I didn’t even know what it was?

“Well,” I gulped, not sure what to do anymore, not with him glaring at me like that. “It’s just that it can’t get green if it doesn’t rain. Plants need water to grow.”

He got shocked again, but I didn’t know why. I’d only told him what everyone in the world knew. The whole gaping-mouth thing only lasted for a second though, and then he was angry again.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he started off nice and quiet, then built himself up to a yell. “You don’t know! You just don’t!”

“Hey, calm down already. I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean to-”

And he was up and on his feet, pacing around like a storm of random emotions. I didn’t really know what to expect anymore.

“It’s real! I know it is, and I’ll find it! I’ll definitely find it, and my sister can come and live with me! She hates the rain too, she told me she does, so I know she’ll love that house with the lake! You can come stay with us if you want, but only if you stop being so stupid!”

I got the shivers, even though it was late spring and the weather nice and breezy, the wind getting stronger by the second. “But…” I really didn’t want to say this, and I meant I really really didn’t want to say this, but Justin was getting in over his head. “Your sister’s dead. How can she live with you if she’s dead?”

It didn’t look like he was expecting me to say that. “S-she just can, okay? She definitely can, ‘cause I’ll find a way to fix everything.”

“But I don’t think-”

He ignored me, again. “I don’t care what you think.” Now that really stung, and I wasn’t gonna let it slide. Where did that idiot get off, saying something like that to the only person who’d stuck around long enough to care? “I’m the smart one, remember? I can figure it out. I can.”

For a little while, he looked so sure of himself I couldn’t help but start to believe him, and that annoying anger didn’t really seem to matter that much anymore. It didn’t really matter, then, that there was no way he could pull the thing off. What really mattered was how he looked like he had a place where he was going. A way that would help get himself out of the hole he was in. That had to be a good thing, right?

“So? You coming or not?”

He held out a hand to me, looking down at me like he was the king of the universe. It was annoying as hell, but it also meant he was a little bit more like himself.

I made a face at him, then grabbed his hand and pulled myself up. “ ‘Course I’m coming with you, dummy. How could I leave someone like you alone?”

He frowned for a while, but it was probably all for show, ‘cause right after he burst out into this big, bright smile, and it was great ‘cause it was for me. All for me, not for his dream or anything else, but me. I would do whatever he wanted me to if it would make him that happy.

“Great,” and his smile twisted into something else….more like a smirk, probably. I didn’t like that. It looked weird and twisted and wrong. Like something big was about to happen, and he knew about it when I didn’t. “Let’s go.”

“Huh?” He was being stupid again. Did he even get what he was talking about? “You want to go now?”

The guy looked at me like I was the one that was crazy. “Well, yeah. When did you think I wanted to go, in twenty years or something?”

I just blinked, ‘cause that was all I could think to do right then. “We can’t leave now. How’re we gonna buy a house when we’re eleven?”

His face twisted up, like he was dealing with a fly buzzing around his face he couldn’t swat. “We’ll have my sister buy it for us. No big deal.”

“I told you, your sister’s dead! There’s no way she can’t do anything anymore!” I winced right after I’d said it, ‘cause it didn’t come out nearly the way I’d wanted it to.

But he didn’t glare or yell or anything. He…he laughed at me. “ ‘Course I know she’s dead. How the hell couldn’t I know she was dead?”

He knew? Nothing about what we’d been talking about made sense anymore. He didn’t make sense anymore. One minute he was normal, and the next he was weirder than ever. I didn’t get it. I just didn’t.

“That doesn’t mean anything. She can buy the house and we can live together, all three of us.”

Something was nagging me in the pit of stomach, and it made me really sick. There was something up with him, something more serious than I’d thought. It wouldn’t blow over, not even with rock-skipping on perfect still-lake days. I had to get him somewhere else. Somewhere with other people, ‘cause I didn’t have a clue what to do.

“Hey, Justin,” I tried carefully, looking at the sunset, which I’d only really noticed that moment. Big, gray clouds were coming in, making it darker than usual. “It’s getting pretty late. Let’s go home, okay?”

Now he glared, and everything around him changed. There wasn’t a better way to describe it. I only knew it wasn’t a good change.

“You said you’d go with me. You said you’d go find the house with me.” There definitely anger in his voice and all, but he sounded hurt, too. Maybe even betrayed.

“But it’s dumb to think we can go now. Let’s just go back. Our parents are probably pretty worried about us right now, so-”

“What’d you say? ‘Our’ parents? They’re not my parents.” He stopped to kick at the grass, making dirt fly all over the place. “There’s no way they’re my parents.”

“That’s not true! They adopted you, so we’re family now. Isn’t that good?” I felt a lot more hurt then I let on, but Justin was mean and insensitive, so he didn’t notice anything at all anyways.

“You think it’s good that my sister died? ‘Cause that’s why you guys adopted me! Didn’t wanna do it when she was alive and we were all alone together, but now that she’s gone you guys are gonna take me in! Why the hell should that make me happy?” His voice got so loud that a couple of birds in the trees a little ways back flew out of the branches.

“Your sister was too old to be adopted, dummy!” I probably looked awful, standing there and yelling at him at the top of my lungs. Somehow, it just made me feel ugly. Still, he’d always respected my family before, even when he hadn’t done the same for anything else. Why was he saying these things about my parents now, when they were even making him a part of our family Didn’t he…didn’t he like living with all of us? Every single question just made me angrier and angrier. “She was taking care of you, and now she can’t, so we’re gonna do it now! What’s wrong with that?”

His shoes were covered in dirt by now, but he kept on kicking the ground anyways. “She wasn’t eighteen yet. We could’ve both been adopted.”

“But there’s a reason why Mom and Dad waited until now.”

He stamped down on the grass instead of kicking at it again. “What reason? They didn’t have a reason! They’re just like everyone else calling my sister a ‘whore’. Your parents hated her guts and you know it.”

“They did not hate her guts!” What I had to say on the tip of my tongue was going away pretty quickly, considering the more I thought about it, the more I thought he was right. But that couldn’t be true. They’d never talked much with her, that much I knew, but that didn’t mean they hated her.

“You can take your family and your adoption and stuff it! I hate your family, and I don’t need you all!”

He hated us. He hated us, and just expected me to follow him like a puppy no matter what he said about us. It really pissed me off.

Really, really, really pissed me off.

“You’re lucky my parents even decided to adopt you,” I started, my fingers curling up into a fist that I knew I would never use on him. “We’re only doing it because I’m the only one who could stand you anymore. You’re stupid, mean, and rude, and no one else would ever stay with you except me!”

His eyes snapped open a little but then narrowed again when I said that, but I was angry, so I didn’t care what he would do. It was his own fault, and I was only telling the truth anyways.

“Go away.”

Then the anger went away a little, and suddenly I felt so bad I could die. Why did I say that? I didn’t mean it, I didn’t! “Justin, I didn’t mean that, really, I didn’t. I’m sorry, really sorry-”

“Go AWAY!”

He shoved me near the lake, so close than when I fell on the ground I thought I would fall in.

“Shut up and go home! Traitor! I hate you! I HATE YOU!”

I didn’t want this. I wanted the smiling Justin, the happy Justin, the Justin who laughed with me and skipped rocks in the summertime. I didn’t like the Justin who’d bully and steal and laugh at other kids, but I hated this Justin so much I couldn’t stand it.

“Stop it! Stop yelling, idiot! I’m trying to tell you something!” I felt like I was choking, trying to get so many words out at once, but never finding the right ones.

“GET OUT OF HERE!” He bent over for a second, moving like he was insane, and I squinted to try to get a look at what he was doing. Turns out that I didn’t have to, ‘cause seconds later, he nailed me on the shoulder with a small rock.

It stung like crazy. There was blood too, and he’d done that to me. He’d meant to hurt me and he’d gotten away with it.

“Just go. I don’t’ want to see you anymore. I hate you. I’ll hate you ‘til I die, so go away.”

His voice went a lot quieter, but the words were worse than ever. “But-”

“You told me you’d come with me. You said you would,” he gave me a glance, it was so full of feelings—anger, betrayal, and hurt—that I didn’t know what to do or where to start.

“I’ll never let you in that house. My sister June will stay with me, and that’ll be all we need. You can just—just—die from the rain!” He ran as fast as he could into the tress around the lake, but I didn’t go after him.

It didn’t rain that night. It did the day after, though, right when everyone figured that they’d never see Justin again. I couldn’t think of anything else to do, so I went back to the lake and stared at the water for a while.

It was covered in ripples, and they were all connected in some way or another. Maybe Justin and June were down there, linking and petering out then starting again. All I knew was that I wasn’t in those ripples, and that got me happy and sad at the same time.

I stood there in the rain for a while, then went home, ‘cause it was about to get dark and I was feeling kinda sick.

Justin would’ve been sad to know that I didn’t die from the rain. I did get a really bad case of flu, though. It kept me in bed for days. When I got better, though, the clouds were starting to break up, and I could see a little bit of the sun.

It was only a little beam, but it looked really bright to me, for some reason.