SOFIA

“There you are,” Atlas calls out as he tromps through the shallow part of the marsh toward me. “The alligator left.”

Kicking the water, droplets glittering in the light of a half-moon before they land, I mutter, “It could have come back.”

He stands next to me, hooks his thumbs in his back pocket, but says nothing, eyes dull and troubled.

I’m just glad he’s not making a move on me again. Came out here to think, and let my outburst die down in the minds of the others before we all go to bed and forget about it.

“I was thinking about us getting married,” Atlas says through gritted teeth. “We should.”

“What the hell?” I lean over to see if he’s kidding. “Are you out of your mind?”

With his dead gaze locked on the marsh he mutters, “It just makes sense.”

I stare at him a few beats, start laughing, “Yeah, sure, we should do that. I can’t wait to walk down the aisle and fight with you for the rest of my life.”

“We don’t fight,” he argues, looking at me for the first time.

“We would!”

“How do you figure?!”

“When two people aren’t supposed to be married, they fight.”

“We’ve been friends our whole lives. We live the same lifestyle. We already live in the same house, our families know each other. Hell, they are family now! But what we gotta do is keep it quiet for a little while, don’t want to rock the boat just yet.” He stares off, frowning while he searches for more evidence I should be his wife. “And the sex we had was out of this world, and you know it!”

I can’t believe I have to explain, “That all makes sense, Atlas.” Dammit, I can’t hurt his feelings. Have to find a way to show him he doesn’t really want this. “There’s no way it’s a good idea, come on. Just listen to yourself!”

His head cocks away from me. “What?”

With all of my strength I give the murky water a kick, send it flying high, the splash loud before I yell even louder, “God, I don’t know how to talk to you about this. It’s so far from reality, it’s nuts! Look, okay, I don’t know what’s gotten into you but us getting married is the craziest thing you’ve ever come up with. It’s even dumber than the time when you wanted us to steal patrol cars and drag race!” I start to head out, mumbling, “and I just wanted some time to myself out here,” when the sound of a motorcycle leaving our property turns my head. Curious about who it is, I stretch my neck to see through the thick trees. “Who’s leaving, any idea?”

He doesn’t answer, so I keep watching, figuring he has no clue, either. As it gets closer I recognize Luke’s helmet for the diamondback rattlesnake painted down the middle, the rest as black as his long hair flying in the wind.

“Where’s Luke going?” Assuming Atlas doesn’t know, I head for the house.

He follows me out, growing agitated. “We’re already like family, all this would do is make it so we could…”

“So we could what?” I spin around.

“Be official.”

“You mean have sex whenever we wanted, get our own room here? Have little Atlases and Sofias?”

He shrugs, “Sure.”

“You sound so excited about it!”

“Soph!”

“No, Atlas, I’m done with this.”

“Oh I get it, marrying me is weird to you?!”

“Oh my God,” I shout, spinning around and getting in his face. “I need you to wake the fuck up because this isn’t you right now. You’re stuck in some kind of ego-battle that I can’t understand. I love you, Atlas, as a brother or a friend. Both! But I won’t marry you. There’s no way I would, or should.”

Outraged, he barks, “Why not?!”

“Because when I mentioned us getting our own room here and making babies, what did you say? You said, sure.” I touch his chest to calm him. “And when you gave all the reasons for why we would work, you know what was missing? How you felt about me. Why I’m the woman you can’t live without! Atlas, you don’t love me like that. Be honest. Nobody should get married for a sure or a makes sense.” I push off from his chest and head up the trail we all made when we were kids. “You should get married for a hell yeah, I can’t fuckin’ wait.”

I glance toward the two-lane, beaten-up road, a phantom of Luke’s bike speeding past. Where did he go? I don’t think he’s got a girl in town. Wait, does he? Is he going to work out some of that sexual tension we had in the garage, on someone else?

Wincing at the twist in my stomach, I run a hand through my hair. “Where did Luke go, did he say?”

Atlas trudges five feet or so behind me. “Soph, I’ve gotta tell you something.”

“You’re pregnant,” I joke.

“I’m serious. I’ve gotta talk to you.”

I walk backwards, but that’s the best I’ll give him. “No more heart-to-hearts tonight. This day sucks enough, okay?”

He stops walking, which makes me groan and stop, too.

“I did a shitty thing.”

“Don’t feel bad about the marriage idea. Drop it! Let’s just go back home.”

“They found out.”

The wind knocks out of me and I choke, “How?” I cut a pained glance to our home, groan, feeling dizzy, “No no no! What were we thinking? We never should have done it. This is all wrong! Maybe they just suspect! They can’t really know. No wonder you’re trying to marry me, you’re freaking out. Just get a hold of yourself, we’ve gotten out of worse things. You know what, we’ll deny it!” He shakes his head so I try, “We’ll tell them it was just once, we’re over it!”

“Soph—”

“No, wait, we’ll go in there, you and I, say we talked it out and nothing is weird between us! Nothing’s changed, right? We’re both in agreement, just friends, Cipher family, and it’s all good from here on out, right?!”

“Sofia Sol, listen—”

“They’ll tease us, make our lives hell for a couple months, but then it’ll blow over like everything else does!”

“I told them it was Luke and you who did it.”

Dumbfounded, I stare at Atlas. I cock my head and ask a blank, “What?”

“I told them it was Luke. Not me.”

I start slapping him, not trained punches, but emotional, girly, losing-my-shit slaps as he covers his head. “Why would you do that? How could you do that to him? What kind of brother are you?” Gasping for air I careen away to stare at the road. “Is he leaving because you betrayed him?”

Atlas’s voice rises, defensive, “Hey now, that’s a harsh word!”

“Because it’s true? Why do people always call it harsh when you hit the nail on the fucking head?”

I break into a run for the house.

He comes after me, and he’s quick, too. Racing next to me he shouts, “I didn’t mean to do it!”

“Luke and Sofia fucked just slipped off your tongue?”

“That’s not what I said!” He grabs my arm and I punch him. This time the right kind. He grabs that arm, too, and I do my damnedest to wrestle out of his trained grip. “I wanted a chance with you, Soph!”

“You never had one!”

His eyes harden. “I knew it.”

“Of course you did, you idiot! What have you done?”

He releases me, drags his hands through his long hair. A million emotions wash over him. Regret, pain, loss, confusion, and a wish for redemption. Staring at the house where he betrayed his brother, his voice is distant, quiet, as he tries to figure out why. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Luke gave me a hard time about us. I told him I was gonna marry you. Never wanted to, but he acted like…I’d done a dishonor to you, to the club. Like it was just a fuck, so I just blurted it out that we were gonna get married, and then I couldn’t take it back. That’s why I’ve been trying to spend time alone with you, needed to see if I could picture you as my wife. I’ve been trying to make myself want to, but I don’t. I’d get so sick of your shit I’d claw my eyes out.” This admittance is the first sign of his sanity, and it gets through to me, like truth always will. “It was my ego. He challenged me. I wanted to prove we could. I don’t admit defeat easily, you know that. He knows that!”

“This wasn’t defeat—who gets married when, isn’t a competition!”

“Tell that to the rest of the world.”

“We aren’t them, Atlas!” I cry out. “We’ve never been like the ‘normal’ people. We live by our rules. That’s what makes us so great! Where did Luke go?”

“They sent him away.”

I rasp, barely able to breathe, “What? Why? To make us get over each other, huh, that why they did this? And you let it happen!”

“Soph!”

“Get away from me, Atlas! I need some space from you before I hate you for the rest of your life.” He stays behind.

I break into a run, abandon our old path, the wind rushing through my hair, overgrown grass breaking under my boots as fog makes way for me.