The first time Galen calls me is at the end of a long week in school. I’m on the bus that will take me back to Dad’s house—it’s my week with him—and when my phone rings in my pocket, I expect it to be Mum or Erin. When a picture of him holding a buttercup under his chin, taken that day in our field, pops up on my screen, I’m torn between ignoring it and letting it go to voicemail or answering it as quickly as possible.

Who am I kidding?

This is Galen. I’m always going to answer it.

“Hey,” he says as soon as I answer, and a big smile spreads across my face at the sound of his voice. “How’s school?”

I lean my head against the bus window, letting the vibrations of the engine tickle my skin, and I tell him about my week. He listens, not offering up any information about himself, and I want to know it all. I’m greedy for any part of his time.

“So, tell me about the tour. How long before rehearsals are over and you’re on the road?”

“We’ve got one more week, and then our first gig is in Edinburgh. It’s a steep learning curve and a lot of long days, but I think I’m doing okay, and the tour manager seems happy with me.”

“How are the other bands? Are they cool with you? It must be hard going solo having only ever played with the boys before?”

Galen’s tour offer wasn’t for his band. His new manager only wanted him as a solo singer, and he’d been given a backing band by the tour organisers.

“Yeah, it was a little weird the first day or two, but I’m in a campervan with the second support act, and they’re all pretty cool. In fact, I’ve gotta go, Fflur. It’s our first night off, and we’re going to hit a few bars, maybe go to a club.”

“Oh.” I didn’t expect our first chat to be so short. “Okay, I guess I’ll talk to you again soon.”

“Yeah, I’ll call again next week. Oh, and Fflur,” he hesitates for a beat before he says, “I miss you.” Then he hangs up before I can reply.

He calls every week after that, but each call is short, containing very little information about what’s going on in his life. We go back to being the kids who used to pretend not to look at each other from across the road while waiting for the bus. We pretend not to care about each other above and beyond our friendship. I pretend that it doesn’t hurt not to know if he’s found someone else, and he pretends not to care about how much it all still hurts.

Every call hurts.

Every wait between calls hurt.

But it’s his next call that hurts the most.

“What are you doing this weekend?” I ask as an opening question, the sounds of others in the background muffled but apparent.

“We have Sunday off,” he replies, a little distracted. “We’re gonna catch the ferry over to Dublin and explore a little. We have a few days before the tour heads further south. Thought we’d make the most of our free time.”

“We?”

Galen knows what I’m asking just from that one word. Does he have someone like that going with him? Someone he’s interested in, someone who could be more to him.

“Fflur,” my name is both a warning and a plea. He doesn’t want to talk about it. Doesn’t want me to push.

“Do you have plans this weekend?” he asks when I heed his caution and drop that line of questioning.

“No, nothing.”

I’m uncaring of how pathetic my admission sounds. An almost seventeen-year-old girl, with no plans for the weekend.

Other than listening to All I Ask on repeat.

Someone in the background calls his name, and I hear the muffled fumble of him covering the speaker and yelling back, “Just talking to my sister, I’ll be right there.”

Sister. He’s told his new friends that I’m his sister.

“Fflur,” he says in a rush when he comes back on the line. “We’ve gotta get back on stage for sound check. I’ll talk to you next week, but do something for me, okay?”

“What?” I ask without thinking because it’s Galen and I’ll do anything for him.

“Make plans this weekend. Go out, have fun.”

I don’t respond, and he’s tight on time so doesn’t push me further.

“I’ve gotta go. I miss you.” He ends the call the same way as always, unaware of how much those three words feel like a punch to my gut.

I spend Saturday at Erin’s house.

For some reason, I hated thinking that Galen was off living life, while I was letting mine waste away. His order for me to go out and have fun was an itchy scab in my mind, and I wanted to pick at it, dissect it, and figure out why it was so important to him for me to move on. In the end, I complied because he’d asked. Although, I liked to think I took up Erin on her offer to spend the day together because I wanted to, and not because the boy I was in love with—who’d just dismissed me as his sister to some strangers—had told me to.

In hindsight, I was glad. We had a great day together and even made plans to go out the following weekend. I convinced Erin to come with me and visit Rhys. He’d already told me I could bring a friend, so I knew I didn’t have to check with him. Next weekend I was going to spend time with my brother and have fun. Galen be damned.