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“Twice,” I interrupt.

Kit chokes on his beer. “What do you mean twice?”

I breathe out hard and stare into the racks of bottles behind the bar.

“Okay, so remember back when Tink was a guy? Or, you know, wasn’t a guy, but we thought she was a guy? She was pretending to be a guy.” It’s a hard situation to sum up, I realize, even for someone who was also there. “Well, I couldn’t stop thinking about her then, either. And so this one time in the garage, I thought it was the right moment and I just sort of, you know, went for it.”

“And…you guys fucked,” Kit says.

“Whoa, no.” Now it’s my turn to swivel on my stool at him. “Nuh-uh, nothing like that. I just kissed him. Her,” I correct quickly. “And, uh…I mean, it didn’t go great, I admit. Tink, she wasn’t into it. Or…” I consider. “I mean, I don’t think she was.” She did end up kissing me later, right? But back then…I fist up another handful of pretzels as I think out loud. “Because obviously she couldn’t be totally honest with me or else, you know, she would have been honest with me, which means⁠—”

“Okay, so you kissed twice,” Kit says, cutting to the chase.

“Right.” I chew and swallow. “Um, and yeah, that first time Wendy saw us, which was kind of awkward. And so I gave her the dirt bike as, like, a bribe for her silence, and…”

“Okay, you are going to have to slow down,” Kit says. He sighs, picks up his bottle, and downs all of it without breathing. Then he slams it on the bar and leans over.

“Hey, Em,” he calls. “Another one, please?”

“You got it,” she calls back.

When Emerald sets his second beer down, he takes a long pull, squints his eyes shut, and rubs the bridge of his nose under his glasses. His voice sounds tired, and I instantly feel bad for even bothering to tell him all this, for annoying him with it.

But too late now, I guess. “So you have a thing for her. You kiss twice.” He lifts a hand. “No offense, but why are you telling me this? Is this a problem?”

I clutch my own glass. “Yeah,” I say. “I mean, obviously.”

“Why? Cause she was dressed like a guy for a while.” Kit blinks. “Fox. Okay, maybe you’re a little bicurious or something. You need my blessing or something? As your token, I don’t know. Vaguely, whatever I am.” He trails off into a mumble and stares at the bar.

“No,” I say, “no. It’s not that. It’s that I need to not be into her at all.”

Kit does not seem to follow. “Why?”

I breathe out because that’s the thing, isn’t it? He knows, he understands more than anyone on planet Earth why me being close to someone is dangerous. How I’ll find a way to screw it up without meaning to. How every attempt I make to fix things always ends up making them worse. Always, always, always. I wish he would just get it. I wish I didn’t have to say it. I wish twin telepathy were real, and he would just tune in to KFOX radio, and⁠—

“You think you don’t deserve her or something?” His voice is lower now.

I gulp. “I guess,” I mutter. “Not in so many words, but…” I look at him now. Really look at him. A face that’s so much like mine, and yet different, sharper, smaller, less because of me. “I’m just bad for people, okay?” I spit out. “And I don’t want to accidentally, you know, suck her in and wring her dry. Make her life worse. Take stuff from her.” It’s really hard to put words to this, and usually that’s exactly why I like talking to Kit. Because even if twin telepathy isn’t real in a scientifically provable way, he gets it. I can see from the way his brows unknit, his lips part a little, that he’s picking up what I’m putting down.

Then he laughs.

“Asshole,” I mutter. “What’s so funny? I’m being sincere.”

“Just, like, I don’t know, Fox. Give her some credit,” Kit says, in a tone like he can’t even believe what he’s hearing. “Tink’s not some pushover. She’s not naive. She’s not even close to naive.” He swipes a hand through the air.

“She’s really smart and resourceful, and she’s definitely a survivor. I mean, look at her. She’s just—” He bobs his head back and forth, staring up into the overhead lights of the bar. The glint off of his glasses. “She’s amazing,” he says, softly. “I don’t think even you could drag her down.”

It’s a joke, or he means it like a joke, and I know he does. But it still stings a little.

“You don’t get it,” I say, kind of sharply. “It’s not about how good she is at getting through stuff. It’s that—” I struggle to put words to it. “It’s that I don’t want her to have to.” I set my empty beer glass down on the bar, slamming it harder than I mean to. “Fuck, Kit! I hurt everyone I love. You know that.”

I must have said it louder than I meant to because even the little amount of conversation in the bar dies down. The old guys at the end, the Mermaids chatting down by the sink. Kit blinks at me.

“Dude,” he says. “You’ve got to let that go.”

I glower into the mirror where I can see my reflection. My stupid face. Next to his stupid face. “No, I don’t,” I say back at him. I feel weirdly childish about it, like I’m throwing a tantrum. But I don’t get it. I don’t get how he can’t understand. “You of all people should know. I mean, God, Kit, you really think your life wouldn’t be so much better if I weren’t in it, if I hadn’t⁠—”

“I don’t have a life without you,” Kit interrupts. “What are you even talking about? That’s not how this works, or how any of this works. You keep talking like you’re the cause of everyone’s bad luck, and that you’re just bringing on the worst problems in everybody’s life, but you don’t see that it’s, I don’t know, more complex than that. The butterfly effect and shit. I mean, yeah, I guess bad things happen, but also good things came at the same time, you know. You don’t really get to pick and choose how the chips fall, especially when you’re really just doing your best. And it’s the same with her. I mean, the way she ended up here, the way any of us ended up together, it wasn’t ideal. It wasn’t even good most of the time. But it did bring us together. It was like fate or something.”