Cam Girl

“At me?”

“At me. For taking this away from myself.”

She started to say something and a creak sounded from upstairs, the noise that used to terrify her at night.

“Emily?” called a man’s voice.

“Be right back.” Ellis squeezed my arm. “Don’t burn the house down.”

Reading my mind, like always.

When she returned I’d slid to the floor beside the fireplace. Either the house was freezing or I was having some kind of episode. I huddled against my knees, shaking. Ellis knelt beside me and took me in her arms.

“Baby, it’s okay.”

Not really. Not when I was sitting in a mausoleum filled with ghosts, specters drawn by some cocky, arrogant girl who knew she was good, knew she could draw like the devil, knew she had a big bright future waiting and all the time in the world to grow into it.

I wanted to scream at that girl. Smug idiot. These are the last things you’ll ever create. The last things you’ll communicate to the world.

Why did you let fear control you? Why did you let it hold you back?

Ellis lifted my face, brushed tears away with the heel of her hand. “Vada.”

“Emily.”

She went very still.

“I’ve known since summer,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

She released me, sat back on the floor. “You didn’t say anything.”

“I was waiting for you to explain. It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does.” She swallowed. “Why didn’t you tell me you knew?”

“Why didn’t you tell me your real name?”

Her jaw flexed. “It’s not my ‘real’ name. My real name is Ellis.”

“Why did you change it?”

“Because it wasn’t me.” The muscle in her throat rippled. “It was someone else. Someone my parents named. Someone my parents made. This is the me that I made.”

Her eyes were wet. Great.

“Ellis, I’m sorry. It doesn’t matter. But why didn’t you tell me, in all these years?”

“Because I’m not her. I don’t want you to see me as her.”

I started to speak but movement caught my eye.

A man stood on the stairs.

“That’s Brandt,” Ellis muttered, helping me stand.

“How rude. Are you not going to introduce your . . . friend?”

That voice, deep and playful, like the vibrato of a double bass. He was blond and broad-shouldered, but lean. Handsomer than I’d imagined: vulpine jaw, wry features, same dashing squint as Ellis. A Zoeller thing, apparently. Scars distorted his face, white jags of lightning pulling at the skin. His nose had a slight crook where it had once been broken.

“Hi,” I said, staring.

“Hi.”

Brandt smiled, revealing a gold molar. It was oddly disarming. If anything, the scars accentuated how too-perfect that face must’ve been before.

He slung his arm around Ellis and ruffled her hair. She elbowed him and he faked a pained gasp and when she apologized, he ruffled her hair again. They could’ve been twins.

“So this is the legendary Vada Bergen,” Brandt said. “Now I see why my cuz is so wet for you.”

“Oh my god,” Ellis said. “Boundaries, Brandt.”

“Sorry. You ladies care to join me in a drink?”

“You’re underage.”

“Relax. Vada doesn’t look like a narc. She looks like she’s fun at parties.”

In the kitchen he took two bottles from the fridge. The opener was exactly where I remembered, and I glanced up at Ellis, my chest tightening.

“Are we having a tender moment?” Brandt said.

I snatched the bottles from him. “Are you twenty-one?”

“Busted. Twenty in April.”

“Which day?”

“Eleventh.”

“Mine’s the tenth,” I said, and popped the caps. “Okay, you can drink with supervision. But don’t turn me in.”

“Your secret’s safe with me, Ms. Bergen.”

Heat crept up my neck. I looked away.

The three of us wandered back into the living room gallery.

“You’re really good,” Brandt said.

I shrugged and he shrugged one shoulder, imitating me.

“I don’t know shit about art,” he said, nodding at a portrait of Ellis with her crooked, beguilingly boyish smile, “but anyone who makes Emily look that hot has talent.”

Ellis covered her face with her hands.

“She is that hot,” I fired back. “But thanks for the kudos. Means a lot, coming from a Philistine.”

Brandt gri

Ellis said, “I’m going to the bathroom. Then we’re leaving.”

We waited quietly till she was out of the room.

“Your cousin’s name is Ellis,” I said. “Stop calling her Emily.”

“I grew up calling her Em. Easy to slip.”

“You didn’t slip. You did it on purpose the first time you saw me here, too. This summer. I know you remember.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because you’re a troublemaker.” I leaned on a sofa. “Tell me about your disability.”

“What disability?”

“You favor your left arm.”

Brandt tilted his head. “Sharp eye.”

“How much function do you have?”

He raised his right shoulder, grimacing. The elbow didn’t bend. “It’s like a parasite. Hanging off my body. Sucking me dry.”

“How’d it happen?”

“I got what I deserve.” Brandt laughed. “You can’t run forever. The past always catches up with you.”

My throat went thick. “Do you know who did it to you?”

“Do you know who did it to you?” He gestured to my right arm. “You favor your left, too. We match, Vada.”

Observant.

I took a long sip, eyeing him. This wasn’t anything. He was just trying to provoke me.

A bored kid, going stir-crazy in his house, like I was.

“I’ve dealt with depression,” I said. “You can’t will it away. If you need someone to talk to, I’ve been there.”

“You want to be my therapist?”

“No. I’m not even sure I want to be your friend.”

Brandt smirked. “Brutal. I like it.”

“Listen, I care about Ellis. A lot. If you’re part of her life, you’re part of mine. But I don’t tolerate people who hurt her. No matter if they’re blood relatives.”

“So I’ve heard.” He lifted his bottle. “You’re very protective of your personal punching bag.”

I actually felt the words hit, right in my solar plexus.

Brandt’s eyes gleamed. Same green as hers, but his were cold, unblinking. Reptilian.

“We should get going,” I said, pushing off the couch.

He moved into the kitchen doorway.

“What are you doing?”

No answer.

I stepped around him and he touched my arm. My hand snapped to his.

“You don’t want to fuck with me,” I said. “And you especially don’t want to fuck with Ellis.”

“Feisty.”

I grabbed his other arm and twisted it in the socket. He hissed in pain.

“Not feisty,” I corrected. “Dangerous.”

Tears sprang to his eyes. I released.

“Vada. Stay, please. I’m so fucking bored.” He slouched in the doorway. “You two are always off playing lesbian Martha Stewart. No one can hold an intelligent conversation. Jerking off southpaw is giving me RSI. My mind is lonely.”

His words and his voice resonated with me, familiar.

We had more in common than I cared to admit.

“Pro tip,” I said. “Don’t ever physically accost a woman. We’re much more likely to stay when it’s our choice.”

His head bowed.

“Is everything all right?” Ellis said, coming down the hall.

“Yep.” I gathered our bottles to toss in the trash.

“Those go in the recycling,” Brandt said.

Ellis frowned. “Since when are you environmentally conscious?”

“I’ve always cared deeply about the Earth. I want it to be pretty for the day I assume control.”

The recycling bin was near overflow. I rinsed the bottles and dropped them in, nudging aside wood chips and shavings.

“He’s right,” I said. “Apparently he composts.”

“Portland chicks dig sensitive tree huggers. Right, Vada?”

“That’s the other Portland.”

“My bad. What kind of guys do you dig?”

“The kind who aren’t douchebags.”

“How about the kind who aren’t guys?”

Ellis looked at him, then me. “Let’s go before it’s dark.”