Free One of Us Is Next by Karen M. McManus Page A

cuffs are. It’s the rest of the world that seems brighter when she’s around, I guess. Even the chalk-scrawled specials on Café Contigo’s blackboard wall look extra vibrant. “You need to come home for grad school, okay? This distance thing isn’t working for me.”
    “Me either,” Bronwyn sighs. “Turns out I’m a California girl at heart. Who knew?” She dunks a spoon into her latte to redistribute the foam in a thin layer. “But you might not even be here then if you go to school in Hawaii.”
    “Bronwyn, come on. We both know I’m not going to the University of Hawaii,” I say, chasing my last bite of alfajore with a sip of water. My voice is light, casual. The kind of tone that says I won’t go there because I’m not an island person and not I won’t go there because I had another nosebleed this morning. It was minor, though. Stopped within a few minutes. I don’t have any joint pain, fever, or weird bruises, so it’s fine.
    Everything’s fine.
    Bronwyn puts down her spoon and folds her hands, giving me one of her serious looks. “If you could be anywhere in five years, doing anything at all, what would you pick?”
    Nope. We are absolutely not discussing this. If I start talking five years in the future with my sister, all my careful compartmentalizing will vanish and I’ll crack open like an egg. Spoiling her visit, her semester, and a million other things. “You can’t analyze my future right now,” I say, grabbing another cookie. “It’s bad luck.”
    “What?” Bronwyn’s brow creases. “Why?”
    I point to the clock on the wall, which has been reading ten o’clock since the batteries died a week ago. “Because that’s broken. Time is literally standing still.”
    “Oh my God, Maeve.” Bronwyn rolls her eyes. “That’s not even an actual superstition. That’s just something you and Ita made up. She says hi, by the way.” Now that Bronwyn lives in Connecticut, she gets to see our grandparents regularly. Our grandfather, Ito, is still a visiting lecturer at Yale. “Also that you’re perfect and her favorite.”
    “She did not say that.”
    “It was implied. It’s always implied. Sunday dinners with Ito and Ita are basically Maeve Appreciation Night.” Bronwyn sips her coffee, suddenly looking pensive. “So…if today is already bad luck, does that mean we can talk about me and Nate maybe being broken up for good this time?”
    “Bronwyn. What is with you guys?” I shake my head as her mouth droops. “Why can’t you figure this out? Your entire relationship started from talking on the phone, for crying out loud! Just do that for like, three months at a time and you’ll be fine.”
    “I don’t know,” she says unhappily. She takes off her glasses and rubs her eyes. I brought her here straight from the airport, and she’s obviously a little jet-lagged after her cross-country flight. She’s missing some classes to be here, which Dad isn’t wild about, but Mom can’t resist bringing Bronwyn home for an extra day when she visits. “We’re just never in sync anymore,” she says. “When I’m feeling good about things, he’s feeling like he’s holding me back. ” She puts up finger quotes with a grimace. “When he starts talking about what we should do over spring break, I wonder if I made a mistake not signing up for that volunteer trip I was interested in. Then I think about him living in that house with all those roommates, and girls in and out all the time, and I get so jealous that it makes me irrational. Which is not like me.”
    “No, it’s not,” I agree. “Plus, you live in a dorm, so. Same thing.”
    “I know,” she sighs. “It’s just so much harder than I thought it would be. Everything I do or say feels wrong with him.”
    I don’t bother asking if she still loves Nate. I know she does. “You’re overthinking it,” I tell her, and she snorts out a laugh.
    “Oh, you think ? That’d be a first.” Her phone vibrates on the table, and