When we leave the following morning I hug each of them. Puey, Top, Jane, even Nerd. Despite only knowing them a short amount of time I feel an indescribable affection for each of them. Pie hugs them too. When we arrive back at our own house Pie sighs.

‘I’m going to miss it here,’ she says.

‘Me too,’ I say. We’re still for a moment, silent. Pie’s phone buzzes.

Let me know if you need anything xx aunt In

Pie looks up at me. ‘Do we need anything for tomorrow?’

‘A new car. Mike knows ours, he’d spot it if we were driving behind him. I don’t think we need anything else.’

Pie nods, I hear her fingers tap quickly on her screen. She clicks her phone off. There’s – not an awkwardness hanging between us but definitely a wall of some kind. Already a distance that wasn’t there before has come down, cutting us off from one another.

‘Pie –’

‘I’m going to have a shower,’ says Pie quickly. She turns away and walks up the stairs leaving me alone in the sunlight living room.

+

I wake up on the couch with the sun gently lowering itself over the lip of the earth. The leather seat is stuck to my cheek, I pull away and sit up, swallowing the dryness in my mouth. My last day with Pie, and I’d wasted it sleeping. I didn’t even realize I was falling asleep, I just wanted to watch some TV while Pie was in the shower and then the next thing I knew –

There’s a faint splash. I get to my feet and stretch until I hear something crack. The house is dim now, filled with the cool darkness of evening. And clearly visible through the window, floating in the pool, is Pie.

‘How was your nap, sleepyhead?’ Pie says when I step outside. She leans against the edge of the pool and smiles up at me. ‘You slept all day. I hope it’s alright that I didn’t wake you.’

‘Are you ok?’ I ask, sitting down on the damp cement. Pie frowns.

‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘I don’t know. It’s just, you’re in the pool.’

Pie’s expression shifts very, very slightly. She pushes herself backwards into the water, her hair swirls with the movement. ‘So?’ She says it like a challenge.

‘So you always like to go for a swim when you’re in a bad mood. It’s what you do. It’s where you think.’

We stare at each other for a long, silent moment. Finally, it dawns on me that I shouldn’t know that. Pie never told me that. But I was so certain. Coming down here and seeing her in water, I knew what it meant, without a doubt. There’s a pressure in my head, like when a migraine is building, the heavy tenderness that comes before the pain.

‘Kim?’ Pie is watching me. With the light of the day fading, Pie is lit up by the blue glow under the pool. She looks like nothing I’ve ever seen before. For a moment I feel it – I feel it slip into place – I feel the edges of my mind catch on one another and slide together – for a moment everything is –

It’s gone. Pie says, ‘Kim?’

‘Sorry.’ I shake my head. The feeling is gone. ‘Sorry. What were we talking about?’

‘Nothing.’ Pie swims to the set of stairs leading into the pool and stands on the lowest one. Her hair hangs limply down her back. ‘Nothing.’

+

Dinner is a quiet affair. For some reason I feel like I should apologize to Pie – for what I have no idea, but still the thought sits uncomfortably on my shoulders. I don’t say it until we’re both lying in bed. Pie says, ‘goodnight,’ and I say,

‘I’m sorry.’

Pie shifts to look at me. ‘Sorry for what?’

‘I – don’t know. I just am.’

‘Dummy,’ she says. ‘You don’t have to apologize for anything.’

She falls asleep with her hand just next to mine and I feel worse than ever.

+

I wake up around 3am. The blue of the night sky has been washed out, watered down to a pale skin that shades the earth. Soon the sun will break through the night skin and the day will begin, but at the moment it’s the time of night-day where everything is in-between and real unreal.

That’s how it feels when I sit up and look down Pie, sleeping quietly next to me. Real unreal. Nothing makes sense but at the moment that’s ok. That’s allowed. I watch as Pie wakes up like I did only moments before, like she had never been asleep. Her eyes are liquid as she looks at me. I can see the watery blue sky and the real unreal of everything.

‘Kim,’ she says. Her hand curls around the sheet. The breeze that dripped in through the window shifts her hair to the left and it falls back.

‘Pie.’ She’s watching me, but not expectantly. Not hopefully. Just watching. The sun rises with aching slowness. ‘Do you know why I’m so confused?’

She nods.

I move closer. ‘Will it ever make sense?’

Her hand brushes over the top of my own. ‘I don’t know,’ she says. For a moment I feel like I want to cry. There’s an itch behind my eyes, the uncomfortable feeling that comes before tears. Pie runs a finger over my jawline, quick and bright.

‘Go back to sleep,’ she says softly. ‘You won’t remember this in the morning anyway.’

‘I won’t?’

She shakes her head. ‘You never do.