“What are you doing?” I asked Adam as he and Rob both walked me back into the bedroom.

“You need to leave him alone, like we tried to tell you,” Adam said.

“Why is he so mad with me?” I cried as the three of us sat down on the bed.

“He’s not mad with you Lisette,” Rob said. “He’s mad with himself.”

“Why?”

“Because he can’t stop himself from wanting you, and if it turns out that you’re his sister, then in his mind that makes him kind of a monster.”

“You just need to give this time,” Adam said.

He pulled me gently back down on the bed to lay down between them and they both curled around me. It wasn’t the same without Michael here. I couldn’t sleep without him. Even when my eyes got heavy and felt as though I couldn’t hold them open, I still couldn’t sleep without him. When they closed, I still saw him even through my eyelids. I saw Michael lying on the couch alone and I saw him crying. I knew that even though it was inside my own head, that was what he was doing out there. In all the situations that we had ever been in, this was the worst. We said that nothing could ever change the fact that we would be together forever, that we would be lovers for as long as we lived, no matter what we had to face together. But neither of us expected this. Not in a million years did either of us think that something like this might happen. This was the one and only thing that actually could keep us from being together, and there was nothing at all that we could do about it.

Eventually, I must have fallen asleep, because I started to dream. I hadn’t had any dreams in a while, and I was afraid to have one tonight. I knew that any dream that I would have tonight would be filled with fear and remorse and angst. I tried to wake myself up before the dream started, but I couldn’t.

In my dream, it was only me and Michael there. The other guys weren’t around, our mothers weren’t around, and our fathers weren’t around either. I was glad, at least, for that. Michael and I were sitting on the couch together, except this time there was a blazing fire and a bottle of open wine with half-filled glasses. We talked and laughed about nothing in particular, and Michael rubbed my shoulders. Every once in a while, I would tip my head back to kiss him and he would try to kiss me back and miss and end up kissing the top of my nose instead. The dream was nice, and it felt like things were back to normal and back to the way that they should be. We were relaxed, and in love, and having fun. When the wine bottle was empty, Michael got up to go get another one.

“Can you bring some water out with you too?” I asked, anticipating that things might start to get heated and that we might both want a sip of cold water after things got hot and heavy and we needed a rest to hydrate and breathe.

“Sure thing, sis,” Michael said.

That was when I woke up.

And it hadn’t been a dream, it was a nightmare.

I could tell because I woke up with a drenched shirt and a racing heartbeat. It wasn’t difficult to tell where that dream had come from.

“Are you alright?” Adam asked as both he and Rob sat up in bed.

Rob grabbed my hand to steady its shaking, and Adam got up to get me one of his clean shirts to put on so that I could take my damp one off.

“I had a nightmare,” I said.

I didn’t want to talk about what it was about. After I had put Adam’s shirt on and laid back down, I tried to go back to sleep but I couldn’t. I knew that Michael was out there not sleeping as well.

Because this was when we usually were together in our own little world cornered away from the rest of the bullshit that had unfolded ever since we met.

I wasn’t sure what we were all waiting for. A few days passed by as if we were waiting for some sort of answer or clarification on the situation to drop from the sky, but obviously that wasn’t going to happen. Every time that Michael and I passed each other in the cabin, it was so uncomfortable that you could practically see the angst hanging in the air between us. Every time we happened to catch each other’s lingering glances, we quickly diverted our eyes and looked away. This couldn’t go on forever.

Michael had all but moved out of the bedroom completely and was now setting up his makeshift space in the living room. Speaking of moving, neither Adam nor Rob now had immediate plans to move out. They felt like we needed them here in the cabin with us until things were resolved. I was seriously starting to question whether or not things ever would be resolved.

“Michael, this is ridiculous,” I said one morning as we both went to reach for coffee at the same time. “How long are we going to keep this up?”

“Keep what up?” he asked without looking at me.

He knew exactly what I meant, but I still indulged him. “This whole thing where we pretend that we aren’t madly in love and we just try to move through the motions of each day ignoring each other.”

“I’m not ignoring you, Lisette. Trust me, I wish I could, but instead I can’t help but have my eyes follow you every day,” he said as he reached to pour his coffee.

I touched my hand to the top of his and he froze. His fingers let go of the coffee and he looked up at me as if he was too scared to move, or too scared that he might inadvertently do something he shouldn’t if he were to move. I stepped closer to him.

“What are you doing?” he asked me with wide and wary eyes.

I didn’t answer him. Instead, I threw my arms around his torso and held onto him in a tight hug. No matter what, we needed to be able to hold onto each other and know that we were always there when we needed each other. For a minute he held still, but then he slowly wrapped his arms around me as well. We stood there hugging each other for a long while. But after several minutes that I didn’t want to end, Michael suddenly let go and pushed me away as if he had suddenly remembered that he shouldn’t have touched me because it would just make matters worse when we had to let go. I wanted to talk to him, but he grabbed his coffee and walked out the back door of the cabin.

“Have you seen Rob yet this morning?” Adam asked as he came out of the shower.

“No, why?”

“He told me that he was going to get some more firewood, but that was like two hours ago, and I’ve been texting him and he’s not answering me.”

“I’m sure he’s fine,” I said.

Neither of us thought anything else about it, until Michael came back in about an hour later. Still, Rob hadn’t returned with the firewood. Adam told Michael of his concern, and he brushed it off, thinking that Rob probably went on one of his meandering walks. But after several hours, it was too hard to ignore that there was reason to be concerned. We went out into the surrounding woods together and looked for him. There really wasn’t anything here that would attack him or pose a threat, so I was really confused about what could have happened. Worry was starting to settle in, and we only had a couple more hours now before dark.

“Where could he have gone?” I asked as we walked further away from the cabin. “I don’t know why he would come all the way out here. Do you think maybe he’s playing some sort of trick?”

“Rob isn’t much of a trickster,” Michael said.

“Yes, I know. But it’s not like him to just get up and leave somewhere and not come back. I’m worried about him.”

Michael gave me a strange look and then conceded to agree with me.

“There’s no reason to worry,” Michael said as he tried to reassure me.

But then a piece of silver metal shone up from the ground as it caught the reflection of the sky. Adam reached down to pick it up and take a look at it.

“This is the ax that Rob brought out with him today,” Adam said.

“Why would it be so far away from the cabin?” I asked. There was plenty of good wood to chop right next to the cabin.

“I don’t know,” Adam said.

“Over here,” Michael said.

He was just a few steps away from us and was looking at something else that was lying on the ground—Rob’s shoe.

“Okay,” Michael said. “I think now there may actually be valid reason to worry.”

I reached into my pocket to grab my phone and tried to dial Rob’s phone number, but there was only a disconnecting sound as soon as the call went through. There was no way to reach him, wherever he was.

“Let’s go back to the cabin,” Adam said. “Maybe he’s back there already.”

We walked back to the cabin, but when we got there, there was no sign of Rob.