Rachel ripped open my bedroom door. "Ryan? Are you up? Are you decent?"

  "Am I decent?" I said. "What century are we in?"

  She came fully into my bedroom. She was still in her pajamas but looked bright-eyed, her hair down around her shoulders. "Guess what?" (She did not let me guess.) "Snow day!" She wiggled her phone screen towards me. Six Mile Secondary's social media feed was open.

  "Really?" I said, leaning up on one elbow, peering at her phone. Something about a pipe bursting overnight.

  "Yup," Rachel said happily. "It's a new record. There's never been a snowstorm this te in the spring. Por vortex or something. But… I guess this is a terrible sign, isn't it?"

  "Dad'll probably say it's Biblical." I pulled myself up out of bed. "But it's probably just—"

  "Climate change?"

  "Exactly," I said.

  I looked out my window, past the arbutus tree. Glinting, fresh snow everywhere, bright in the coming dawn. Heavy on tree branches, completely covering our wn, coating the sidewalks. A plow hadn't come through our street yet. Across the road, Stephen's hunched form scraped a foot of snow off the top of his truck. And it was still snowing—soft, fluffy snowfkes snting towards the earth.

  "See?" Rachel said, before turning on her heel and shouting as she walked down the hallway: "MOM! DAD! SCHOOL'S CANCELED!"

  The group chat was blowing up.

  Marty: group hang?

  Casey: ssh group date? Call ana/kat/lily?

  Rob: …

  Rob: ssh I don't have a gf

  Marty: neither does talon, who CARES dude!

  Marty: come on!

  I texted the guys that I had a pounding headache, and immediately sent Talon a separate, private message to tell him I did not in fact feel ill. He sent a message saying he figured and then I sent: wanna hang? I'll come get you in 10. He liked the message and then wrote back: but no bio today!

  I pulled on a walnut-colored sweater, fixed my hair, and brushed my teeth. Dad was in his office on the phone, looking vaguely worried, his fingers tracing his chin. I told Mom and Rachel I'd be back in a second, that I was just grabbing Talon.

  "He's welcome to breakfast," Mom said.

  "Thanks, Mom."

  I felt giddy: not only were Talon and I talking again, but no school on a Monday, and I got to spend the day with him. Outside, the day was mild. Soft snow hit my cheeks. Neighbors were out now, looking sleepy and disturbed, beginning to shovel the pristine snow. Although it was beautiful—the snow unmarred by mud and dog piss and footsteps—they groaned to one another about the unexpected chore.

  Stephen was bent over the sidewalk with a shovel in hand, his faded blue cap pulled down and coat jacket pulled up above his mouth. His truck rattled, idling to warm up.

  "Hey, Ryan," he grunted. He shoveled, flung the snow towards his yard, and dug in again. "Did I hear there's no school?"

  "Yeah, Mr. Michaels," I said. "Snow day."

  He stood up and rested against the handle of the shovel. His cheeks and nose were red from the chill and exertion. "Must be nice," he said, using the back of his hand to swipe at his nose. "Some of us still have to work, eh?"

  A plow beeped in the distance somewhere, maybe the next block over. I turned towards the sound and then back to Stephen. I watched his chapped hands warily. It seemed impossible to me that those hands hurt Talon. That they'd done unspeakable things to him. Those same fingers, curled into a fist, had collided with his own son's face and caused his lip to split. This thought was so jarring, so unbelievable to me, that I had a brief thought: Maybe Talon's lying.

  But I knew he wasn't. I tore my eyes away from Stephen's hands and up to his face. I couldn't bring myself to ask Stephen if he needed help with shoveling, no matter how much my father (and God, probably) would have wanted me to. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself and all that.

  "Yeah, that's crappy, Mr. Michaels," I said. "Is Talon home?"

  He nodded his head towards the house. "You two are hanging out?"

  I said we were.

  "Don't keep him for too long," he said, and went back to shoveling.

  I let myself in. Talon stood in the kitchen wearing a thin bck windbreaker. He was finishing up a mug of something, presumably coffee, and plunked it down on the counter. When he saw me, he smiled tentatively but looked uncomfortable.

  "I was just coming out," he said, "let's go."

  Talon held a thick tattered Dune paperback in his left hand. His lip looked noticeably better today, the swelling having reduced considerably, the clumpy purple mostly gone. We said bye to his dad ("Keep me updated throughout the day, you hear, Talon?" Stephen said and Talon nodded) and headed back to my pce.

  "Hi, sweetie," Mom said, more to Talon than me. She'd pced dishes—the white ones with yellow flowers—on the kitchen table. "Can you believe this snow? Come eat. Waffles and fruit."

  Rachel must have sprinted up the stairs because in the five minutes I'd been gone she'd put on an arming amount of vividly pink lip-gloss and twisted back half her hair.

  "Morning, Talon," Rachel said, beaming at him. "How many waffles do you want?"

  "Oh," Talon said, pulling off his boots, "two would be great."

  "Give him four," Mom said to Rachel.

  "What am I, chopped liver?" I said.

  "Basically," Rachel said.

  "Be nice to your brother," Mom said.

  When I sat down, I kicked Rachel lightly in the shins. She hit me back harder, but plopped three waffles on a pte and pushed it towards me.

  Dad came in when we finished grace. He cpped his hands together. "Okay, team," he said. "Pns for the day."

  "Pns?" Rachel said, frowning through a mouthful of waffle and strawberries and coconut cream.

  On Mondays and Thursdays, Dad hosted one-on-one sessions to discuss spiritual and personal matters; typically, these days were fully booked. Dad expined he had six appointments, but two members canceled in light of the inclement weather. The other four kept their slots and he intended to honor those commitments, snow or no snow. But many of our church's congregation were elderly and he didn't want them to struggle or slip in the snow. So we were all going to head down to the church for the morning to make sure everything was in working order. Clear out the front and back walkways, make sure the heat was on, ensure that there were no plumbing issues.

  "Right now?" I said, gncing at Talon.

  Dad smiled, but there was an edge to it. "Did you have a better time in mind, son?"

  "It's just that it's a snow day," I said, "so do we have to? Can't we just hang out and enjoy it?"

  Dad frowned at me, disappointment in his eyes. "Ryan, I thought we left whining behind in the second grade."

  My mouth snapped shut. It would have been an embarrassing comment even without Talon here, but now it felt particurly mortifying.

  But Talon jumped in, turning in his seat to face my dad: "We can all help, Mr. Cloud. Happy to."

  Rachel looked to Talon and then back to Dad. She nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, Dad, it's no problem at all!"

  Beneath the table, I gave her another pointed kick.

  After Dad finished inspecting the car, he announced we'd walk to church. The plow still hadn't made its way to our street and he determined it would be more trouble than it was worth. After all, the walk was only around twenty-five minutes. Once we finished eating, Mom asked Talon if he wanted to head home briefly to grab a warmer coat. He said he wasn't cold, but I offered him an old one of mine and he took it. Did Talon even have a winter coat? I couldn't recall.

  Once we were at the church, we got to work. Talon and Rachel shoveled out front, clearing the sidewalk and front steps. I covered the back entrance, clearing off the steps leading to the basement. I used my sleeve to wipe off the small second sign in the parking lot. Dad's church technically had a wordy name—Six Mile River Christian Community—but we all simply called it the church as though it was the only one that existed. I went around front but Talon and Rachel were ughing together, nearly finished, so I headed inside.

  I poked my head in Dad's office. He peered up at me from his scheduling book, overrun with highlighted sections, sticky notes, and scribbled marginalia.

  "Everything good outside, son?" he said. He looked tired, shadows under his eyes.

  "All clear. You need anything else?"

  He said he didn't. "Maybe go ask your mother."

  I found Mom downstairs in the small kitchenette. She was making sure there was fresh coffee, hot water for tea, and biscuits. Embarrassed by my comments earlier, I swept and mopped the room before she could ask. Once the space was clean and inviting, I climbed the stairs and sat down in the empty nave, in the front pew.

  I csped my hands between my knees, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. There was so much going on tely I felt like I'd had little chance to just sit and think. For a moment, I cracked open an eye to peek at the raised cross behind the pulpit, trying to absorb some feeling: calm, peace, God's love. Mostly I wanted guidance. But instead, I felt the low hum of slow-burning anxiety, Talon's secrets weighing on me.

  I felt bad for all the ways I'd tried to test God in the past. Childish stuff. When I was five or six, I told God I would believe in him (I'd already said the Lord's Prayer, so who was I fooling?) if he turned my five-dolr bill into a ten. Once when I was in grade two, I prayed for Talon's father to be taken to heaven early so Talon could come live with me forever (I winced remembering this now, thinking, if only). When I was nine, I prayed God would make Craigflower Creek come truly alive like in Bridge to Terabithia (but minus the death at the end, I was always quick to crify). I prayed to feel normal. I prayed to be normal. I also prayed for the usual things: bravery, patience, grit, the endurance to become a doctor, for my parents to stay in love, to make sure Rachel didn't get sick again after that terrible bout of pneumonia when she was ten, and to maybe not get boners in css anymore? (Grade eight was rough.)

  Now, I prayed simply: Tell me what to do.

  Although that was probably God's least favorite prayer, if he had one. (That or the turn-my-five-dolrs-into-ten variety.)

  Someone lowered themselves beside me.

  "Everything okay?" Mom said.

  I opened my eyes. "Just praying."

  "Can I pray about something on your behalf?"

  I thought about this. "Wisdom, maybe."

  Mom patted my leg. "Ever since you were young, you've been so concerned with being good."

  But she didn't know about the cheap deals I tried to strike with God. She didn't know what Talon had asked me to keep from her, from everyone.

  "Well," I said, "I've certainly not succeeded at that."

  Mom looked at me, surprised. "Being good doesn't mean being perfect. It's constantly trying to be better than you were before. Even if you stumble. Especially if you stumble."

  I considered this.

  "Is this about a girl?" Mom smiled. "A certain Lily Beaumont? I remember her, you know. She and her parents used to come to church here. She was smart and funny, even as a little girl."

  "Actually," I said, "there is something I meant to tell you." I turned to her and smiled. "I'm taking her to prom."

  "Oh, wow," Mom said, "so this means we will get to meet her."

  Right. Mom and Dad were chaperoning at my prom. Dad was all about service, community, volunteering. Every summer, I volunteered with the public library to help host full-day first aid courses. Rachel walked dogs and cleaned cages at the SPCA. Mom ran a cooking css every six weeks for free out of the tiny church kitchen and sent participants home with hand-written recipes and a small box of ingredients. And when my school sent out calls for parents to help with graduation, Dad leaped at the opportunity, much to my chagrin. They'd mostly be running the door and then hanging back to help manage the dry grad activities while the rest of us left for afterparties. But still. Who wanted their parents at their prom?

  "And I guess I was just, um, wondering, if like, um, well—" Rachel was saying.

  Mom and I turned in the pew. Rachel looked up at us, wide-eyed, surprised to see us sitting there. Beside her, Talon stood in my old pid winter coat, too rge for him at his current weight, looking impossibly handsome. Snowfkes sat in his hair, quickly melting. His cheeks were red from the wind and effort of shoveling. And his brown eyes looked bright, like I remembered them. He smiled at me and went to bite his lip but seemed to remember the injury. I smiled back.

  Talon turned to Rachel. "Sorry, Rach, what were you saying?"

  Rachel's cheeks reddened. "I forgot."

  "Look," I said, pointing towards the front ptform. "Miss it?"

  He followed my gaze and ughed. On the left side were some of the instruments from yesterday's service; the drum kit was put away but one of the acoustic guitars sat on its stand. A spare microphone stand stood without its mic. Talon had pyed in church with my family over the years. Choir with Mom, filling in on piano or guitar when needed. "Actually, yeah, a bit," he said.

  "Come on," I said, "you should py."

  "Would you mind, Mrs. Cloud?" Talon said.

  "Oh, sweetie, not at all," Mom said. "You all hang out for a bit. Mr. Landry will be here soon and I want to make sure he has a steaming mug of coffee. His arthritis fres in the cold like this."

  When she went downstairs, Rachel sat on the edge of the ptform. Talon tugged off my coat and hung it on the microphone stand, then rolled up the sleeves of his thin, ratty sweater, and grabbed the guitar. He sat on the piano bench that hadn't been tucked away.

  "What should I py?" he asked us.

  I watched his hands find their position on the fretboard and body, loved the way the guitar sat across his legs, wanted to trace my fingers along his exposed forearms.

  "Priority Three," I said.

  Talon looked up at me from beneath his hair. "Their new album, Cortisol City—Ry, have you listened yet?"

  I said I hadn't. "I'll listen tonight."

  "Better yet," Rachel said, "you can show us."

  Talon smiled and began pying. I watched his fingers move easily from chord to chord. He sang softly, but Rachel and I were rapt, taking him in. I never wanted the song to end. I was barely taking it in, though, instead watching his mouth and Adam's apple move, absorbed in the cadence and pitch of his voice.

  "I wish I knew how to do that," Rachel said, leaning back, smiling up at Talon. "Py the guitar."

  "You can learn," he said, "no problem. Here, come sit next to me."

  She hopped up. "I guess I've always, um, wanted to like—you know when people sort of pick at the strings? I like that style."

  He nodded. "Fingerpicking, yeah, of course. I can show you."

  Look, it was stupid, but my stomach twisted with a hint of jealousy when Rachel sat next to him on the piano bench, their thighs squished together.

  "You know this one?" He pyed the opening of "House of the Rising Sun."

  She nodded enthusiastically.

  "It's a pretty easy one to learn for fingerpicking," he said. "Here. I'll show you."

  He began expining the specifics, transferring the guitar to her, adjusting her fingers for her. She watched his face instead of his fingers and had to ask him to repeat himself over and over. Her cheeks were pink, like when they first walked inside. Did Rachel think they were flirting?

  Were they flirting?

  No, no. Surely Talon didn't feel that way about my little sister. They'd known each other since they were kids; Rachel was barely three when the Michaels moved across the street. (You've known him since you were five, I reminded myself.) But if he felt anything about either one of us—and I wasn't saying that he did—it had to be me, right? Considering what happened in the music room when—

  "Time to go," Mom said, reappearing in the entranceway. "Mr. Landry's here now. I think our duties are finished for the morning. And Talon, I could hear you pying from downstairs. Beautiful. You're coming to church next week, I hope?"

  Onions and garlic sizzled in the soup pot on the stove. While they cooked, Mom chopped celery, carrots, and zucchini, waving us away when we offered to help.

  "You three go outside," she said, "this will take, oh, forty minutes, maybe."

  Rachel, Talon, and I raided the tiny storage room next to Dad's office in search of toques and gloves. We pulled them on and headed into the backyard, all that untouched white snow waiting for us. Talon and Rachel were mapping out a snowman. I bent down, rolled a quick, loose snowball and held it behind my back.

  When Talon turned to ask me something, I shot it at Talon. It hit him square in the chest.

  Shocked, he looked down at the remnants stuck to my coat and then to my face. "Ry!" he said. Grinning, he bent down, hastily built his own snowball, and tossed it at me.

  I ducked but it still clipped the top of my head. While kneeling, I scooped up more snow and threw it at Talon, who escaped just in time.

  A snowball flew through the air and hit me in the shoulder. "Hey!"

  Rachel ughed. "Got you." A snowball collided with her stomach. "What the—?" She turned, where Talon was stifling a smile.

  "Got you back," he said pyfully.

  Rachel's cheeks again turned pink.

  Again, I thought, are they flirting?

  But this was how they always acted. Or at least, this was how Talon always acted. He and Rachel were close, friendly, basically siblings. It was Rachel who was being different tely, right?

  When we tired ourselves out throwing soft snowballs at one another, we got to work on our snowman. I rolled the rotund bottom section, Talon took the middle, and Rachel molded the head, then yered them to look like a crooked body. Digging through the snow near one of our bushes, Talon found two mismatched rocks for the eyeballs; I went inside for a rge, unpeeled carrot ("ten more minutes," Mom said to my retreating back) and stuck it in the middle of the snowman's face. Rachel undid her pink gingham scarf and tied it around the neck.

  "Not a snowman," she said, "a snowwoman."

  "Or what about a snowpal?" Talon said.

  "I love it," Rachel said.

  "We need arms," I said.

  "Right," said Rachel, "let's take a look."

  When we couldn't find any through the snow we tore off two twiggy branches from the bottom of the arbutus tree near my window.

  "I want a photo of this creation," I said, "move closer." I held up my phone while Talon and Rachel stood next to the snowman—snowpal—beaming. Rachel gave the camera a double thumbs up. Talon's eyes were halfway through a blink but his smile was loose and rexed.

  Then it was time for lunch. Mom loaded us up with overflowing bowls of minestrone soup: veggies, greens and white beans, ditalini, fire-roasted tomatoes, kale. She toasted French bread and set it in the middle of the table. Talon eyed his bowl hungrily before we said grace—Rachel led this time, whipping through it and, when I peeked my eyes open, I saw her doing the same, peering at Talon—and then we all dug in. We thanked Mom for the delicious food and, after a second helping each and us three kids tidying the kitchen, curled up in the living room to watch a movie.

  Talon and I sat on the couch. Rachel took the chair, holding our biggest, fluffiest throw pillow in her p. Mom was gifted it by her sister one year. Embroidered on the pillow in a gaudy yellow stitch was the phrase: Warning! I may talk about Jesus at any time. Rachel and I hated it, but it was the best pillow in the house, perfect for getting cozy. The three of us argued for about ten minutes about what to watch. Secretly, I was in the mood for a good horror movie, but Mom and Dad ranged from making snide remarks to outright disallowing us to watch them, depending on the movie. More importantly, Talon couldn't stand them. Rachel wanted to watch out a new dating reality show, which actually sounded kind of fun, but I didn't want Mom to poke her head in at the wrong moment. So eventually we settled on a comedy we'd all seen a million times.

  Talon half-dozed as we watched, his chin in his hand. He was on one side of the couch and I was on the other, so our feet met in the middle beneath the throw bnket. Talon was ticklish—something I'd discovered when we were young and consistently used to my advantage when I was feeling mischievous—so I was careful now with how I pced my foot. About twenty minutes in, he tucked his toes beneath mine. I gnced at him to find him looking at me, and then we both averted our eyes back to the TV screen.

  Dad got home shortly after five. At that point, most of the roads had been plowed. Rachel said we should order in but Dad didn't want a delivery person driving right now, even though snow was no longer coming down. As Mom and Dad were discussing what to eat, I noticed something was off with Talon.

  We were standing in the doorway of the kitchen. He had tucked the sleeves of his sweater over his lefthand fingers and his breath was coming in hitches. But it was his face that I was looking at: he'd gone a bit pale, and his eyes seemed unfocused, and he was chewing on his index finger, ripping the skin with his teeth.

  Rachel gnced up from the kitchen table, frowning in his direction. She must have noticed, too.

  I leaned closer to Talon. "Hey, want to go upstairs?"

  He nodded. I excused us from the kitchen and led him up to my room.

  When we got there, he sat on the edge of my bed and closed his eyes. He wrapped his arms around himself. Tentatively, I sat down next to him.

  "Tal?" I said gently. "What's going on?"

  He shook his head. His lower lip and chin shook violently. Clearly, he was on the verge of crying.

  "I can't breathe properly," he said through gritted teeth. "My chest… it's tight. It hurts."

  "What kind of pain?"

  "It's like a—like a quick stabbing. Shooting pain kind of."

  In lifeguard lessons, we had been trained to differentiate between a heart attack and a panic attack. Sharp meant panic, squeezing or crushing could indicate heart attack. Besides, given his age and health, there was probably no way he was having an actual heart issue.

  "Okay," I said softly. "You want to take some breaths with me?"

  He squeezed his eyes closed. "Ry, am I dying?"

  "No, no," I said. I put a hand on his shoulder. "I think you're just maybe having a panic attack. You can squeeze me if you want. Or whatever you need."

  "My fingers are going numb," he said, and I heard the fear in his voice.

  "That's because you're not breathing properly, it's okay." I rubbed his shoulder. "It's not indicative of a bigger problem. Take a deep breath—yeah, like that—now hold it. Hold it."

  But he couldn't. He wiped beneath his eyes with his palms. "I don't—I—sorry, I don't know why I'm—"

  "Don't be sorry. Let's try again."

  It took five attempts but eventually his breathing evened out, his tears stopped. He still held himself tightly—God, so tightly, muscles cramped and tense—but I continued to rub his shoulder while he breathed.

  When he was coming down from it, looking rosier in the cheeks, I asked if he knew what happened.

  "No," he said, "well—yes."

  "What is it?"

  "I was just thinking of going home," he said, bringing his red finger up to his mouth again. "Because we're going to have dinner—me and your family, I mean—and then after that it'll be time for me to head back."

  "Tal, then—don't," I said. "Please. You don't have to ever go back home. With everything that's—"

  But he shook his head. "No, no," he said. "it's okay. It's fine. I told you. I can handle it."

  "Then why are you panicking?"

  "I don't know," he said. "You know when sometimes you think of a test and your palms get sweaty? Even the ones you've studied for?" He allowed for a small smile. "Well, actually, maybe you don't get that. But it's like, even if I'm prepared, I still hate tests, and they make my heart race even when I know the material. So I guess going home just reminds me of… of… It's just not a good feeling."

  Keep him here, I thought. But I didn't know how. Tell Mom and Dad. But I'd promised him, I swore. I watched him, desperately trying to come up with a solution that would simultaneously help Talon without letting him down, that would get him away from his father without anyone having to know what he'd told me. But no formu made sense: there was always some variable that didn't align with the next, that made the whole algorithm crumble.

  "Let's go back down," Talon said, "I don't want them to know something was wrong." He wiped his face one st time with the sleeve of his sweater. "I'm good, really."

  "I had a really nice day," Talon said.

  We were standing on his front doorstep. Stephen's truck wasn't parked out front, which gave me a fleeting sense of joy for Talon; his dad must be working te. Probably lots of issues with the unexpected snow. Mom made pasta for dinner and once again ensured Talon had an extra pte and sent him home with leftovers. He held the full Tupperware in his hands, steam clouding the container.

  "Maybe you could stay a little longer?" I said. "It's only six-thirty. I know you said no bio but we could do a few fshcards."

  He adjusted the Tupperware, reached over and briefly took my hand in his. "I'll text you," he said.

  "Morning and—"

  "Morning and night," he said, rolling his eyes but smiling. "I know, I know."

  When I got back home, I propped up a pillow and flopped back against my headboard. I sent Talon the picture I'd taken of him and Rachel and our snowman. Snowpal. Rachel beamed, bits of snow caught in her hair and in clumps along the colr of her jacket. The snowpal was lopsided, a bit janky, but cheerful with his etched-in smile and twiggy arms. But all I could see was Talon's grin, the way my coat hung on his shoulders, his hair shiny in the afternoon sunshine. He wrote back: thanks ry. Then: wish you were in the pic too. I thought of how he'd held my hand; what did it mean? Maybe just a goodbye, a goodnight, a farewell. I hoped he would fall asleep peacefully and easily. I hoped he was telling the truth, that the situation with his dad was getting better and not worse. And I hoped if the first two things couldn't happen, that I'd wake in the middle of the night to our knock, our code (two-one-two) because he decided he was going to stay here after all. I put my earbuds in, pulled up Priority Three's test album, and started listening.