Good, I think, smiling and waving to her. Now the boys will be distracted as well.

Georgia gives me a happy nod as she heads into the house, looking for the boys, and I pull my legs up onto the little loveseat as well, beaming at Delia and Emma.

“We’ll have some privacy now,” I say, smiling at them.

“Privacy,” Emma says, looking through the window at the house filled with people, “seems to be a…relative term. In this house.”

“Oh, it’s not so bad,” I laugh, tucking my hair behind my ears and shaking my head. “You get used to it – it feels…I don’t know. Like a sports team, or something. Everyone working together towards the same goal. And most of the Betas go home at night.”

“Most of them?” Emma asks, raising her eyebrow. “We always had guards at mom and dad’s house, but we they were always outside the house.”

“Well, here to,” I say with a shrug. “Though I guess it’s…smaller.”

“I think it’s nice,” Delia says warmly. “I always liked a full house growing up.”

I c**k my head to the side and study the two of them, wondering what all of this house talk was getting to. “Are you guys thinking about moving in together or something?” I blurt suddenly, curious.

Emma blinks at me and then blushes, I think not really used to being asked about her private life so straightforwardly. After a life with Joyce, after all, she’s probably not used to anyone asking about her thoughts or her plans at all.

“Actually,” Delia says, unphased by my question (she knows me, after all) and taking Emma’s hand, “kind of…the opposite.”

breathe, sudden horrified. “Are you – you’re not – you can’t be breaking up –“

girlfriend, “because she wants you to guess. But I know you’ll have a

agree, nodding eagerly, my eyes

little shrug and squeezing Delia’s hand. “We’re

I ask, not

for awhile at least. We’re going to go wherever we want,

I breathe, suddenly flooded with mixed emotions. “That sounds

you so much!” Delia finishes for me, reaching out to take my

excited for you! And like – jealous!

with me, but

“Oh no, I don’t want you to feel guilty, but I really am going to miss you so much. What made you

just been…it feels like, my whole life,

at my sister, listening and

“which I know you understand, Evelyn. And then, after that? It was…Joyce’s life. Joyce’s life, Joyce’s world, Joyce’s choices. I was…nobody. I feel like I completely lost

hangs her head a little, remembering

didn’t stop her from doing that?” Emma is choked now, as she looks down at the floor of the porch. “But Joyce – I

little tremor of horror running through me at the life my sister lived, at the life I was supposed to have lived. And I know that it’s not because she was weaker than me – I would have collapsed to it as well. It was only my desperation

Delia says, picking up where Emma left of. “Since we started…discovering our feelings for each other.

now that he’s gone? Now that you’ve given me that freedom, Evelyn?” Emma says, raising her eyes to shake her head in wonder at me. “I have…a liberty that I

that rises in me. This, I think. This is why Victor and I want to lead. To give more people this

turn to her. I laugh too, then, realizing that Delia is right – it was getting too serious, too

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