Half of My Heart ✔️

22 | up in flames

"Open it, open it, open it," Mom urges, cradling a lightning bug in her hands. I twist the lid off the mason jar and hold it out to her. She smiles and guides the insect into the container, and I screw it shut again, making sure the small air holes in the top aren't blocked.

"That's nine," I say triumphantly. "We totally beat them." Mom and I both do a little happy dance.

Mom smiles and takes the jar from my hand, holding it up to her face to inspect. The little bugs are crawling around, their butts lighting up every few seconds. The sky is almost pitch-black at this time in the evening, so their luminance is even more prominent.

"How many?" Dad calls from across the backyard. He and Dani are huddled around their own jar, and I can't see how many they caught. Definitely less than us.

Mom holds the jar to her chest, covering it so they can't see how many we have. She smirks as Dad walks up to us. "I don't know . . ." she says coyly. "How many do you have?"

Dad gets closer to Mom and takes her hand, pulling it away from the jar. Mom relents, pulling away from Dad to keep the jar hidden. She laughs as he takes her wrist and twists her so her back is pressed to his chest. He peers over her shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse. "What do we have here?" He asks, hugging her close and coaxing our jar from her hand.

I groan, watching as Dad finally wrestles it from her hands. Keeping Mom in his arms, he holds up our jar and counts our lightning bugs. "Nine lightning bugs?" He says, giving the jar back to Mom. "That's impressive."

I beam. "I know," I say, flipping my hair. "How many do you and Dani have? Five? Six, maybe?"

Dad shrugs and turns around as Dani walks up to us. "I don't know. Nellie, how many lightning bugs did we get?" He asks her, and I catch onto the gloating in his voice.

Dani holds up her and Dad's jar, and it's so bright that I can hardly count how many are buzzing around in there. I fume. "Eleven?" I exclaim, taking the jar from my younger sister. "What the fuck?"

"Language, Scar," Mom scolds, breaking free of Dad's grasp and holding the jar with me. "What the fuck?" She yells, counting them and confirming the number of lightning bugs that Dad and Dani caught. "How the hell did you two catch this many?"

Dad laughs, taking it from us. "Come on, Riv," he says, kissing Mom's cheek as she recounts the bugs. "Don't be a sore loser."

"Yeah," Dani adds, "some of us are born with it. Some aren't."

I scoff. "Whatever. You caught two more. Big whoop."

"Two is a lot," Dani says. "Two lightning bugs. Two guys chasing after y—"

I jab her in the arm and walk away. She laughs behind me. I walk up to where Archer, Jack, and Levi are drawing with chalk on the driveway.

Very manly of them.

From what I can tell, Archer and Jack are drawing very terrible portraits of each other, laughing all the while. Jack adds a pair of buck teeth to Archer's portrait, and in response, Archer is drawing two chalk boobs on Jack's portrait.

A few feet away from them, Levi is drawing — I crane my neck — a toilet.

I smile, standing over their drawings. "Nice job," I say.