-eng- Sleeping Cousin -rj353254- May 2026

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. Because the moment I spoke, the spell would break. She would wake, and the knowing would begin, and the summer would become something I had to apologize for.

And then, without opening her eyes, she whispered—so softly I almost thought I imagined it— "Tu es là." -ENG- Sleeping Cousin -RJ353254-

Minutes passed. Or an hour. Time had turned syrupy. A moth bumbled against the screen, frantic and soft. I watched her breathe. In. Out. In. Out. The rhythm began to sync with my own heart. I didn’t answer

I should have left. I knew that. The rational part of my brain—the part that sounded like my mother, like every etiquette book, like the unspoken law of cousins and family gatherings—was screaming at me to turn around, to go sweat it out in my tiny room. She would wake, and the knowing would begin,

My cousin, Lena, was two years older, three inches taller, and infinitely more dangerous than me. She spoke in fragments of French she’d picked up from old movies, wore a silver ring on her thumb, and could hold a cigarette in a way that made the act of burning tobacco look like philosophy. Our families had rented the same lake house for a week, a truce disguised as a vacation, and on the third night, the power went out.