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Farleigh, in between shoveling only his favorite items into his biggest bag, takes a moment to sprawl out on the ground. He presses his cheek to the cool wood, watches the clouds through his window. He's spent the last few months trying to make sense of this life he clings to, the life that his mom ran away from. It hurts, how perfect some things were. All that happiness, preserved in pockets of time and tucked up somewhere in Farleigh's memories.
He can't let himself forget how human they were, before the stale air of this house killed parts of all of them.
----
"And this is an American musician?"
"Oh, this is the bread and butter of America, dear cousin." Farleigh sighs, his hair brushing the ground from where he hangs off his bed. Felix is laid out like a starfish on Farleigh's bedroom floor in his swim trunks. They had just raced laps in the pond; Felix had won, obviously. He always wins that sort of thing. Venetia stopped participating in competitions that favored Felix and Farleigh's rapidly growing limbs. The two of them had tried all summer to get her to try but she always stayed stretched out on a chair with a romance book, a glass of strawberry lemonade, and unreasonably large sunglasses.
Farleigh was beginning to get lightheaded, but his body is too sore to pull itself upright.
"I've just never heard of her, is all." Felix's eyes are closed, nodding along to the music.
"That makes sense. I was exaggerating, anyways. She's popular, just not... eh. Uh. Have you heard Beyonce?"
Felix snorts from the floor. Farleigh is beginning to go cross-eyed, and he's entirely sure his face is tomato colored from all the blood rushing to his head. "Of course I've heard Beyonce, mate. And Rihanna. All of those."
"Oh, but not Erykah Badu? That's criminal."
"I can never win with you and your pretentious music taste, Farleigh."
"It's not pretentious! I just, like, live in two countries at once."
"And you say 'like' too much. You're so American."
"Felix." Farleigh feels his body slipping off the bed. He's willing to let this particular descent rest in God's hands. If his skull hits the hardwood floors and the rest of his 6' mass happens to land on top of Felix, that's just what God intended.
"What!? I'm right. Why are you even arguing? You are literally American. The maids told mother that you packed dungarees in your bag, this summer. What are you, five? That's- oof."
"They're called overalls." Is all Farleigh says while he, probably, subjects Felix to a slow death by suffocation.
"Farleigh- What the fuck. Get off of me!" But he's giggling, and it's shaking Farleigh's entire body with it. Farleigh is giggling, too. He's always loved coming to Saltburn, even with all the uncomfortable family politics. Like, suits for a family dinner? And Aunty Elsbeth, with her constant tangents about her sister's husband's best friend's cousin. Or something like that.
"Yes, sir, this mattress right here. Amazing lumbar support. How much for the price?" Farleigh says in an English accent instead of moving. In the background, Kitty Kat cues on his mix. He considers getting up to catwalk across his room, before he decides that torturing his cousin is a more noble cause.
"You're a pillock."
"I don't speak wanker."
"Yankee."
"Limey."
"Sherman."
"Tommy."
Felix finally throws Farleigh off of him with his brute strength or whatever the fuck. Farleigh hits the floor next to Felix on his back with a grunt, moderately outraged that Felix is so offended by a word that he taught Farleigh in the first place. Truly, only a Tory could be irritated by the consequences of their own actions. Farleigh resigns himself to staring at the ceiling for the rest of the day; he really can't move. He's never been athletic, but he might return to America on the verge of Olympic-level swimming endurance. Felix is working him like a horse, and half the time it counts for absolutely nothing in the winning department. Farleigh's losing streak is borderline tragic. It's not his fault that Felix manages to sculpt his abundance of limbs into a Greek statue.
"Who's this one?" Felix asks, because Beyonce ended, and Lauryn Hill began in the time that Farleigh was considering getting a gym membership. Farleigh's mom had helped him with this CD. She had said she got tired of hearing him complain that the radio played too many annoying songs between the good ones. This one had been her favorite, though.
"Lauryn Hill."
"Do you like the music Venetia and I listen to?" Felix asks.
"Duh. I literally have an MGMT CD two feet from your face."
"Feet." And Felix is laughing at him, again. Because feet are just so comedic. And... okay. It's kind of funny. Feet. Right. Farleigh decides to shove his into Felix's face.
"Dude!" Felix pushes himself up, locking Farleigh's ankles in a tight grip before raising himself into a hunched sort of standing position. Then he's dragged Farleigh out of the bedroom, mopping the floors of Saltburn while Farleigh, once again, refuses to move of his own volition. They pass Venetia in the library on the way to wherever they're going, and for a second, she looks like she's considering helping Farleigh. She ends up turning back towards the book on her lap; typical. It isn't until they're nearing the spiral staircase that Farleigh feels concern for his wellbeing.
"If you throw me down these stairs, you have to promise me that my obituary picture will be hot."
"I'm not sure I could find a picture of you that fits that description."
At that, Farleigh kicks his feet into Felix's stomach, squirming a yard or two away from the older boy. "You cunt!" He says, because the sight of Felix doubled over in pain isn't quite satisfying enough. Farleigh sees Venetia rounding the corner in his peripheral, although she ends up leaned against the archway like a cat.
"You did not need to kick me that hard!"
"Self-defense." Farleigh says lazily. He's still on the floor, propped up on his elbows with a grin. "You were threatening to kill me. And then you called me ugly. Venetia would never call me ugly. Venetia is my favorite cousin, now."
"Felix has a point, to be fair. You always look a mess, Farleigh. Too much hair," is all Venetia offers from across the room. For a second, Farleigh feels like the space between his cousins and him is exponentially larger. Which happens, from time to time, when there's so much different between them. He wonders how much time it'll take before the distance closes, or whether it ever will. There's no point on dwelling, though. Farleigh shakes the feeling off.
"You're the one that dresses me, V. It's partly your fault if I 'look a mess.'"
"I can't let you wear dungarees at the age of 15."
"They're called overalls!"
"No, they're not!" Felix laughs.
They're all smiling, now. The sun is shining through the skylight, and Farleigh sees how it lights up his family's faces. He feels warm, loose, looser than he ever really feels is America. There's something so easy about the three of them, even with the occasional disagreement. Even when Farleigh feels the distance of an entire ocean between them. Even when Farleigh isn't sure where he fits into this endless summer.
Between this breath and the next, all he feels is love.
----
Farleigh never realized that he would lose it, their love.
That he would follow Felix around like a dog for his years of secondary school, and then university. That he could so easily disappear into everything else offered to Felix on a golden plate. That Venetia would twist him into another piece of gossip, so eager to judge him. That Elsbeth and James would care less and less about his mom the more he mentioned her, like the idea of her was a fly that wouldn't stop buzzing around their ears. That he would be packing his bag for the final time.
That Farleigh would never see Felix again.
The summers were never endless, he knew. But they had been warm.