I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of the golden sand--

How few! yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep--while I weep!

O God! can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp?

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream?

"Where are we going?" I ask my half-brother from the passenger seat of his fancy car. We've been driving for fifteen minutes but I've been too freaked out, and confused, to ask him anything. Now, I'm getting a bit impatient and even more freaked out, so I have to finally ask.

"My dad wants to see you," He answers me. "Apparently, his slut getting arrested could be bad for his image, so he pulled some strings and got them to drop the investigation. I thought that girls like you were careful with this shit? Being discrete and not getting caught is supposed to be your specialty."

"I'm not his slut," I defend myself. Sure, I am 'a slut' but I am not 'his slut'. Especially not Silas's.

"Well, he didn't want to go to the station himself for publicity reasons, so he sent me," He continues to explain. "And believe it or not, picking up a hooker from the sheriff's department is not how I planned on spending my Saturday night."

"I'm feeling very bad for you right now," I assure him sarcastically. When they released me from the department, I got all of my things back but my phone was dead, so I can't call Casey. "I have to get to my brother, I don't want to see your dad."

"He just saved your ass," He reminds me, which keeps me quiet for the rest of the ride. We eventually pull up to a large house in a nice neighborhood and he starts getting out, so I do too. Even though the sun is barely starting to set, I am so tired that I wish that I could just get in my bed and sleep. I want to just deal with everything else in the morning, once I've had some sleep.

I follow Jay into the house, where Silas is sitting in an office off to the side of a modernly decorated living room.

"Somebody ordered a whore for delivery?" Jay says sarcastically as we get into the room with Silas.

"If I'm a whore, then that makes you a whore too, asshole," I snap at him because I don't have any patience for this guy tonight. Not after the day that I've had. "You bought me, remember that? At least I have a good reason. I have to put food on the table for my brother, I have somebody who fucking depends on me to give him everything that he needs. I did what I had to do to take care of my family. What's your excuse? You were just horny and couldn't go get a girl on your own."

"Okay, stop it. Both of you," Silas finally speaks up and we both turn to look at him. Silas is looking at me and he almost looks... concerned? "Jay, give us a minute."

He doesn't look happy but eventually, Jay leaves the office and shuts the door on his way out. When it's just the two of us, Silas asks me, "How are you feeling?"

"I'm tired," I inform him. "And I need to go find Casey. Thank you for bailing me out, but I need to talk to Casey, so can I please leave?"

"You said that you had this under control," He reminds me.

"Yeah, well that was before I found out that my foster father is fucking insane and he has some police friends, who he convinced to stalk me for a few weeks. They don't have anything concrete so I'm fine and even if I wanted to keep working, I know that Jill won't let me come back. She never lets a girl come back after she's been arrested," I tell him. "How did you even find out that I got arrested?"

"Casey came to my office earlier," He answers me. "With Micah. Told me that I had to figure out how to get you out of trouble or he'd to go the Journal."

"He blackmailed you?" I wonder slowly, shocked that Casey would do that, and that Micah would bring him here so that he could talk to Silas. Casey has never met Silas, and he has never wanted to, so I'm kind of in shock right now.

"He was scared," Silas tells me. "He didn't want to lose you."

"He's probably freaking out right now," I mutter under my breath. "I have to go talk to him."

"Eleanor," He says my name in a slow, calm voice. "Just calm down for a minute. You've been through a lot today. When Casey told me what happened, I was worried about you too. I'm glad that I could get you out of there."

"Me too. I probably would have gotten released anyway."

"I know that you hate me," Silas tells me. "And I understand that. I get that you don't want my handouts, or my help. But if you need a job, I can find a place for you in my office. I know that you've been working with Harrison."

"I'm considering that bridge pretty much burned."

"Just know that you can come work for me, since I know that you won't just let me give you any money."

I don't even want to consider it. I want to tell him to go fuck himself with his job offer. But right now, I have absolutely no income and whether Casey hates me right now or not, he's still my responsibility, and I need a solid and stable income to be able to support both of us. "I'll think about it," I say quietly, hating that I have to give in to his offer but I know that right now, I don't have much of a choice.

"I know that you don't consider us family, Eleanor. But I'll take care of you as much as I can," He promises me. "A car is waiting outside for you, to take you wherever you need to go."

I start to leave the room, but before I get to the door, I turn back around and I ask him, "If you had known that my mother left, and that we were in foster care, would you have done anything?"

He looks at me with his gaze unwavering as he thinks of an answer to my random question. I can tell by his silence what his answer is, and it's exactly the answer that I was expecting. Of course, he wouldn't have done anything to get us out. What could he have done without destroying his reputation, and his marriage? He put his real family ahead of his secret family.

"Yeah. That's what I thought," I sigh. "The love child doesn't get much love. I'll talk to you later, I guess."

I said that to Micah on the night that we met.

Leaving his office, I start to head for the front door but just outside of the office, Jay is standing there. By the look of pure shock on his face as he gazes at me, I'm assuming that he'd been eavesdropping on that conversation. That's not my problem, so I just give him a pat on the shoulder as if to say 'good luck' and I get out of that house.

There is a car with a driver inside sitting idly in the driveway of the house, so I get in that car and ask the driver man to take me to Micah's address. I'm so tired now that I'm not as anxious as I was earlier, but I'm still really anxious.

I tried to write a script in my head on what I was going to tell Casey and Micah when I saw them again, but when the driver pulls up to the front of Micah's house, my mind goes absolutely blank. I have no idea what I'm going to say but I know that I have to go in there.

I step out of the vehicle and before I can even think about changing my mind, the driver is pulling away from the curb to take off down the road again. My hands are starting to get clammy as I force myself to walk up to the front of the house. I slip Micah's plaid shirt off of my shoulders so that I'm only in my tank top because he'll want that back now.

When I knock on the door, it's pretty quickly being answered by Micah. His brown eyes look so tired, his hair is messy, his wide lips are frowning in a deeper frown than I've ever seen them. I actually don't know if I've ever seen him frown before; he's always so happy. Knowing that I'm the one causing him to frown so much makes the pit in my stomach even bigger.

Over Micah's shoulder, I can see Casey asleep on the couch.

He doesn't say anything, waiting for me to be the one to break the silence but I don't know what to say either. I want to say something that could make this situation better for him, easier to swallow, but nothing is coming to mind. I can't think of anything that could make this situation less painful for him.

Eventually, I open my mouth and just force words out. "I tried to tell you," I find myself saying. That's true, I did try to get him to read my book of poems before, which has a few poems in it about my job as an escort.

"I know," He says in a raspy, quiet voice. He glances down at the blue plaid in my hands and then back up to my eyes. "You can keep the shirt."

He then turns around and walks into the house. I step inside behind him and shut the front door. Micah shakes Casey's shoulder to wake up him and then he starts stirring on the couch. When he opens his eyes and notices me standing there, he quickly scrambles to his feet and runs over to me faster than a bullet.

He immediately wraps his arms around my waist and squeezes me in the tightest hug that I've ever been in. I hug him back, feeling so relieved to be seeing him again after the day that I've had. The first detective, at one point, had threatened that I might never see my brother again.

"I'm so sorry," I whisper to him with my cheek pressed against the top of his head. I press my lips against the back of my hand to stop myself from crying. I can tell by the pink in his cheeks that I saw earlier, that he's been crying. I hate that I'd put him through so much today but I'll make it up to him. I don't know how yet, but I will. I'm just so relieved that he isn't angry at me—or that he at least is glad to see me.

"They said that you were going to go to jail for three months, and that I was going back into foster care," He rushes out, still hugging me. "I know that I shouldn't have gone to Silas, I know that you said that we shouldn't blackmail him into helping us, I know that I shouldn't have done it but they said that you were going to go jail and I'm sorry."

"Hey, don't worry about that," I tell him, pulling out of his hug so that we can leave. I don't think that Micah wants to do any talking. I think that it's pretty clear that he doesn't want anything to do with me anymore, so we should just leave. "You're my hero, Case. Let's get home."

I notice the keys to my car sitting on the table by the front door, so I grab those and wait for Casey to follow me out the door.

"Wait, shouldn't you guys talk?" Casey speaks up instead of coming with me to leave. He looks at Micah and then me, expecting one of us to say something. I spoke up the first time, so if he wants to talk, he has to say something this time. I don't know what else I can say to him.

Maybe I could tell him that I really do love him. That every time that I had a client after I started dating him, I was thinking of him. I was always thinking of him, no matter what I was doing. And no matter what happens, I think that I'll be thinking about Micah for a very long time.

"A Dream Within A Dream is my favorite poem. Thank you for looking out for Casey today," I say instead of all of those things that I want to say. I found it pretty obvious when he said that I could keep the shirt, it was meant to mean that I can keep the shirt as something to remember him by. We're over. I can tell by his silence, and the look in his eyes. I'm not going to try and convince him otherwise because what I did was really wrong. I lied to him, I cheated on him, I really hurt him. I can't take that back.

"You're welcome."

"That's it?" Casey urges us.

"That's it," I confirm with my brother as I toss my arm over his shoulders and start pulling him out the front door. I get one last look at Micah as he's watching us leave, convinced that this will probably be the last time that I'll ever see him. I'm going to miss him so much.

Once we're in the car and driving back to the apartment to end this hideous day, Casey is quiet for a minute before he speaks up and says, "So what the cops told me. That's all true?"

"Probably. What did they tell you?"

"That you don't work at a factory," He says slowly.

"Yeah, that's true," I confirm. "I'm so sorry that I put you through this today. And that I've lied to you about what I've been doing."

"I'm kind of glad that you lied to me about that," He admits to me. "How long have you been doing this?"

"Two years."

"That's a really long time, Ellie," He realizes. "I could have just gotten a job or something if you couldn't pay the bills with a regular job. I know that I'm too young to work at a store or something, but I'm really smart. I can tutor kids from the public schools. I know that you work so hard so that I don't have to live like you did when you were my age, but you don't have to do that. Just being there for me, you've made my life pretty great. I'm old enough now to take some responsibility for stuff like bills and things. We're a team, Ellie. You don't have to do everything on your own."

"I've just wanted what's best for you," I mutter, wiping a tear from the corner of my eye as I drive because if my eyes get too teary, I won't be able to see very well. A car accident because of my crying is the very last thing that we need right now.

"I know," He assures me and after a pause, he adds, "You being in jail for three months is not what's best for me."

"You're right. I didn't think that I'd get caught."

"Were you miserable? I mean, you did it for two years, and you never let on that you were unhappy or anything. Or am I just that bad at noticing your moods?"

"No, I wasn't miserable or unhappy," I promise him. "I know that this is probably a bit of oversharing, but I liked it. The more that I think about it, the more selfish that I think I was being. I really enjoyed it, until I met Micah. I did hate lying to you, but I didn't think that you'd appreciate knowing that your sister is a whore."

"That's a bad word," He scolds me. "At first, I felt guilty, for being the reason that you felt like you needed to do this. But I think that if you were happy, then that's okay. You aren't going to jail, and we've both had a happy two years. We had one rough day but in the big picture, I'd say that we're doing just fine."

"You really think so?"

"Of course, I do," He confirms. "Don't you?"

"Yeah," I nod. I don't know what I did to deserve such an amazing brother and I'm overwhelmingly proud of him, and how well I must have raised him, to be such an amazing person. So understanding and so kind. He was right when he said that we're a team, and I'm pretty grateful that I have Casey as my team member. "I think that we're doing just fine."