Ernest almost drowned once.
Watching him stand by the pond now, nearly twenty years later, Frank's heart races in his chest. His body recalling the panic of the moment.
The memories rise unbidden like bile at the back of the throat.
They'd just been messing around. Young boys, barely teenagers, who thought themselves smarter than their teachers. Sneaking out after hours hadn't been easy, but oh was it worth it.
The bright moonlight shimmered off the ice - diamonds that would never be mined or shaped, now embedded as scenery in the backdrop of a triplets worst memory.
They'd been playing. Slipping and sliding across the ice, grasping at matching uniforms to stay upright. A shriek of laughter reflecting off the snowy landscape of the mountains, quickly shushed for fear of discovery.
Ernest had taken to the ice like he had been born on it. Long legs that none of them had quite grown into yet, steady beneath him. His face a picture of delightful mischief as he circled his brothers.
Dewey was more cautious, clinging to Frank's elbow and trying very hard not to think about the cold, cold water below. He had been smiling though, even when Frank had slipped and brought them both crashing into the freezing floor beneath them.
It had been tag. Frank thought faintly, it all seemed so irrelevant in the aftermath.
One moment his brother was grinning, his cheeks and ears flushed red from the cold and from excitement. The next- there was a gaping hole in the ice where his brother had been.
Frank doesn't remember screaming but he thinks that he must have done. They'd both scrambled across the ice, yelling Ernest's name.
The water was black. Blacker than the ink that was constantly smudged across Dewey's fingers. Blacker than the chalkboards that Ernest used to solve complex maths. Blacker than the dark, dark sky above them.
Ernest was the one in the water, but Frank's heart was ice inside his chest. His tears burned hot against his cold face.
Someone had arrived then. Some adult, a volunteer they hadn't met yet, shoving the two of them aside to save their third.
To this day, Frank isn't sure how they managed it - the hurricane of fear screaming in his head had distorted the memory.
The next thing he remembers is Ernest being dragged back onto the ice, his uniform soaked and clinging to his body like a shroud. He was cold as death, coughing up water through numb lips.
The volunteer had carried him to the infirmary, Frank and Dewey trailing behind, both trembling almost as hard as their brother, petrified that they were going to lose-
"Are you okay?" Ernest's voice cuts through the torrent of memories. "You look terrible what's wrong?"
His brother's face swims into focus, concern curling around the familiar features.
"I'm fine-" Frank manages, shaking the feeling of ice from his hands, pulling himself back together. "I was thinking we should discuss adding antifreeze to the pond."
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