by Lexa Hillyer
Free.
“Hey,” Ellis says. “You have punch literally all over you. Let me at least give you something else to change into, ’kay?”
Zoe follows Ellis’s ponytail, feeling like she’s a hound on a hunt, tracking a strange creature that refuses to be caught. Just when she thought she had Ellis figured out, the girl managed to surprise her again, to unnerve her completely.
Ellis’s words weave through Zoe’s mind: Just having fun. The thought braids together with the lingering warmth of the whiskey and that unquenchable desire Zoe feels around Ellis to win, to best her at something.
They enter an upstairs bathroom—it’s one of those connector bathrooms, with one door opening to Ellis’s bedroom and a second door that leads into Blake’s room, which Zoe can guess by the boyish plaid comforter and all the tennis posters. Ellis closes the adjoining door to her brother’s room with an apologetic, Boys are disgusting look, and digs out some stain stick from underneath the sink. “Here you go,” she says, then backs into her room and starts going through her clothes.
Zoe turns on the sink faucet to let the hot water steam up, then slowly peels off her shirt—she’s wearing her bathing suit underneath, so it isn’t that big a deal, but the shorts are stained so they’ll have to come off, too. She starts rubbing stain stick on the bright red spots before putting the shorts into the sink to soak, feeling weirdly exposed in her black two-piece, despite having worn it all the time for the last few days. She remembers how she used to live in this thing for the whole summer. Now it strikes her as pathetically utilitarian and uncool.
“Nothing clean. You know what?” Ellis calls from her room. “You can wear what I have on and I’ll change.”
She walks into the bathroom again wearing only her white bikini, and hands Zoe her jean shorts and button-down shirt. As Zoe takes the balled-up clothes, which smell like Ellis’s citrusy perfume, a rush comes over her. It’s my turn she thinks, without knowing exactly what that means. She drops the clothes on the counter and puts her hand on Ellis’s shoulder.
Ellis pauses, staring at her. Caught. Zoe’s the one in charge now. She does what Ellis taught her earlier this afternoon, and leans in. Ellis’s lips part and they kiss, lightly. Their mouths do a warm, soft, easy dance, coming closer and then moving apart, with little breaths in between. Ellis licks Zoe’s lower lip. She can feel Ellis’s taut body up against hers—they’re almost the exact same size, both thin but rippled with long lean muscles. Ellis’s bare stomach touches her own, and it sends a shiver of uncertainty through her.
What is she doing?
But at the same time . . . it’s fun. In fact, it’s way better than most of the fumbling make-out sessions Zoe has had in the past with boys who were clod-like, overly aggressive, or awkward. With Ellis it feels easy. It feels right.
And maybe it isn’t that big of a deal, not really. Just one crazy night. One party.
Ellis’s knees bump into Zoe’s as she shifts her weight, but she doesn’t seem to notice—they keep kissing, almost like it’s a challenge to see who will give up first. Waves of heat and electricity race through Zoe’s body. Her toes tingle. Her lips burn. Her hips come forward slightly and Ellis grabs them with both hands—unsurprisingly strong, even though her hands are delicate and small. Zoe gasps and Ellis smiles, which Zoe can feel against her face, like an invitation.
It feels like the perfect bout, one that could go on forever because they’re perfectly matched, move for move, touch for touch.
And then everything happens in a confused blur: the bathroom mirrors now seem like funhouse mirrors and there’s a whoosh of cold air as Ellis leaps away from her with a tiny, almost inaudible squeal. Zoe spins around, barely recognizing the clicking sound of a turning knob. The door that leads to Ellis’s bedroom is swinging wide open, and Ellis is in the shower, hidden behind its thick white curtain, and Zoe is fumbling with the loose strap of her bikini top, and Tali is standing there with a look of complete shock and horror on her face.
“Zo?” Tali spits out. “What are you doing in here?” Her eyes go to Blake’s bedroom door. “Have you—are you . . .” Her mouth tightens to a thin line. “Where’s Blake?”
And then, practically in slow motion and before Zoe can say a word, Blake’s bedroom door opens.
“I’m right here,” he says, smiling easily, sauntering into the bathroom, shirtless. “You need something, Bender?”
Tali stares. Zoe is frozen, horrified, knowing exactly how this must look—praying Ellis will emerge and explain this all away, yet at the same time thankful that she hasn’t—that no one has to know what happened in here moments before.
“It’s not what you think,” Zoe finally manages to say.
But Tali just storms away.
Blake looks Zoe up and down. “Nice bikini,” he says, with a cocky grin. “Does your friend always scare so easily?” he asks.
“Leave me alone,” Zoe blurts, running out of the bathroom, through Ellis’s bedroom, and into the hall. She grabs Tali’s shoulder, forcing her to turn and face her.
Her eyes look wet. “I think you owe me a fucking explanation,” Tali states, her voice shaking.
Zoe struggles to find the words. How is she going to explain this? “It’s not . . . it’s not what it looks—”
Tali throws a hand up into the air like a stop sign. “Really, Zoe? I don’t need to hear clichés from you, of all people.”
“Why do you even care so much?” Zoe bursts out, arms up, exasperated. “I thought he was just a boy toy to you, anyway! You’ve already hooked up with him, so what’s the problem?”
Darkness clouds Tali’s eyes and she clenches her fists. “No, I didn’t.” Her voice is low, husky, almost canine. “I never hooked up with him. And now, thanks to you, my chance is ruined!”
Zoe’s head spins. It must be the whiskey . . . or that shot she took . . . or the punch. “But what about last time around?” she demands, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper.
“I was a loser back then,” Tali blurts now, the confession clearly forcing its way out of her. “It never happened. Okay? Never. It was a lie. All along. So this was my only chance. But I guess none of that matters to you. You think I’m a cupcake, right? All frosting, or whatever? God forbid I should actually have feelings, actually want something for myself. Everyone assumes I have it figured out, that everything comes easy for me. No one knows how hard it is. No one cares.”
Zoe hadn’t thought this night could get any more shocking. What does Tali mean, they never hooked up? Is everything Zoe believed about the past a complete falsehood? “You’re too good for him anyway,” Zoe says softly now, still trying to get her thoughts together.
Tali scoffs. “And you would know? You knew I liked him, and you went for him anyway. The only thing I can’t understand is why he went for someone like you.”
“Someone like me? What’s that supposed to mean?” Zoe spits out.
“It means someone who is content to live on the periphery, never trying, never improving your life. In twenty years, Zoe? You’re still going to be having burping contests with Cal, refusing to grow up. So forgive me if that’s not what I want.”
Zoe makes a noise somewhere between a choke and a laugh. “I can’t believe you actually think that you’re the mature one here. If you didn’t have your head up your own ass all the time, you would know that hooking up with Blake is exactly the last thing on my personal itinerary.” She feels her cheeks heating up with anger. “But you don’t know that. You don’t know what’s going on with any of us, and yet you expect us to give a shit about your own petty drama—”
“Right, me and my drama. What about you? You think you’re so honest,” Tali goes on, cutting her off. “Good old Zoe, always putting her foot in her mouth, saying whatever she thinks. The real truth is, you are the one who let this friendship die. You are the one who didn’t want to move on, move f
orward. You’re content to stay stuck. Joy had the right idea. Some of us know how to move on. I’m certainly fucking moving on now. I don’t need any of you. This is all bullshit.” She shoves past Zoe, almost violently, running down the stairs like her life depends on it.
Zoe’s so furious her ears feel like they’re on fire. “Yeah, Tali. Run away! That’s the answer!” she screams after her, too full of rage to even really take in what Tali’s saying. What does any of this have to do with moving on, anyway? What did she mean that Zoe’s stuck?
“Guys, come on,” Joy says, emerging at the top of the stairs with an extremely drunk-looking Luciana in tow. “Everyone calm down, okay?”
But Zoe can’t calm down. Not now. Not when Tali has once again decided to make this all about her. And bringing up Joy leaving—that was a real slap in the face, and she knew it.
But before Zoe can think what to do next, Luce is leaning over the railing, puking. Joy looks distraught, doing her best to hold Luce’s hair back from her face.
“Help me,” she says to Zoe. “We’ve got to get her home.”
Zoe sighs. Joy’s right. Tali can go stew, can go act like this is all Zoe’s fault instead of her own. They don’t see things eye to eye, that’s for sure. Come to think of it, maybe they never did.
But what did Tali mean about her refusing to move on, to grow up?
She and Joy help lead Luce out toward the driveway, where Doug Ryder loads them into someone’s car. The whole time, Zoe feels nauseated herself, sick with guilt, regretting that she never managed to get Luce more water. Regretting that she didn’t have a chance to explain to Tali—even if Tali does hate her, she should know that this isn’t Zoe’s fault.
But more than anything else, she regrets Ellis.
18
FRIDAY
Most Improved. Now that is some serious irony. Luce’s forehead pounds, an inner jackhammer drilling away at her nerves as she flips the stolen badge over and over in her hands. The wrong stolen badge. Not that it even matters—what’s the point in getting back to the future now? How’s she going to face it, knowing what was really going on in the past?
She sits down on the grass near cabin 43, where Andrew told her to meet him today, and drops her head into her hands, closing her eyes. When she slipped out the door of the Blue Heron cabin this morning, the other three girls were still sleeping—Tali facing the wall, Zoe splayed out with her sheets half off the bed, and Joy looking oddly peaceful and fragile.
Luce stares again at the badge in her hands. She remembers who got the Most Improved badge two summers ago: Kendall Meyers, a pre–fourth grade boy who went from complete awkwardness to archery master that summer. He also apparently finally stopped wetting his bunk bed, which, his bunkmates told everyone, was the real reason he was awarded the honor for most improved. Everyone knows it’s a backhanded compliment—it implies you sucked before, despite what Luce’s mother always says about how everyone’s a winner at something.
Luce’s mother.
Are any of her famous words of wisdom really true? Or has she been faking it all? Images of Bernadette Cruz in her black dress last night, in her glimmering earrings, leaning in toward Mr. Wilkinson, kissing Mr. W, easy, natural, like that wasn’t even the first time, swirl through Luce’s memory like a sickening carousel. Luce never liked carousels as a kid: around and around, and no one ever gets ahead.
She’s been such a fool. For believing her mother. For believing anything at face value. Life is a carousel—just when you think you’re up, you’re down.
And what’s the end goal? She never stopped to think about it. How many medals or good grades or honors or nominations are enough, the right amount so you can finally stop and take a look around?
She remembers what Rob said to her yesterday while they were getting stoned—it’s the having of it, not the meaning of it. With a terrible thud of dread very deep in her stomach, Luce realizes that maybe everything in her life has been like that, has been more about the having than the meaning.
“Hey, you.”
Luce sits upright. It’s Andrew.
Even though her stomach is empty from the events of late last night—or early this morning?—she once again feels a swell of nausea, as though her body wants to purge everything. Why did she think going to Blake’s party was a good idea? Luce should know better. But Luce, apparently, doesn’t know better, doesn’t know much at all. Luce barely even knows Luce anymore.
“Whoa. Where did you go last night? You look terrible,” he states. When she simply stares at him miserably, he adds, “I mean, terrible for you, which is still awesome by most standards. Obviously. But . . . you do look like you’ve met a ghost.”
“Seen.”
“What?”
“Seen a ghost, not met. Anyway I have, sort of,” she says, wishing it were easier to explain. He cares about her, maybe more than anyone else. But is he merely a part of the carousel, too? Did they grow up together over the last two years, or has she simply gone round and round and round with him, pretending it’s all leading somewhere? “Sorry, it’s just that I’ve kind of found myself in the middle of a puzzle that I really can’t solve. I need . . . I need to think.” She rubs her eyes with her hands, wishing she could erase her whole face.
He takes her hands from her cheeks and holds them. “Are you still upset about getting in trouble the other night? Talk to me. Maybe I can help. I’m a really good problem solver, as you probably know. If only your mom had a badge for that, right?” He grins.
But the mention of her mom, and badges, is too much, and Luce feels her face crumple. She takes a deep, staggering breath. She needs to keep it together. Crying never gets a person anywhere. That’s what her mother always used to tell her when she’d fall off her bike and skin her knee, or spill her juice at dinner, or get a B on a test, and tears would threaten to spill. It was like her mom was there in an instant, instructing her to hold it in, to get herself together and move on, to do better next time. Persevere.
Periphery, perpetuate, persevere. On the edge, cause to continue, persist in the face of difficulty.
“Luce,” Andrew says, more gently. “Come on. Talk to me.”
She shakes her head, but it all starts to tumble out of her anyway—everything she saw. Her mom. Mr. Wilkinson. The kiss.
Andrew squats beside her, listening, his eyebrows knitted in concern. She knows she’s babbling, but she can’t stop.
“I mean, it’s disgusting,” she adds. “I don’t even know how to feel. I can’t look her in the eye. How can I ever face her now? How am I supposed to fix this?”
Andrew tilts his head slightly, a funny look on his face. “It isn’t your problem to fix, Luce.”
She feels a surge of anger so strong, it’s electric. “I knew you wouldn’t get it,” she says coldly. “Everything you do is perfect. It’s always the same with you. But if I don’t fix this, no one will. Our whole family will fall apart. Don’t you see? I have to do something.”
Instead of offering a suggestion, Andrew stands up, looking slightly hurt. “What does that mean—‘it’s always the same with you’?”
“That’s not what I meant . . .”
“No really, I want to know what you were trying to say.”
She stands up, feeling like her skin is stretched too tight across her body. Itchy. Stuck. “You’re just—you don’t change! You’re always just . . . you.”
“And that’s a bad thing?” He scratches his head and she can see now that he’s trying to contain his anger.
“This isn’t about you anyway, it’s about my mother,” Luce says, feeling her cheeks flush with defiance.
“Well, it sounds a lot like you’re taking it out on me. I’m just trying to help, Luce.” He shakes his head and pushes on the door of the cabin.
Apparently it’s unlocked because the door swings right open and he walks inside.
“Where are you going?” Luce calls after him, taking a second to wonder why he told her to meet him here in the first place. The haunted cabin. None of the older campers really thinks it’s haunted, that’s just how they refer to it, and ever since a plumbing issue two summers ago, it has gone unused, giving it an abandoned feeling.
“Forget it,” he says, his voice muffled by the musty darkness of the cabin.
There’s a moment of silence. It’s as though he has disappeared into the cabin’s depths.
“Andrew?”
He doesn’t answer.
She goes in after him. It’s muskier within, smelling of old cedar. As her eyes adjust, she sees a trapdoor near the back of the room, with a cord dangling from it, and a three-rung ladder unfolded from above. A chair has been placed underneath the ladder. She can hear rustling overhead, and steps onto the chair, then pulls herself onto the ladder.
“Andrew, what’s going on?” she shouts, emerging onto the roof of the haunted cabin. The words die in her throat as she looks around. A picnic has already been laid out—a bottle of wine, scattered wildflowers, and a cooler.
Luce just stands there, gaping, as Andrew refolds a blanket he had laid out.
“Wait, stop,” she says to him. “You set all this up?”
He turns to face her. “Yup.”
“Why?”
“I thought it would be a nice surprise,” he says, a note of remaining bitterness in his voice. “But I guess my timing was off.”
“But how—how did you even get all this stuff?”
“My brother drove from Boston to drop it off,” he says.
Beyond him, the lake can be seen, looking shiny and silver against the cloudy sky. Rain will probably come soon, but for now, the view from here looks misty, peaceful, beautiful.
“I just thought, I don’t know, that I would try to cheer you up.”
