“What are you doing?” I asked. This wasn’t right. Abby never drank. Ever.
“Lighten up,” she said and playfully tugged on the end of my ponytail. She pushed the cup at me. “I’m happy to share.”
“I’m fine,” I told her. Everything about this was off and made me uneasy.
“Suit yourself,” she said.
We made our way through the woods to the bonfire. I soon fell a ways behind the girls, but it didn’t matter because they pretty much acted as if I didn’t even exist as they talked and joked with one another. I cursed myself for not agreeing to go with my best friend, Tessa, but she was getting a ride with her boyfriend, which pretty much meant being the third wheel to their nonstop PDA.
“We need to leave at eleven thirty,” Abby reminded me. “Don’t be late, or you can explain to Mom and Dad about why you missed curfew.”
“I’ll be here,” I said, but Abby and her friends had already scattered, disappearing into the shadows as they made their way to the fire.
I followed behind. A mix of fear and excitement pulsed through my body as I thought about Tommy. Maybe tonight. Maybe it would happen tonight.
I spotted Tessa near the fire and waved.
“There you are, girl! I’ve been waiting forever for you to show up.” She wrapped her arms around me and gave me a giant kiss on the cheek. One that probably left a bright red lipstick mark on me.
Leave it to Tessa to greet me in her usual dramatic fashion. Tessa was a hugger, and greeted everyone as if they were her long lost friend.
“Let me get a look at you.” She put both hands on my shoulders and stepped back to inspect me. Her curly red hair was piled on top of her head in a messy bun and she had on jeans tucked into yellow rain boots. Ever since I’d met Tessa in kindergarten, when she’d colored her entire body in bright orange polka dots with a Sharpie marker from our teacher’s desk, she did everything loud and big. She wanted to be on Broadway, and I had no doubt she’d make it there. Tessa had the confidence I wished I had and when she left a room, everyone remembered her.
I stood awkwardly as she took in my outfit of jeans and a tight black T-shirt that was cut just a little lower than I was comfortable with.
“You look hot!” she declared.
“You think?” I fiddled with the top of the shirt. She batted my hand away and pulled it even lower than before.
“I know so. Tommy will definitely notice you,” she said and winked at me.
“Shhh,” I hissed and looked around to see if anyone else heard. “Are you crazy?”
“Relax. Everyone here is either too drunk or too horny to care about you and your crush. Why don’t you just tell him how you really feel already and get it on so I can stop listening to you moan about how in love you are with him?”
“Um, I think there’s a little obstacle in the way called my sister,” I said.
Tessa laughed. “Nah, your sister is a blip on the map. You’re the one Tommy wants; you just have to let him know you’re ready for him.”
“The only thing I’m ready for is something to drink,” I told her, so I wouldn’t have to listen anymore. I was pretty sure Tessa’s number one goal in life was to get Tommy and me together, regardless of what was in the way. I couldn’t decide if I loved her optimism or wished she’d just let it go. One thing I did know was that she would go nuts when she found out that we’d kissed, and I hated keeping it from her, but I wanted to keep it to myself a little longer.
“And I’m going to get me some Jarrett.” She pointed to where her boyfriend stood. She let out a wolf whistle and when he noticed, she blew a kiss his way.
“Keep it PG,” I joked.
“I can’t promise anything.” She gave me a wave over her shoulder and skipped off toward him.
I stood near the fire for a moment and watched sticks pop and crackle in the flames. The night was loud and full of energy. Music played from a truck that had pioneered a road through the woods. Kids from school ran past, their voices rising and falling in the muggy air.
Abby stood in front of the flames with Mary Grace. They looked like day and night together; Abby with her long blond hair next to Mary Grace with her tangle of dark curls. The two had their arms outstretched and faces turned up to the sky, spinning in circles. Abby moved so close to the fire that I half expected her to come out the other side, ablaze and streaming trails of light behind her.
I headed away from the fire. I told myself I was going the long way to get a drink, but in reality, I wanted to go back to where everyone parked to see if Tommy’s truck was there.
When I reached the clearing in the woods, it wasn’t only Tommy’s truck I found, but Tommy himself. He sat inside with the headlights off. A country song played on the radio, the singer crooning about love gone wrong.
“Hey,” he said to me out the window, and I felt shy, as if Tommy and I were strangers. I didn’t know how to act around him now.
“Hey,” I said back.
“Is your sister here?”
I tried not to look upset, but it was hard when the first thing he asked was about Abby. “She’s over by the fire.”
He didn’t say anything, so I felt the need to keep talking. To fill in the silence. “She’s been drinking. She never drinks.”
“It’s because of me,” he said.
It was dark here. Shadows moved around his face so his features went in and out of focus. It warped who he was, and I wondered if I looked different to him, too, because I sure as hell felt different.
“She’s worried about you,” I offered. “She asked me if I had any idea what was wrong.”
“I’m pretty sure she knows what I’m planning to do.” He climbed out of his truck so he was directly in front of me. “I never should’ve been with her in the first place,” he said, and I let his words slip through me, fragile and thin.
“Then why were you?” I asked, because I had to. It wasn’t like it was a one-time hook-up. They’d been dating for months. If he liked me, then why stay with her?
“That night—when you pushed me away, I was confused and hurt. I thought . . . I thought I was wrong. About everything. When Abby found me and kissed me, I didn’t stop her.”
“You could’ve ended things.”
“I didn’t know how. I tried to ignore how I felt and let myself believe Abby was right for me, but you can only pretend for so long.”
“And I pretended like it didn’t bother me,” I said.
“But it did.”
“It did,” I confirmed, and a tremor of nervous excitement raced through my body. What was happening between us was real. I hadn’t imagined it and however wrong it might be, Tommy felt the same.
If I were a good sister, I’d stop this from happening. I wouldn’t want my sister to get hurt. But I wasn’t good anymore. Not even close. Because I wanted to be with Tommy. I wanted him to be mine.
I reached out and touched his cheek. It was warm and smooth as if he’d just shaved. He placed his hand on top of mine, never once taking his eyes off me.
“I don’t want the summer to end,” someone at the fire shouted. “Screw school; I’m staying right here.”
People cheered, and above them all, Abby shouted, “Tonight we’re free!”
I wanted to be free too.
I pulled Tommy to me. He fell into me and his touch consumed me. He kissed me again as if it was what he’d been waiting for his entire life. His lips pressed against mine, and I took from Tommy until the sounds around me melted away. We kissed and we kissed.
“What are you doing?” A voice screamed and the two of us broke apart.
It was Abby.
“How could you?” she cried, and the pain on her face made it feel as if someone had punched me in the stomach and knocked the air right out of me.
I tried to say something, but I opened and closed my mouth, words useless. This wasn’t supposed to be how she found out. This wasn’t supposed to happen.
She turned and disappeared into the wood
s.
“Shit, shit, shit,” Tommy muttered and backed away. “I need a flashlight.”
I reached out to touch him, to calm him down so we could figure out what to do, how to make this right, but he pushed me away from him.
I stumbled and fell back to the ground. Pain shot through my wrist as I broke my fall, but it didn’t hurt nearly as much as knowing how much I just hurt my sister.
“I need a goddamn flashlight,” he yelled and rummaged around in the truck bed until he found one. He turned it on, raced into the woods, and vanished into the trees.
6
I went after Tommy and Abby.
The branches slapped and tore at my skin as I raced into the woods with only the light from my phone to guide me.
The party raged behind me. My classmates whooped and laughed, and their world seemed so separate from mine.
I found Abby before I found Tommy.
Her own phone’s light winked as she ran through the trees.
“Abby,” I yelled, and she stopped and turned toward me. Her face was a mess of tears, and pieces of her hair blew in front of her and stuck to her wet cheeks.
“Get away from me,” she sobbed.
I reached out to touch her, to get her to look at me. She flinched as if I’d burned her, and I felt like a monster.
“No,” she moaned as she walked backward.
“You need to come with me, it’s not safe out here,” I said. “Please, let’s go back to the fire.”
“I always knew,” she said through her tears.
“What?”
“How Tommy felt about you. I ignored it, but it was there. Always.”
I didn’t know what to say; what could I say? It was true.
For once in my life, I was the chosen one. Tommy had wanted me instead of Abby.
And tonight, he’d chosen me again—but at what cost?
“Please,” Abby begged. “You’ve done enough tonight. Leave me alone. Tell Tommy to do the same. I can’t look at the two of you right now.”
“Abby, wait.” I tried to reach out to her again, but she’d already turned away from me. I touched nothing but thin air.
I tried to follow her, and got turned around. Everything was dark and confusing, as if I were running in a maze.
I wandered through the woods with only the light of my phone to guide me. I should’ve been terrified to be here alone at night, but I wasn’t. I needed to find my sister and make right what I’d done.
Finally, a flash of light bounced off the trees and Tommy appeared in front of me.
“You haven’t found her?” he asked.
“I tried to talk to her a few minutes ago, but she wouldn’t listen. She told me to leave her alone and ran off. We need to find her and talk to her. We have to make this right.”
Tommy nodded, and together we moved through the woods calling out and hoping to catch a glimpse of her as we shined the flashlight through the trees. We searched for more than an hour, but there was no sign of her.
“Do you think she went back to the fire?” Tommy asked.
“She’s probably with Mary Grace and her other friends, telling them what I did.”
“This wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen,” he whispered.
The wind rushed through the trees making a howling noise, and I shivered. This night was trying to swallow us whole.
7
We silently made our way out of the woods. I convinced myself that Abby would be okay. She’d find us back at the party. She’d be fine. She always was.
I walked close enough to Tommy that our shoulders touched. I breathed in his scent and began to believe he could be mine. Things hadn’t happened in the best way—but they’d happened and opened up a world of possibility.
The clearing was still full of classmates and the bonfire blazed. I scanned the crowd to see if I could find Abby, but there was no sign of her.
I waited while Tommy walked through the group of people, weaving around classmates downing cans of beer.
“I bet she’s already home,” he said when he made it back to me, and I nodded.
Tommy and I walked to his truck, and even if someone noticed us, it wasn’t unusual. We were friends. We had been long before my sister staked her claim.
I stared into the woods as we drove home, and worried Abby was still in there, moving through the trees like one of those forest sprites that existed only in fairy tales. I studied the dark edges of the trees at a stop sign and imagined her there, reaching the end of the woods and turning around to be swallowed up again, as if afraid to enter back into our world. A world now full of betrayals and dishonesty.
8
Tommy didn’t pull into my driveway. He stopped right before it, so we were half hidden under the canopy of an old oak tree.
The light was on in Abby’s room, and I breathed a sigh of relief. She was home.
“Do you want to talk to her?” I asked as his headlights winked off.
“Not tonight.”
“What do we tell her?”
“The truth.”
Before we could say anything more, the front porch light switched on and I froze, expecting Abby to step outside. Instead, Dad opened the door and waved a hand in the air to us before closing it again.
“I think that’s my cue to leave,” I said.
“Life’s going to suck for a while once everyone finds out what we did, but this . . . this is us. This has always been us.”
Tommy grabbed my hand and squeezed it. A calm settled over me. He was right. It would work out. How could it not after we had finally found our way back to each other?
I got out of the truck and watched him drive away. In the morning I’d have a lot of explaining to do, but for tonight, all I wanted to do was close my eyes and remember what it felt like when Tommy was mine.
Gone
What’s done cannot be undone.
—William Shakespeare
1
I fully intended to hide from the morning as long as possible, because whatever faced me outside my door wasn’t going to be pretty—even though I deserved it after what I’d done last night. What kind of awful person kissed her sister’s boyfriend? Two separate times. I buried my face in my pillow and groaned. Not because I regretted what I’d done, but because I wanted to do it again.
I was surprised Abby hadn’t stormed into my room yet. That was unlike her. She was always ready to make it known when she was pissed about something, whereas I was a pro at holding things inside, so it appeared as if everything was fine even if it wasn’t. It was eerily quiet, which made the potential of what she was plotting a lot worse. We’d had our fair share of fights before, but I doubted they’d be anything like the one today.
I stayed in bed and tried to make sense of what had happened with Tommy. I hadn’t set out to hurt my sister, but I did, and I had no idea how I’d even begin to make things right again. Especially if making it right meant not being with Tommy.
I reached for my phone on my night table, but couldn’t find it. The drawer was open and as I searched for it in there, my hand landed on a piece of paper I’d hidden. I pulled out the picture of Tommy and me together in the made-up NYC apartment and thought about what I had wanted and what I did to my sister to get it.
I was granted twenty more minutes to myself until the floorboards creaked outside my room. I waited for the pounding I’d prepared myself for, but instead, the person knocked quickly and then tried to turn the knob.
“Rhylee, are you up? We need to talk.” It was my dad, his voice hard and insistent.
Of course this was how it would go. Why would Abby take me on alone when she could pull Dad into it?
I crawled out of bed and had barely unlocked the door before he pushed it open and stepped into the room. He still had on pajamas; a pair of flannel pants that were a little too short and a worn white undershirt. It was rare to see Dad dressed like this, since he was usually getting home from his job when we were waking up. But it was Sunday, a
nd that was the one day where Dad’s nights and days weren’t backward.
He surveyed my room.
“Is Abby here?”
“No,” I said. His words were a glimmer of hope. Maybe I was safe for a little bit longer. Maybe she hadn’t told Dad yet. He certainly wasn’t acting like someone who had any idea what I’d done.
“Have you seen her?”
“Not since last night at the bonfire.”
“Didn’t she come home with Tommy? His truck was outside.”
“That was me,” I said, afraid my voice would give too much away.
“Why wasn’t she with the two of you? Why would he give you a ride home and not your sister?” he asked, and paced back and forth. That’s when I knew for sure this wasn’t about Tommy.
But I wasn’t about to tell Dad the real reason why Abby didn’t come home with us; he’d find out soon enough. “She was with her friends. I wanted to leave because I didn’t feel good.”
Dad stopped pacing, and I could tell what he was going to say even before the words came out. “She hasn’t come home.”
“I saw her light was on when I got home.”
“Your mom thought she left the light on when she dropped off some of Abby’s laundry. Her bed is still made with the clothes your mother washed piled up on it. She didn’t sleep there and she’s shut off her cell phone. We can’t get in touch with her.” Dad looked around my room one more time, as if he might find Abby. “Dress quickly and come downstairs. This isn’t good.”
2
I changed in record time and headed downstairs, where I found Collin in the family room watching TV and eating a big bowl of sugary cereal; the kind Mom never let us have but Dad always bought and snuck into the house. I ruffled his hair and went into the living room, where Mom sat on the couch, her shoulders hunched over and the rims of her eyes stained red. Usually on Sundays she was up early, dancing around to the radio that we keep on the kitchen table and making a big breakfast for us. Today she looked like a different person.
A Void the Size of the World Page 3
