“Wait, I’m sorry, rewind to the part where you put a live tapir under your principal’s desk?” Kenny looks between us. “That poor baby. Please tell me it wasn’t scared.”
“Nah, man, he was happy as a clam to be out of the zoo. Besides, we had Ginny keeping a watchful eye.” Keri snaps her fingers. “Remember how she made us wrap it in blankets and feed it leaves and berries?”
“She researched that shit.” Carlos shakes his head.
“She was always the smart one,” Cheese agrees, tipping back and exhaling a plume of smoke.
“Ginny was the mastermind,” Keri tells Theo. “No offense, Hannah.”
“None taken.”
“Finally.” Ginny sits up straighter. “My long-overdue credit.”
“The girl was an evil genius,” Guppy agrees. “Mad respect.”
Theo leans in. “I heard something about Ginny arranging a rave in the band room?”
“Ahhh!” This time, Keri does spit out her drink. “How do I forget this stuff?”
“Wait a second.” Ripper narrows his eyes at me. “Didn’t Ginny get busted her freshman year of college for running an underground party in her dorm?”
“Yeah, it was Classic Ginny. She’d get busted for something and just turn around and do it bigger.”
This might be the happiest I’ve been in a long time. No one ever wants to talk about Ginny like this, casual and funny. Normally people either dance around the topic or they want to talk about her like she’s a tragic memory. It feels so much truer to my sister to remember the pranks, the scrapes we got out of, the fun we had.
I look across the fire. Theo’s laughing so hard at Guppy’s rave story his cheeks must hurt. Laughing like he knows Ginny—and for a moment, I feel like he does, like they overlapped in time, even though I know it’s not true. When I smile at him, it feels like pure light pouring out of my skin. His laugh fades as he looks at me, his hazel eyes moving slowly over my face.
For once, I don’t pull my gaze.
Theo exhales so deeply I can almost feel it in my own chest. A resigned look settles over him that I wish I could make sense of.
I glance around the fire, searching for Ginny to ask, but she’s not there.
I whip my head around. She isn’t walking down the beach. There’s only waves and stars.
I haven’t paid enough attention to her, and she’s disappeared.
“Hey, I’m not done hearing about the Cortland sisters in high school,” Theo says, and my attention snaps to him. “I need to know what teenage Ginny did to make a grown man have a mental break-down. I’m Hannah’s manager. I have a vested interest.”
“Oh my god,” Keri says, practically bouncing. “There was this one time Less Than Jake came to the Hideout, but the show was eighteen and up. You better believe Ginny had a plan.”
“Is that when she started printing those fake IDs?” Carlos asks. “Didn’t a couple of teachers end up buying from her?”
“Yeah, Mr. McDonald. Who turned out to be on the lam for wire fraud and took off for Mexico.” Guppy whoops, and everyone starts cracking up again.
“Allegedwire fraud,” Keri says. “Remember how Ginny would always say that?” Her voice takes on a falsetto that sounds nothing like Ginny, but it makes me smile anyway. “‘I had no idea I was aiding and abetting a criminal.’”
“Hey, turn that song up,” yells Cheese from the cooler. “This was one of Ginny’s favorites. Remember how she always made us play it on loop?”
Theo looks at me from across the fire like he somehow knew this was what I needed. The corner of his mouth tugs up in the faintest hint of a smile.
The light reenters my chest.
//
Two hours later, a keg’s been dragged to our spot on the beach and everyone’s gotten looser. The music’s louder and people are dancing around the bonfire—okay, mostly Ripper and Keri. Theo catches my eye when he stands and brushes sand from his pants. “I better catch an Uber. I’ll pick up the van tomorrow.”
Guppy’s holding Kenny’s feet while he does a keg stand. “Excellent. No drinking and driving at Casa Gup.”
