I stand before the mirror, staring at my reflection. I think back to last night, to meeting Daniel in the woods, wondering if it was real, if it happened or if it was just a dream. Guys like him have never had any interest in me, which makes me wonder what he sees in me and if it’s something others don’t. I try to see myself the way he does. I like my eyes. They’re green, which people say is one of the more attractive eye colors in the world, depending on who you ask. My smile is fine, a little gummy if anything, which makes my teeth look small. But I don’t hate it.
That said, there are things about my face I definitely don’t like, at least not when compared to other people I see online with their flawless skin, their perfect eyes and their perfect little lives. No matter how hard I try, I could never be like them. I’ve watched TikTok videos on forehead reduction surgery and nose jobs, imagining myself with a less bulbous nose that doesn’t flare when I laugh so I have to cover it so no one sees, because of the one time a girl called meHoover. I do, however, like my hair. It’s one of the few things about myself I’m legit happy with, because it’s low maintenance. I can get out of bed and go.
I step back from the mirror, so I can see more of myself than just my face. I listen, making sure no one’s coming, and then I pull my shirt over my head and step out of my jeans. I stare at my body, at the way my sides curve inward and the crest of my hips, imagining Daniel setting his warm hand on one last night, leaning in,Don’t worry about it. Happens to everyone, as I choked to death on the joint. I’m skinny, which most people think is enviable. But it’s not, not always. There are things I don’t like about being thin, like how people always assume I’m weak or iron deficient, or that I have an eating disorder, that I must be secretly bingeing and purging, or that every time I turn down food because I’m not hungry—or don’t want to waste money on stuff like movie theater popcorn—it’s because I’m actually anorexic. I’m not.
My skin is pink from the sun; it turns white when I press on it. There are lines from the bathing suit straps and red, swollen mosquito bites from getting eaten alive in the woods. I let my eyes go to the fine, delicate, tangled lines of the minimalist tattoo I drew myself. Skyler’s cousin did the tattoos for us, because we’re underage, because you have to be eighteen in Illinois to get a tattoo. But he was working as an apprentice at an actual tattoo shop and wanted to practice, so we said he could practice on us. We said we wouldn’t tell if he didn’t. It hurt more than I thought it would, but Skylar held my hand the whole time as I lay on her bed, a towel beneath me in case it bled, sayingPromise it will be worth it, and then when it was done, she said,It’s fucking amazing, Reese. It’s fucking hot, and it was.
I close my eyes now, imagining Daniel’s warm hands moving under my shirt, across my stomach to my ribs as they did last night when we kissed. With my eyes shut tight, I put my own hand on my stomach, and though it’s not the same—I don’t feel the same rush and my whole body doesn’t explode in goose bumps—I retrace where his hand went, moving up my side, overmy raised ribs, brushing against the side of my breast when, all of a sudden, the bathroom door handle jiggles violently and I throw my body against it to make sure the door stays closed.
Emily calls through the door, “What are you doing in there? Is everything okay? Other people need to get ready too, you know?”
She jiggles the handle again and I press my body harder against the door.
Rage fills me. I scream, “Can I not just have five fucking minutes alone?”
On the other side of the door, Emily goes quiet.
My heart pounds as I pull on the same high-waisted bikini bottoms I’ve worn for days to cover the tattoo, as I put on my bikini top and pink sweatshirt, as I open the door and slip silently past her, knowing she’s still standing there, watching me go.
Aunt Courtney tells me, “Pink is your color, Reese.” We’re at the pool. We’ve just gotten here and so far the day is cold, like sixty-five degree cold. The only ones who want to go in the water are Mae and Cass. The rest of us sit on our chairs, killing time, waiting for the day to warm. Uncle Elliott is in the chair beside mine. Aunt Courtney is next to him, and then Emily and Nolan are on the other side of her, not speaking. “It goes well with your skin tone,” Courtney says, and when I look, she’s smiling over at me like she actually likes it, like she thinks I look pretty in pink. For a minute, it makes me feel good about myself. I smile back and say thanks, feeling my self-worth increase, because I’m not used to people saying nice things about me.
And then I hear Emily lean in and tell her how I went and ruined a perfectly good, fifty-dollar sweatshirt, how I mutilated it with a pair of scissors, cutting the neckline wide, and it ruins everything. Every. Fucking. Thing.
I feel crushed. Aunt Courtney looks again and this time she’s not thinking how well the pink goes with the color of my skin. She’s taking a closer look at what I’ve done to the sweatshirt and silently judging me.
I sit on my chair feeling sorry for myself, sulking, hating everyone here. I try not to think about them but to think about Daniel instead, and somehow my mind must manifest him, I must think him into existence, because all of a sudden Daniel’s there, and when he appears, coming out from behind the little pool house, everything changes.
He stands on the other side of the pool, skimming the water’s surface with a net, scooping dead bugs from the top of it before dumping them over the other side of the fence. As he does, he finds and watches me, his dark eyes so intense that I get chills. No guy has ever looked at me like that before. It makes me feel lightheaded, weightless. My mind starts to wander. I bite down on my lip, imagine a scenario where Daniel and I are the only ones at the pool (though the water is warm and it’s not this stupid little pool but somewhere else, somewhere nice with palm trees). I feel my face and my neck get red, my heart beating faster at the thoughts that slide all on their own inside my head, thoughts of Daniel and me floating in the water together, of him wrapping my legs around his waist, leaning in, breathing into my ear,You have gone all the way with a guy before, haven’t you?
From the other side of the pool, Daniel’s eyes consume me. I have to look away and when I look back, he’s still watching me. Someone comes and stands in front of me, blocking his view, and Daniel scooches aside. He moves to a different location to see me better, looking around this man, a smile building on his lips, the kind that makes me crush hard. I smile back, closing my eyes, going back to my daydream again, losing myself in it, telling him thatNo, I haven’t gone all the way with a guy before, and in my fantasy, he shows me how.
“Reese, did you hear me?” Emily asks, and I throw my eyes open. I come to, my face red, my breath shallow, to find her on the chair beside me now, Uncle Elliott in the water with Mae and Cass, trying to get Aunt Courtney to go in too, but she says no.
I don’t know how much time has passed.
“No,” I say, embarrassed, swallowing hard. “I didn’t hear you. What did you say?”
“That boy,” she says, looking across the pool at him, making no attempt to be surreptitious, so that Daniel catches her staring and he looks away, pretends to be doing something else. “He was looking at you just now.”
“What boy?” I ask, playing dumb.
“Over there. On the other side of the pool,” she says, and I look.
“So?”
“Do you know him?”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “How would I know him?”
“I don’t know. It’s just the way he was looking at you...” she says, her words drifting, getting lost.
“What way?” I ask, though I know what way.
“I don’t know,” she says. “Like he knew you, I guess.”
On the other side of the pool, Daniel moves closer to the pool house. He catches my eye when Emily isn’t looking and gives a sign for me to follow.
“Where are you going?” Emily asks, as I swing my legs over the side of the chair, standing up. When I tell her I’m going to the bathroom, she says, “I don’t want you going back to the cottage alone. I’ll come with you.”
