“Yes, butIhave to fix them.Ihave to worry about the state of things for the next renters.” She glances out the window toward my house. “Ihave to wonder what is happening in these houses.”
Tom rolls his eyes but she can’t see it. “This is awfully extreme, I’m sure we can—”
Nadine shakes her head briskly. “Forty-eight hours and I want you out. You’ll get a full refund for the next seven weeks.”
Dad’s face pales and Mom looks like she might cry.Imight cry. Or scream. Sidney is sitting, still and quiet, just like my mom. They both look like they may burst into tears at any moment.
“Where are we supposed to go? It’s peak season, we’ll never find rentals.” Tom’s voice is still calm, his face a mask of cool fury.
“Nadine, please,” Kris says. “We’ve been coming here for years, this is a second home to us.”
Nadine’s eyes look at Kris sympathetically, and for a moment I think she’s going to cave. But then her chin lifts just slightly and her face is hard again. And I may be imagining it but I think her eyes settle on Sidney for just a second too long to be comfortable, before she turns back to the four adults now muttering obscenities under their breath. “Forty-eight hours.”
Sidney
After dinner, Mom, Dad, Sylvie, and Greg convene in our living room, and Asher and I are out on the deck after washing dishes in silence. We sit in white plastic lounge chairs, both of us avoiding the unicorn. Probably because it’s a reminder of how our neurotic feuding has led to this. I came out here thinking it would be a good spot to eavesdrop without being obvious, but once the angry voices died down it turned out I couldn’t hear anything at all.
“This isourfault.” I’ve been thinking it since Nadine barged into our house, and I can’t help but say it out loud.
“Ours?” Asher mutters, and it’s the first time he’s really spoken to me since Nadine walked in on us.
Defensiveness wells up inside me, guilt scraping at my throat.
“I’m gonna cruise around the lake and look for rental signs.”
“Can I come with?” I hate how desperate, almost panicked my voice sounds.
There’s a long stretch of silence, and I’m expecting more annoyance from him. More anger. Because no matter what I say out loud, thisismy fault. There should be smoke coming out of Asher’s ears, for how hard he’s thinking about thissimple question. As if he’s just been asked to go on a boat ride with a serial killer. I don’t even know why I want to go. Maybe I just don’t want to be alone out here when our parents finally emerge. The guilt is so much easier when it’s directed at us, and not just me.
The silence is killing me, so I finally break it. “I want to hit something.”
“Not it.” His eyes finally swing from the imaginary spot on the lake where they’ve been fixed and land on me. The lightness in his voice surprises me.
I roll my eyes. “And ruin that pretty face of yours? I would never.”
Asher smirks. “You think I’m pretty.” The familiar snark in his voice relaxes something inside me just a fraction.
“Youthink you’re pretty.” I hear the whir of a blender and look back at the cabin. It’s not fair that they get to drown their sorrows in peach daiquiris and we just have to suffer. With each other. But sitting here is just making me anxious. I’d rather be doing something, helping somehow.
Maybe my inner monologue has come out, because Asher shifts in his chair and says, “Fine, let’s go.”
He stands and holds a hand out to me. A normal person would probably take it without thinking, but I just stare at it. As if I’m not sure what to do with such a strange appendage. He rolls his eyes and grabs my hand, pulling me up out of the chair. Then he walks away, headed toward the boat. I don’t know why I’m so unnerved, but I am. I feel like I’m about to walk into an ambush. An animal fed treats before being led to the slaughter.Notthat Asher touching my hand was a treat.Obviously.I think about the other night, the way he touched my face, laid his hand on mine, put his lips on mine, and a little shiver runs through me. I don’t know if it’s pleasure or fear. Maybe the two feel too similar when it comes to Asher. He walks toward the boat, andI let myself wait a few seconds, watching him cross the grass and step onto the dock.
He stops and turns toward me. “Are you coming?”
The lake is calm, smooth like glass as we skip across it in Dad’s little fishing boat. Asher is in the back, sitting behind the steering column, and I’m on the bench seat that stretches in front of it. The air is blowing his hair into what looks like a mohawk and it’s such a funny look for him, I’m having trouble taking my eyes off of it. With his hair off of his face it’s easier to notice the bright blue eyes, and the way his cheeks are red from the sun. Heispretty. Obnoxious and arrogant, but pretty. I’ll give him that.
“You look like a dog with its head out the window,” I say, my eyes drifting past him to the shoreline.
“I feel like one.”
I want to bite back with something snappy, but all I can think about is that there aren’t many rental signs out on the lake. I’ve spotted three so far. Two of them were tiny little cabins that looked smaller than my bedroom, and none of them were next to each other.
“What do you think happens if we don’t find houses?” I sound nervous. A kind of nervous I don’t usually let Asher see.
He shrugs. Maybe it’s the wind that’s making his cheeks so red—his whole face is starting to pink up. “We all go home, I guess.”
We sit in silence as we make our way around the long oval lake. Usually we’re boatingacrossthe lake—slowly—and it’s surprising how quickly we boat around the entire perimeter when we’re going at a normal speed. It’s half an hour later when Asher cuts the engine in the deep water in front of our houses.Ourhouses. That’s what I wanted to scream at Nadine while shestood inourkitchen. We’re still hundreds of feet out from the dock, much too far to just let ourselves drift in.
