I wished I could tease her about it now because I needed a distraction. Tag and Alex were muttering about how we hadn’t heard from Manik yet, so Blair floated through my mind. For our first couple years at Ames, I’d only known her as the pretty popular girl who got great grades, wrote for the school paper, and was worshipped by guys. We didn’t talk until junior year, after one of Tag’s swim meets. “Lily, hi!” I remembered her saying. “Tag had an awesome relay today!”
She’d been really nice, but now I knew it had all beenso calculated. Most girls had been so obvious with Tag; they smiled and said hello in the halls, interrupted our conversations, and some were bold enough to touch his arm while giggling at his jokes.Stop it, I always thought.Stop it, stop it, stop it!
Blair hadn’t thrown herself in his face. She’d casually talk to me alone, then Tag and me together. It wasn’t until she wrote a profile on him for the newspaper’s sports section that I wondered if something was up. Blair was features, not sports. “The two of us are also partners for a stats project,” Tag had mentioned after his interview with her. “We both hate that class, so we’ve decided to suffer together.”
My heart had sunk.She likes him, I realized. The incessant attention from the others was testing my nerves, butthis? Blair making all the right moves to get Tag to fall for her?
Leave Lily, I could hear her saying.Break Lily’s heart and be with me.
“Mom, I have to end things with Tag,” I’d whispered to her late one night. “Nothing has happened, but I feel so sick. There’s this knot inside me…”
She’d nodded like she knew it’d been coming. “Then let him go, Lil.” She gave me a bittersweet smile and a big hug. “Let him go for now.”
The three of us soon reached the mouth of the woods. They were far from welcoming, pitch-black with tree branches audibly swaying in the breeze. Tag and Alex switched on their iPhones, but my hand was shaking so hard that I couldn’t tapthe flashlight icon. Instead, I slipped my phone back into my pocket and made a fist around it.
Tag’s eyebrows furrowed. “Your battery isn’t dead, is it?”
“No, it’s alive and well,” I said, then shrugged. “I just can’t do this.”
“Because of the skunks?” Alex asked. “Because no lie, I’m kinda freaking out too. We should’ve brought tomato juice—”
“Lily, what do you mean?” Tag spoke over his friend. “You can’t do what?”
My stomach started churning, and I couldn’t ignore it. “I mean I can’t pop by the place where you and Blair used to have wild sex,” I said. “I know I’m your ex-girlfriend, and she’s also your ex-girlfriend, but it’s not okay, Tag. I don’t care how stupid you say that clue is.” I swallowed. “I’m not okay.”
Tag glanced at the ground. Alex awkwardly patted his shoulder before vanishing into the woods, but Tag stayed quiet. “Wild sex, huh?” he eventually said. “I thought it was ‘sunrise yoga.’”
I folded my arms across my chest. “You know it’s a euphemism.”
“Well, yeah, but a completely off-base one,” he said, sighing heavily. “We actuallyweredoing yoga, Lily. Blair is not the most relaxed person, so that’s how she starts her day, and since I’m not all that relaxed either, I joined her.”
“Oh,” I said.
Tag forced a smile. “To be honest, it’s not that effective.”
“Why aren’t you relaxed?” I whispered. “What’s wrong?”
He yawned. “It doesn’t matter.”
Yes, it does, I thought, but instead I asked what they did there at night. “After you argue in front of everyone?”
God, I was so jealous. Desperately jealous. He didn’t owe me any explanations, but I wanted them anyway.
“It depends,” Tag said. “Usually, we’ll apologize to each other or call it quits.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Lily, there is a place where Blair and I would…” He trailed off, letting me fill in that blank space. “But it’s not the sculpture sanctuary, I swear.”
I waited a second, then nodded. “Alright,” I whispered, and in an even smaller voice, I said, “Thanks for telling me.”
“You’re welcome,” he replied. “And I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how loyal Ames is toPeoplemagazine.”
“Oh my god, I hate you,” I said. Tag knew how much my mom and I lovedPeople. His favorite joke was that our weekly subscription was “keeping the lights on” at their headquarters.
“I don’t believe you,” he said back.
“Why not?” I asked, heart now hammering.
But before he could respond, our phones simultaneously buzzed. Finally, a message from Manik.Back at Mack, his text read.Daniel is on-site.
My pulse slowed.Phew.Daniel was asleep, not wandering around Ames.
