Alex squinted at hers. “Mine is full, which also feels unfair.”
Morgan raised both hands. “We have reached the point where fairness is theoretical.”
Last call happened at some point. We didn’t heed it.
Jamie stood too fast and swayed, then planted both hands on the table like someone about to propose either a crime or a bonding exercise. “I’m done with this game,” she announced. “I want to do something dangerous but socially acceptable.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Those two things do not generally overlap.”
“Skinny dipping,” she announced.
Cris gasped. “No.”
Jamie pointed at her. “Yes.”
“No.”
“Absolutelyyes.”
I rubbed my forehead. “You are all drunk, and that is a lake out there. Lakes have rules. You can’t see them, but they’re there.”
I didn’t know what they were, but I trusted them to be punitive. This was upstate New York, not Cabo. The lakes here weren’t decorative. They were glacial and moody and owned by men named Gary whose belief in property lines were as intense as their belief in religion. Each body of water came with at least three warning signs, two passive-aggressive dock notes, and one retired contractor who would absolutely call the sheriff over amisplaced kayak. Adirondack hospitality was real, but so was Adirondack territorialism. You could borrow a snowblower. You could not skinny dip uninvited.
“Live a little, Zee,” Morgan said.
That phrase had never once been spoken by someone with a plan.
Cris looked at me with an earnestness that only appears after too much alcohol and too much collective relief. “I wouldn’t usually do this either.”
And that was the problem. I wouldnever. Not sober. Not the careful version of me that made checklists and backup plans.
But I wasn’t sober, and I was suddenly violently tired of being careful.
“Fine,” I said. “If I drown, though, I’m haunting all of you.”
The trail down to the lake was more a suggestion than a path, which seemed appropriate for a bad decision made after midnight. We stumbled through it in a loose line, hands on each other’s shoulders, laughing too loudly for people who were trying not to be noticed.
Someone started singing our ridiculous boss song again, and by the time we hit the chorus, we were yelling it into the trees like women trying to exorcise an entire corporate structure by force. Somewhere overhead, a bird made a clear judgment call and relocated.
The lake spread out in front of us, dark and still. Jamie had already kicked off her shoes. Morgan was halfway through pulling her shirt over her head.
Surrounded by pine and rock that had been here longer than anyone arguing about it, the flat surface of the lake looked harmless. But Adirondack lakes were cold year-round. Snowmelt fed them well into summer. You stepped in thinking you were brave and came out reconsidering your life choices. Somewhere under that black water were ancient tree stumps,abandoned anchors, and probably a canoe from 1987 that someone had sworn they were coming back for.
“This is happening,” Cris said.
“I’m aware,” I said.
We shed our clothes and ran into the water. The cold stole my breath but woke every nerve ending in my body. I gasped and laughed as I went under with them, letting the water close over my head.
I came back up to Jamie screaming at the sky.
“Why is it this cold?” she yelled.
“Because it’s a lake in the Adirondacks,” Morgan said, completely calm, before diving under again like she was trying to escape the conversation entirely.
Cris splashed me hard enough to get water up my nose. “You needed to commit.”
“I did commit,” I said, wiping my face. “This was a mistake.”
