“That is exactly how it’s going to be,” Imogen says primly. “Now drink, all of you.”
Forty-five minutes later we’ve polished off the rest of the wine, plus some Jameson and an ancient, dust-furred bottle of Sambuca Ian found at the back of a kitchen cabinet. Imogen is warm and giggly, lying on her back with her head propped up on a stack of throw pillows. There’s a humming looseness in my limbs. Only Sadie, who has apparently never so much as jaywalked, is still resolutely sober, sitting with her tan fingers wrapped around the bowl of her wineglass as the rest of us confess to cheating on finals (Gabe and Imogen), shoplifting (me and Imogen together, plus Ian in an incident involving a plastic dinosaur when he was six), and having sex in a public place (Imogen again). I know that shouldn’t irritate me—the fact that I’m even registering it makes me feel like a mean girl in a nineties movie, judging some fresh-faced ingenue for her lack of debaucherous behavior—but the longer we sit here the clearer it becomes that Gabe has chosen someone as unlike me as humanly possible, like she and I are a study in chiaroscuro out of one of Imogen’s art books.
“Really?” Imogen asks, looking at Sadie incredulously asthe rest of us raise our glasses yet again. “You’ve never broken curfew?”
Sadie shrugs. “I never had a curfew to break!” she says, smiling a helpless,what can you dokind of smile. “My parents just trusted me, I guess.”
“Oh, you’re one ofthose,” Ian says, grinning; he’s enjoying himself, his cheeks flushed a ruddy pink under his beard. “Okay, my turn. Never have I ever...” He trails off, thinking a moment. “Never have I ever cheated on anybody.”
Oh, for God’s sake. It was inevitable, I guess, from the moment we started playing; still, just like that, the game is done. Suddenly I’m furious—at Sadie for her cheerful guilelessness, at Gabe for saying any of this sounded like fun to begin with, at myself most of all for the million and one bad decisions that led up to this point. The rules of the game are clear: I need to pick up my glass, take a sip, and own up to my past indiscretions.
But I don’t.
Instead I hold my drink resolutely in my lap, silently daring Gabe to call me out in front of everyone and gambling on the notion I still know him well enough that he won’t. After all, we’ve both moved on, haven’t we? What could he possibly have to gain?
My bet pays off: the room goes quiet, save the low croon of Imogen’s speakers, Amy Winehouse wondering who’ll still love her tomorrow. “Nobody, huh?” Ian asks, looking around the silent circle with interest. “What uprightemotional citizens we all are.”
“Seriously,” Imogen says, then—and God, have I ever loved anyone like I love Imogen?—lets out a big, exaggerated yawn. “Probably best to quit while we’re ahead,” she says. “Time for bed, yeah? Which means the rest of you need to clear out of here so I can put sheets on the pullout for these two.” She motions to Sadie and Gabe, stopping to think for a minute. “Assuming Ihavesheets for the pullout. Huh.”
“I’ll help you look,” Sadie says, climbing to her feet with an easy, athletic grace and following Imogen in the direction of a tiny front closet. I escape down the hallway to the bedroom I’m sharing with Ian, and I don’t look back as I go.
Day4
Ireland in the early morning reminds me of Star Lake at the very end of winter when the ground has just thawed, everything damp and fresh and green-smelling. I dig my sneakers out of the bottom of my suitcase and do a few loops around the grounds of the convent, taking deep sips of the cool morning air. I ran competitively in high school, but now it’s just a thing I like to do to shake the cobwebs out, a way to clear my head; in Boston I went every morning even in the dead of winter, icy pavement slippery under my feet and the cold wind rattling deep inside my chest cavity. Roisin thought I was a maniac. “Who’s chasing you?” she liked to joke.
“Myself,” I always told her, and jammed my headphones into my ears.
This morning it’s more of a shuffle than a sprint, jet lagcoupled with the sticky residue of last night’s wine fog; still, I’m pink-cheeked and puffing when I make it back, stopping to stretch for a minute before heading inside. I stumble into the bathroom, bumping the door open with my hip as I untangle my headphones—and find Gabe standing in front of the ancient enamel sink wearing a pair of gray boxer briefs and nothing else.
“Oh my God!” I yelp, louder than is probably necessary, holding my hands up in raw, shocked panic. “Sorry sorry sorry, I didn’t know anybody was in here.”
“Um, yeah,” Gabe says quickly, sounding a bit rattled himself. “I am.”
“I... see that,” I agree. My eyes flick around the green-tiled bathroom for a second, desperately trying to find somewhere safe to land, but it’s like everywhere I look there’s Gabe and his mostly naked body, his chest and his collarbones and the faint trail of dark hair between his navel and his waistband. “Sorry. I’ll—” I motion toward the door so enthusiastically that one of my headphones flies out of my hand and lassoes itself around the doorknob. I grimace.
“No, it’s cool,” Gabe says as I’m desperately trying to set myself free. “I’m just finishing up. You can—”
“Oh, no, that’s fine, I—” I shake my head, finally getting the cord untangled with a brutal yank and straightening up again. He and I dance an awkward two-step, both of us moving from side to side in tandem to try and get out of each other’s way. He smells like toothpaste and like sleep, his bodyradiating that just-woke warmness. “Sorry,” I say again. He shared a bed with Sadie last night, I remind myself. “Hangover brain, or something.”
Gabe smiles at that, just faintly. “Yeah,” he admits, “I guess everybody hit it kind of hard last night.”
Well, not everybody, I think, then immediately feel ashamed of myself. God, I have no chill at all. I remember how riled I got last night during our argument in the kitchen, remind myself to get a grip. “Yeah,” I echo, then lower my voice. “Um, about that. Sorry about the whole Never Have I Ever thing.”
Gabe waves a hand to stop me. “Don’t worry about it,” he says. “I had fun, for a while at least. And it’s a complicated situation, right? Bound to get a little awkward now and then.”
Well, that’s an understatement. “Yeah,” I finally agree. “I guess you’re right.”
We stand there for a moment, neither one of us talking. Gabe rubs at his bare, freckly shoulder, self-conscious; it occurs to me that I’m definitely not the only person aware of just how small this space is. Still, I can’t help but notice he isn’t moving anymore. In fact, neither one of us is.
“So I’m going to go,” I blurt, even though he literally just said he was finished. “Um. Sorry again. Bye!” I turn around and bail out of the tiny bathroom before I can catch sight of the expression on his face—or, I think guiltily, before he can read anything into the expression on mine.
I find Imogen in the kitchen. “I just walked in on Gabe in the bathroom,” I announce, compelled to unburden myself. Then I turn around and see Sadie standing at the table with a mixing bowl and wooden spoon.
“Um,” I amend immediately, “I didn’t see anything.” I smile at Sadie, looking at her with wide, interested eyes and changing the subject. “What are you making?”
“They’re trail mix muffins,” she says, scraping down the sides of the bowl. “I went down into town this morning to get the ingredients. It felt like the least I could do to say thank you to Imogen for letting us crash here.”
“I keep telling her it’s nothing,” Imogen says, hopping up on the counter, her bare heels bumping lightly along the cabinets. “But I’ve also never turned down a baked good in my life, so. Trail mix muffins for everybody.”
