Eliza was still looking at me, expectant: “Yeah,” I said finally, not wanting to let on that I hadn’t known. “That’s…fucked up.” Right away I wondered what else I didn’t know about theKendricks, what else Jasper had kept to himself in the three years we’d been roommates. It made me feel a little shitty that he hadn’t trusted me enough to tell me what was going on.
On the other hand: I guess there were a lot of things I hadn’t trusted him with either.
“Yeah,” Eliza said now, sinking back onto her elbows and tilting her chin up, gazing at the dark, velvety sky. “It wasn’t great. I mean, it would have been one thing if Greg had just been like,Hey, sorry my dad’s a giant weeping dick who ruined your lives,but instead he just decided to like, lean into every single one of his worst impulses? Which meant, of course, that my brothers did too.”
“Woof,” I said, glancing back in Jasper’s direction. “And Meredith stayed with Greg anyway?”
“I mean, they’ve been together forever,” Eliza pointed out, “and it’s not likeherdad went to federal prison. Also, apparently, he’s amazing at oral sex, although that has always seemed like anincrediblydubious claim to me.” She grinned, presumably at the blush that was making its way up the back of my neck and migrating around to my face. “It would have been nice to have a little bit more loyalty on her part, but what was I going to do, tell her she couldn’t stay here? She’s spent basically just as much time at this house as I have.” She trailed her hand through the sand for a moment, sifting it through her fingers. “I don’t know. I guess there was a part of me that thought maybe this summer would be a way for us all to find our way back to each other, but instead it’s just been, like, an eight-week emotional horror show the likes of which all of us will probably be working out in therapy for the restof our adult lives.” She cleared her throat then, a little bit sheepish.“Anyway,”she said, “sorry to word vomit all over you. You came out here for a vacation, not to listen to some random girl tell you all her champagne problems.”
I don’t know why I didn’t contradict her. To this day, I wonder what would have happened if I had—if I’d looked at her that first night in the moonlight and said,I want to know everything you want to tell me; I want to hear everything you have to say.If maybe it would have changed everything that went down afterward. If maybe it would have saved us both.
Instead I waited a beat too long and the moment slipped by as silent as a submarine, the two of us staring out at the water. I tipped my head back and breathed in the smell of salt water and woodsmoke, catching sight of August House glowing warmly on top of the bluff like a beacon for passing ships. It didn’tlooklike the kind of place where anyone’s dad got jammed up by the law, that was for sure. I wanted to think I was immune to that kind of stuff—the romance of it, or whatever—but after what had happened with Greer, I knew I wasn’t. It worked on me sometimes, like a witch doing a glamour spell. It made it so I couldn’t see what was happening right in front of my face.
All at once Eliza stood up, brushing the sand off the seat of her shorts and pulling her tank top up over her head. “I’m going in,” she announced. Her features were just visible in the gleam of the bonfire as she took off in the direction of the water, her body half in shadow, half in light. Right at the line of the surf she looked behind her, holding her hand out. “You coming or what?” she hollered.
I laughed. “I’m coming,” I told her, reaching back and yanking off my T-shirt. I chased after her into the dark, chilly waves.
We all stumbled up from the beach sometime around two-thirty, Eliza catching my hand as we tumbled through the back door of August House. Her fingers were chilly against mine as she peeled me away from the rest of the group and pulled me up the back stairs from the kitchen, then down the hall and around a corner before pausing at the doorway of her bedroom, her narrow back flattened against the jamb.
“Hi,” she said.
I smiled, leaning against the wall partly to look cool and casual and partly to keep myself upright. “Hi.” Over her shoulder I could see a full bed with a fluffy white duvet cover, a canvas-covered reading chair big enough for two people at least. The air smelled like sunscreen and like girl. I could hear everyone else trying to be stealthy as they settled down—the floorboards groaning in protest, someone tripping on the stairs.
“Shh!” I heard Jasper hiss, but when I looked back at Eliza, she wasn’t laughing.
“You should try to kiss me goodnight,” she advised.
The floor pitched a little, the beer and the anticipation. I hadn’t kissed anyone since Greer. “I should, huh?”
Eliza nodded, taking a step closer so our chests were almost touching. I reached out and curled one hand around her waist. Shetipped her face up to mine, lowered her eyelashes—and feinted at the very last second, turning her head so I caught her cheek instead.
“I said you shouldtry,” she reminded me with a smile, then reached down and yanked my belt loop before stepping back inside her bedroom and shutting the door behind her.
I stood there for a moment, my forehead against the doorjamb, the hallway starting to spin all around me, before shuffling up to the third floor alone. I steadied myself on the bedpost in the turret room—ugh, I was really drunk—then crossed the creaking floorboards and opened the window to the cool, salty air. I could see a sliver of beach from up here, could hear the waves slamming themselves against the rocks as the tide came in. I breathed for a minute, then blinked, my heart doing a startled, squirrelly thing inside my chest: there was somebody standing on the sand down there, face tipped up to gaze at August House.
I swallowed hard, not totally trusting what I was seeing. My brain was sloggy and forgetful sometimes since the concussion, but I’d never just fullyhallucinated,and sure enough, the figure was still there a moment later, solid and corporeal. I squinted, trying to figure out if it was anyone I recognized. It was a guy, I thought, though I wouldn’t have sworn to it, a bulky hooded sweatshirt making it impossible to tell. I glanced down at the clock on my phone: it was almost three o’clock in the morning. When I looked up again, whoever had been there was gone.
