A piercing whistle broke the hubbub and Carrie opened her eyes. Jason took his fingers from his mouth and put his hands on his hips, legs slightly apart. She recognized the stance. Jason the star athlete, always the leader. She hated that like everyone else, she instinctively waited for what he had to say. He’d broken her heart into a million pieces, leaving her vulnerable to Daniel’s toxic attentions, and yet she was still swayed by his magnetic presence. It was so unfair.
“Everyone, calm down,” he said. “Take a step back and listen to yourselves. Even if it’s Carrie’s ex, there’s only one of him and there’s seven of us. He’s not a big guy, is he, Carrie? Or into guns?”
Carrie shook her head. “He’s an arty, sensitive type. Or at least I thought he was. His bark is worse than his bite, really.” He’d been all words and no action. That was how he’d won her over, with pretty phrases and promises he never saw through, and eventually she saw the other half of the equation. “He’d probably just want to talk to me, to try to win me back.”
Jason nodded. “Okay. So between me and Patrick and Mikey, we can take him.”
It was cruel that Jason should want to jump to Carrie’s rescue now. Maybe he was trying to atone for his past actions. Carrie’s stomach flipped with sadness and regret.
“And you too, Freddy,” Jason added.
“S’okay. I’m a lover, not a fighter,” Freddy whimpered.
“I can help, too,” Jen said.
“Jen will mortally wound him with her words,” Michael said.
Jen punched him in the arm. “You know it, Squeaks.”
Carrie’s stomach flipped again. It was cruel thateveryonewantedto jump to her rescue. Cruel, yet touching. “There. It’s settled,” Patrick said. “And we can always call the police if he shows up.”
He took his cell phone out of his back pocket and scowled. Carrie guessed he’d seen there was no reception.
He cleared his throat. “There’s a landline in the cabin. We can call from there. In the meantime, we’re at this gorgeous cabin in the woods with a beautiful view of the lake. We’re here to have fun and take it easy. What could go wrong?”
Carrie flinched as a jagged bolt of lightning flashed across the lake, followed by an earsplitting crack of thunder. Her heart rate picked up.
The last time the seven of them had been together, her world had fallen apart.
What could go wrong?
Everything.
6
Jason
It seemed appropriate that the skies should open up and release an angry torrent of rain. As if Jason’s rib cage had cracked open, unleashing the storm inside him. What did they call it when the weather reflected a character’s emotions? Jason thought back to freshman English. Pathetic fallacy. That was right. He wanted to say this out loud, but his friends would probably stare at him like he’d grown a second head. The jock had a brain that could hold something other than football? Inconceivable.
Anyway, they couldn’t know he held that storm inside him. A hurricane that had been steadily brewing the past year ever since Tiffany had started making noises about their life together after college.
Jason was a decent football player, though not good enough for the pros. And never good enough for his dad. Not like his brother Billy had been. He’d never wanted to play football for a living,anyway. He liked the idea of running his own business, being his own boss. Being in a position where he could foster community. He sort of did that now, as a popular quarterback on campus, but he attracted only sports fans and hangers-on. People who wanted to bask in the football team’s glory. No, he felt he could do the most good in the background, bringing together folks who might not otherwise get the chance to connect. In a safe space where people felt comfortable being themselves. Like Patrick had done with the Jumpscare Society in high school.
But all Tiffany—and his dad—ever wanted to know was if any football talent scouts had approached him yet, and if not, had he considered going into sports medicine? Sports law? Sports management? Sports psychology? Sports, sports, sports. His brother Billy was the one who was supposed to make it to the NFL, but an injury had put an end to that, leaving Jason to fulfill their dad’s dream.
Jason was struggling against a tide that would drag him under if he didn’t remain vigilant, and his head was starting to dip below water. Lately he’d been grinding his teeth so hard in his sleep that he’d cracked a molar, and he now had to wear a mouthguard at night, too, not just on the football field, to protect himself from himself. It was too bad there was nothing to protect him from Tiffany’s expectations. And to protect Tiffany from him.
That was why he’d been reluctant to come to the cabin. A reunion would’ve been better on new territory. It was too easy to slip into their old patterns. Tiffany wasn’t exactly subtle with that skimpy new bathing suit. Nor had she been subtle about plastering photos of herself with that handsome psych TA all over social media. This wasn’t their first rodeo. He and Tiff split up, and she paraded around a new guy to show him what he was missing.
The trouble was that Jason knew exactly what he was missing, and he didn’t know if he wanted it anymore.
In the past they’d always reconciled because he did truly love her. She was beautiful, yes, but he was mostly attracted to herintelligence and confidence. Unlike him, she never doubted what she wanted, and went for it with a single-minded ferocity. He admired that. And a relationship with her was easier than with anyone else because he knew her so well. He’d tried with others. The curvy redhead who worked at the library. The barista with the great forearms at the campus Starbucks. In high school, he’d briefly dated a forward on the basketball team, but Bruce had been too closeted to do anything but sneak around, and although Jason was comfortable with being bi, he didn’t want to have that conversation with his dad and the more narrow-minded of his teammates. It was bad enough that Tiffany refused to acknowledge that aspect of him because it didn’t fit her image of the perfect straight couple. He kept quiet about it, to make her happy, and what was the point of coming out if they were inevitably going to end up together?
Anyway, dating other people had left Jason only more confused. How could potential partners get to know him when he barely knew himself? Barely knew what he wanted?
With Tiffany, the rules were clear. She saw him as her match, and so he knew the role he had to play. Everything was simpler with her. He’d been able to keep that storm cloud at bay.
Until he couldn’t anymore.
