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“I’m a bitch, but you’re delusional. Truly fucking delusional.”
Had any tears been left in my body, I’m certain I would have started crying on the spot. But I’d used them all up. All I could do was push past her and crawl into bed. I laid on my side, my back turned to them, knees pulled to my chest. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, trying to ignore the horrible hollow feeling in my chest.
The three of them didn’t say anything else after that. They went to the latrine to do their gossiping, sparing me the humiliation of having to listen. I fell asleep not long after they left, my brain and body deciding together that unconsciousness was the best remedy for my misery.
When I woke, it was the middle of the night. The creak of the floorboard was what roused me. The sound jolted me awake and propelled me upright. Light from the full moon outside slanted through the window in a gray-white beam. Each girl passed through it, shimmering a moment on their way out the door.
First Allison.
Then Natalie.
And finally Vivian, who froze when she saw me awake and watching.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
Vivian smiled, although no amusement could be found in that slight upturn of her lips. Instead, I sensed sadness, regret, the hint of an apology.
“You’re too young for this, Em,” she said.
She raised an index finger and pressed it to her lips. Shushing me. Conspiring with me. Requesting my silence.
I refused. I needed to have the last word.
Only after it was uttered, its sour echo lingering in the air, did Vivian leave the cabin, closing the door behind her, vanishing forever.
26
I’m drunk by the time I’m again walking among the cabins. Or, more accurately, stumbling. With each step, the mulch path seems to shift under my feet. I overcompensate by stomping, trying to pin it into place, which makes me lose my balance more often than not. The end result is dizziness. Or maybe that’s just from the whiskey.
I try to sober up as I stumble along. Years of observing my mother has taught me a few tricks, and I utilize them all. I slap my cheeks. I shake my arms and take deep breaths. I widen my eyes, pretending there are invisible toothpicks holding up the lids.
Rather than head straight to Dogwood, I keep walking, pulled subconsciously in another direction. Past the cabins. To the latrine. But I don’t go inside. Instead, I lean against it, momentarily lost. I close my eyes and wonder why I’ve come here in the first place.
I open them only when I feel a nearby presence, alarmingly close and getting closer. On the edge of my vision, I see someone round the corner of the latrine. A shape. Dark and swift. My body tenses. I almost scream, somehow managing to stop it when the shape comes into focus.
Casey.
Checking to see who’s there while sneaking a cigarette like a high school sophomore.
“You startled me,” she says before a deep drag and a languid puff. “I thought you were Mindy.”
I say nothing.
Casey drops the cigarette, stubs it out. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I say, stifling a giggle even though my talk with Becca has left me feeling unbearably sad. “Just fine.”
“My God, are you drunk?”
“I’m not,” I say, sounding just like my mother, the words slurred into one.Imnot.
Casey shakes her head, part horrified, part amused. “You better not let Mindy see you like this. She’ll totally freak out.”
She leaves. I stay, roaming the perimeter of the building, an index finger sliding along the cedar shingles. Then I see the crack. That gap between planks now stuffed with clay. And I remember why I’m here—I’m retracing my steps. Going to the same spot I went after Vivian disappeared from the campfire. Fifteen years later, I can still see her and Theo together in the shower stall. I can still feel the heartache that caused. A muted memory pain.
I also feel something else. A shiver of awareness jumping along the skin of my arms, the back of my neck.
I look up, expecting to see Casey again. Or, worse, Mindy.