Page 31

Chapter Thirty

Scarlett

T hings have been good between Dylan and me all week. I went over to the theater techie table where he was sitting on Wednesday and ate lunch with him. He barely talked, but he also didn’t tell me to leave. Or ditch me and take off to wherever he goes after the ten minutes he usually spends in the dining hall. Seb and Caroline even joined us for the last fifteen minutes. He finally got out of hospital last week, and she was helping him study for a history test he has to make up. I think Dylan was sort of fascinated to see someone else struggling with schoolwork. Like he maybe believed everything always comes easily to all of us other Sandy Haven Prep folks.

I tried convincing him to come to the bonfire tonight. It’s the Fall Fling this evening—basically a semi-formal dance, then afterwards a bunch of people usually head to Helicina Cove for the final bonfire party of the year. I knew the dance was too much of a leap for Dylan, but hoped I might convince him about the bonfire. But he’s a firm ‘no’ on that front, too. Even when my mom and Diane jumped on board at dinner this evening before I started getting ready for the dance, trying to convince him he had nothing to lose by going.

It’s the first time I’ve been to a dance without a date, and it feels weird. Not bad, just… strange. At least Seb’s here, though. And even though he’s under strict instructions to take it easy, for Seb, that still computes at a social presence several tiers above your average party goer. He hypes up the mood tenfold, even when he’s “taking it easy”.

Jackie and I cross paths by the massive punch bowl Xave no doubt spiked with liquor, and we end up hanging out quite a bit over the next couple of hours, finding our way to each other during the slow dances, which we both sit out. Silas didn’t come to the Fall Fling; apparently dances “aren’t his thing”, but he’s joining her later for the party at Helicina Cove. In the meantime, Jackie and I pretend to guess what couples are whispering to each other as they’re pressed chest to chest, swaying to music that’s loud and echoey and not exactly romantic. I’ve been talking more with her at school this past week, too, since I wore that hideous Rainbow Dash bracelet on Monday. Jackie was stunned I still had it. I think she was touched I kept it all these years. I’m touched that she still cares.

Gavin is drunk and dancing with a different girl every slow song, getting handsy and rebuffed more than once. It doesn’t feel weird seeing him with other girls the way I expected it to so soon after our breakup—maybe because we only dated for a month. Or maybe because we were never really a couple—just two people who slapped the label on our relationship regardless of how accurately it fit. He’s given me the cold shoulder since we broke up, and I’m okay with that, too.

After the dance, those of us heading to the party at Helicina Cove huddle into the locker room to change out of our dresses into unflattering bulky layers: jeans and thick socks with sneakers, fitted long-sleeve T-shirts under sweaters under warm jackets. You can always tell the bonfire party newbies because they’re the ones that show up looking cute and put together, and leave hours before anyone else. Seasoned Helicina Cove party-goers come prepared and never get defeated by the weather. I went to a party in May last year where it drizzled rain the entire time, and everyone showed up in boots and hardcore rain jackets with hoods.

When we emerge from the locker room, Silas is here to pick up Jackie, along with this girl Maggie, who goes to Ocean Heights High with him and is apparently his foster sister. I’ve seen her a few times at parties and stuff. Her mom owns Board and Brews, which explains how Silas got a job there.

We hang out for a bit in the quad, chatting with Silas and Maggie, who is friends with Caroline and Jackie, too. She seems cool. Totally different from the crew I usually hang out with, excluding Seb and Xave. A lot of kids who go to Ocean Heights are either intimidated or hostile towards SH Prep students. Maggie is neither. Her confidence is as unapologetic as her pink shoulder-length hair. And when Jackie asks if I want to drive with them to the bonfire, I agree. Maggie being there means I won’t be the third wheel cramping Jackie and Silas’ couple style. Also, I’m liking spending this time with Jackie again. And getting to know Maggie.

I’m still on the fence about Silas.

“Best song ever! ” Maggie squeals, as Jackie turns up One Direction’s Steal My Girl from the passenger seat beside Silas . She’s been blasting cheesy boy band music since we left the dance, batting Silas’ hand away whenever he tries to switch a song. Because he’s driving and has a limited range of motion, she wins every time.

“You can play angry death metal music on your way to school or to work or to stoner D&D dice rolling parties,” she explains over the pounding epic piano intro. “But it’s a rule that you have to play boy band music on the way to a bonfire.”

“First of all,” he yells over the music, “I don’t listen to death metal.”

“Punk, then. Whatever.” Jackie waves her hand dismissively.

“Yeah, because punk is exactly the same as death metal.”

“Thank you!” She is totally egging him on. “Glad we agree.”

“Secondly,” he ignores her. “What the hell is a ‘stoner D&D dice rolling party’? And tell me when in my life I’ve ever been to one?”

She doesn’t even bother responding this time. Just ‘boops’ him playfully on the nose with her finger.

He leans out of her reach, so his back is practically plastered against the car door as he drives. “I’ve never played D&D in my life.” He sits back normally.

“Aha!” She ‘boops’ his nose again. “Then maybe you should! It’s probably right up your alley.” She grins. “Since they play that angry death metal music you love so much on the way to their parties.”

He glances up at me in the rearview mirror, ducking from another nose boop from Jackie. “Scarlett agrees with me, right?” he calls. “No way you’re down with this boy band crap.”

I wince apologetically. “I don’t hate it.”

No way I would have admitted that to the people I’ve spent most of my time hanging out with these past couple of years. Because they’re acquaintances. Not friends. And you share entirely different parts of yourself with friends than you do with acquaintances. And the truth is I think Steal My Girl is the perfect pre-bonfire-party pump up song. So while I may not belt the lyrics at the top of my lungs like Jax and Maggie, I do bop my head to the beat. Fist pump cheesily a few times when the chorus comes on.

“Well, thank fuck we’re almost there, then,” Silas grumbles. Only he has to scream over the singing, so it’s way more comical than a normal grumble. More like a one-line rant. And we all double over laughing. Even Silas cracks a smile as he rolls his eyes and pulls the car into Mallard’s Convenience parking lot.

We all pile out, pull on hats and mitts and grab blankets from the trunk, along with a couple bags of marshmallows and a case of Mike's Hard Lemonade that Maggie brought. I notice Silas has a six-pack of Mountain Dew tucked under one arm. He’s clearly serious about the sobriety thing, and I feel bad all over again for the snarky comment I threw at him that day at Board and Brews.

We jog across the street, along with a slew of other people heading to the tree obscured gap in the steep forested cliff that marks the start of the narrow, rickety wooden staircase that leads down to Helicina Cove. Halfway down, the warm light from the bonfire starts glowing through the tree branches, and the loud chatter of the crowd drowns out the sound of the surf lapping against the surrounding boulders. That, and the distinctive groove of Outcast at Last by Sticky Fingers blasting from a portable speaker. Indie Australian. Xave must be on Aux.

“Well, thank God at least one other person here has decent taste in music,” Silas grumbles as we step off the stairs on to the sandy beach. I don’t tell him that Xave is the one with “decent taste in music”, because he was one of the guys who had to throw Silas out of my end of Junior Year party last June, when he and those other two Allerston Lake guys showed up looking for trouble, barely able to walk straight. I doubt Silas even remembers, but I get the sense he’d be embarrassed now if he knew. Xavier’s close with Jackie, though, so I guess it’s likely Silas has already been made aware. Faced that awkward situation and come out the other side.

I lean into our small group. “I have to go help Seb with something,” I call over the music, “But I’ll catch up with you guys in a bit.”

Maggie tells me she’ll save a Mike’s Hard for me. Even though I doubt she’ll remember half an hour from now—and I really don’t care if I drink tonight or not—it’s still sweet of her to offer. She just met me and anything she’s heard about me has likely been less than glowing. So it says a lot about her that she’s forming her own judgment. I make a mental note to scout her out later and chat for a bit.

Seb planned a surprise for Caroline that I agreed to help him with up in the Shack, which is basically just a glorified shed a bunch of kids built partway up the sloped forested area above the beach a few years back. I start making my way up the raised rocky ledge along the edge of the trees, just before the steeper cliff that hugs the cove. I’ve taken a few steps when two muscular arms wrap around me from behind.

“Scarly!” Seb’s voice brings a grin to my lips with the nickname he used for me when we were kids. He turns, then lifts me into one of his patented squeeze hugs. My best friend looks happy. A little tired, which has become the norm for him since the incident that landed him in hospital three weeks ago, but he’s still his sweet, happy-go-lucky self—pink-cheeked and mischievous grin on full display.

We talk as we make our way towards the rickety hut perched about fifty feet above the cove. My eyes wander to the beach as we walk, scanning the crowd milling around the bonfire and scattered in clusters across the sheltered, wide crescent of sand. Even in the past ten minutes since we got here, more people have arrived. My gaze snags on a larger group close to the smooth boulders by the rolling waves. It catches my attention because they’re all girls clustered around one guy, like fan girls mobbing a celebrity or something. Which—wait a second…

Of course. Dylan Braun is the “celebrity” at the center of the swarm of girls.

My step falters, and Seb reaches for my elbow to steady me. My eyes remain fixed on the scene on the beach a few feet away.

What the hell? Dylan said he wasn’t coming. And if he changed his mind, why wouldn’t he have texted to let me know? He doesn’t have the bad spelling thing to fall back on anymore. He is fully versed in voice to text now. And this is kind of a big deal—the first time he’s ever gone out to a social event.

Seb follows my line of vision, then watches me for a second. He nudges my shoulder with his elbow. “Something you forgot to fill me in on last week about you and this Dylan Braun guy?” He quirks a brow at me.

When we talked last week after Seb got out of hospital, I told him Dylan and I were getting along now. That I’m no longer bent out of shape about him moving in next door the way I was before Seb went into hospital three weeks ago. But those are the extent of the details I got into with him.

“I told you we’re friends.”

Seb leans in so his eyes are level with mine. “That’s not your friendship face, Scarly.” He grins. “You think I scrambled my brain so bad I forgot what your ‘invested’ face looks like?”

I laugh. “ Invested? ”

“Yeah. That look you were throwing Broody Boy and his fan club a second ago was totally invested… More than a ‘friend’ kind of invested.” He presses against my forehead with the heel of his palm. “You”—he presses again lightly—“have caught feels for this guy.”

Am I really that easy to read? Because both he and Xave seem to be able to pick up on the subtlest of my moods lately.

“I am ‘invested’ because we’re friends.” I remove his hand from my forehead. “And he’s got a lot he’s dealing with right now, so I’m extra aware of him.”

But a friend wouldn’t be this hurt that he didn’t text about a change of plans for a Friday night party. A friend wouldn’t be this invested in any of his plans.

Seb glances back at the scene playing out by the boulder. “Yeah, definitely looks like he’s dealing with a few things right now.” He grins playfully. “Like a bunch of hot girls fawning over him.”

I roll my eyes, and he continues. “But you wouldn’t care about that, right?” His eyebrow lifts. “Because you’re just interested in him as a friend.”

“You sound like a middle school gossip girl right now.”

He laughs. “And you’re reflecting.”

Pretty sure he means deflecting. He mixes up words sometimes since the incident that landed him in hospital.

“Okay… you know what?” I slow my pace and turn towards him. “Maybe I am catching feels for him… but he’s got a lot he’s dealing with. Pretty sure ‘catching feels’ is not even on his radar right now.”

Seb shrugs. “So? You got a timeline on when you need to slide into your next relationship or something?”

I don’t answer because it wasn’t really a question. He’s making a point, and it isn’t a bad one.

We walk again. Change the subject to other stuff. I almost tell him about the texts from Carter, but I don’t want to bring the mood down right before this thing he planned for Caroline. The easy conversation continues once we get to the Shack and as we work together, setting stuff up. I’ve missed this easy vibe with Seb. Our conversations when I visited him in hospital felt off. I was so focused on keeping things upbeat and surface-level. Seb’s memory has been shot for months now, but when he was in hospital, it was even more flimsy, just like his attention span.

Twenty minutes later, we hug again and I leave, so that I’m not in the shack with him when Caroline shows up, which would definitely ruin his sweet gesture. Just as I start making my way back down the path, I hear someone call out.

"Yo! Carter Beaumont! I didn’t know you were gonna be here tonight, man!”

And I halt dead in my tracks.