Page 108 of High Season

Hannah hesitated. The only reason she had come here was to see Blake.

But then she imagined him catching sight of her from across the beach. Laughing, having fun, already absorbed into his world.

“Blake can wait. I think I’d like to play.”

The game was truth or dare. Tamara set the rules. Three truths and three dares, going round the circle, each taking turns. Backing out on a dare or refusing to answer a truth was punished with a swig of neat vodka.

It seemed to Hannah that the game was a way for the girls to spill all the outrageous things that they’d done, all the things they wanted to brag about. Almost everyone picked truth for the first couple of rounds. Tamara described how she’d blown a guy in the school library. Olivia coyly dropped the name of a celebrity’s son whose virginity she had taken on a skiing holiday. Phoebe told a long, elaborate story about the worst sex she’d ever had, the other girls shrieking with laughter.

When it was Hannah’s turn, they asked her to name her crush, and the question felt so easy compared to the ones that they had already asked one another that she’d glanced between them, almost expecting a punchline.

“Well,” she said. “I guess… I guess Blake.”

Tamara pulled a face, and Olivia demanded that Chrissie take a shot for asking such a boring question.

“Hey,” said Phoebe. “Isn’t that your friend over there?”

She was looking across the bonfire to the other side of the rocks. They all followed her gaze, but the brightness of the fire snatched at Hannah’s vision. She could only see dim silhouettes, half shapes.

“Watch out, Tamara,” said Chrissie. “She might try and touch you up again.”

Hannah felt her stomach tighten.

“Oh shit,” said Olivia. “She’s coming over.”

From the mess of bodies, the dimly lit crowd, Hannah’s vision calibrated and Josie came into focus, her short, compact figure, her trademark ponytail. Her face was open and smiling as she lifted one hand to wave.

“Hannah!” she said, her voice bright and clear, even over the crowds. “You got out of the tutoring job?”

Beside her, Hannah heard Olivia snort. “Tutoring job?” she muttered. “On a Friday night? Jesus. You must be more desperate for money than I thought.”

“Hi, Tamara,” Josie said. She was looking straight at her, her gaze unwavering, even when Chrissie wolf-whistled and Phoebe snorted with laughter. Tamara stubbed her cigarette out, ignoring her.

“You must be getting mixed up,” Hannah said loudly. “I’m not tutoring tonight. Clearly.”

Josie’s face creased into a frown.

“But you said earlier—”

“What are you doing here, anyway?” Hannah said before Josie could finish speaking. Before she could reveal something that would confirm for these girls how unlike them she really was. “You can’t have been invited.”

Josie shifted her weight onto her right foot, her hip protruding to one side. Her bare legs were marked with small, pitted scars. Mosquito bites. Grazes that Hannah recognized from when they spent their summers scrambling over rocks and diving into the sea.

“It’s a public beach, isn’t it?” Josie said, bristling slightly. And then, with less affront, “And Tamara told me about it.”

“Tamara?” Chrissie turned around, disbelieving.

Tamara’s mouth was a thin line.

“Yeah, I mentioned it,” she said. “I didn’t say that you should come.”

“Oh my god,” said Chrissie. “She’s, like, stalking you or something, Tam.”

Josie was frowning now, confused. She looked at Hannah, appealing directly to her best friend.

“I was just sitting over there, by the fire,” she said. “Some of the guys are setting up beer pong. You wanna come and play?”

“You wanna come and play?” Chrissie mimicked Josie’s hopeful tone, elevating the pitch of her voice until it twisted into a toddler-esque mewl.