Page 27 of The Publicity Stunt

“Parker?”

ChapterEight

Thirteen Years Ago

HAYDEN

Every year, a week before graduation, the entire senior class of Cooperstown High heads out to Otsego Lake to jump off a cliff in the name of tradition. There’s no backstory or any sound logic to it.

“Is this really necessary?” I ask April.

“Yes, it is.” She pulls her auburn hair back into a high ponytail and squints her eyes against the harsh summer sun.

I peer down the edge of the rocky cliff, trying to calculate how quick our deaths will be. “April, I’m scared.”

She doesn’t even laugh at my admission. All she does is reach into her blue backpack and take out a bottle of sunscreen. “It’s tradition.” She squeezes out a dime-sized amount onto her palms, then hands me the bottle.

“I don’t want to do this.” I try to rub some of it on the back of my neck.

“Want me to get that for you?” she asks.

“What?”

“Your back.”

“Oh. Yeah, sure.” I hand her the bottle and crouch to match her height. Everyone else has already jumped in and they’re busy splashing and dunking, filling the air with happy shrieks.

April’s hands move between my shoulder blades. “It’s not a big deal, you know?” she says. “It’s just a cliff and some water. We’ll be fine. Everyone here is doing it.”

“You sound like a drug pusher.”

Her hands move lower. “I did convince you to start drinking beer.”

“Unless we’re about to cliff dive into a lake of beer, I don’t see the point you’re trying to make.”

She runs her fingers over my waist. “Parker, this happens every year and the worst thing that’s happened to anyone is getting bit by an insect.”

“Chere, that insect was a huge fucking wasp,” I counter. “Ava Nealey ended up in the ER.”

April pulls her hands back in and I turn around.

“She ended up in the ER because she was allergic to wasps,” April says. “It’s not the wasp’s fault. And don’t wasps, like, die after stinging you? Don’t you think that whole experience was more traumatic for the wasp and its family than it was for her, getting a few shots at the hospital?”

“That’s scientifically inaccurate.”

“We’re doing this.” She puts her hands on her waist, her loose white T-shirt scrunching below her palms, and shakes her head. “It’s a little hypocritical that you read about superheroes all day long and can’t jump off a small-ass cliff.”

Small-ass cliff? This shit is fifty feet high.

Just then April’s eyes flick to a vague point over my shoulder, and she waves.

I glance back and—oh, hell, no.

Tyler fucking Hockman.

“You’re coming tonight, right?” April says, prompting me to face her again.

“Tonight?”