“I think I’m good,” I say.
“Come on!” he says. “It’s a show of good faith between us. I’m done being a jerk, you’re done believing I’m a jerk.”
He pushes the bottle on me and I hold it over my mouth and drink. Someone bumps me from behind, and my next swig completely misses my open mouth and trickles down my shirt. “Shit,” I say.
Eric coughs, holding his hand to his mouth to hide a laugh.
“Oh, screw you!” I say, handing him his bottle, but he’s still laughing, so I start laughing too. “Now I have to walk around like this all n—”
I jump at a hand on my shoulder.
“I want you to be honest with me.” It’s a voice that sounds like Luke’s but also so unlike it.
I turn around, and it’s him, his eyes looking unfocused, a brand-new bottle in his hand.
“Hey—are you okay?” I ask, already feeling a knot of anxiety in the pit of my stomach.
“I just want one question. One simple question,” he says.
His tone and the way he’s looking at me are making me very uncomfortable. “Okay?”
“Did you fuck him?”
I freeze at his words, my heart plummeting to a pool at my feet. “Luke, you’re drunk . . .”
“It’s just a question. One question. He’s always around you, and I knew something was going on. I always thought about it, but I told myself, no, she loves you.”
“Luke—”
“—and then I see you with him.”
Eric, who has been silent all this time, takes a step forward toward Luke. “Dude, it’s not what you think. We were just talking.”
“So—you did?” Luke completely ignores Eric as he looks at me. “That’s a yes?”
I try to reach for Luke’s arm, but he shrugs me off, and his voice gets louder. “It’s a simple question. Did. You. Fuck. Him.”
“Luke, stop it,” I say, my eyes filling.
“Man, you’re totally overreacting,” Eric is saying. “I swear to God. We don’t even talk, normally, but she was worried about you and—”
“Eric, shut the fuck up,” Luke says, turning on Eric.
“Don’t talk to him that way,” I say. It’s not Eric that he wants. He’s not asking about Eric. None of this is about Eric.
Luke shoves a rough hand through his hair, and his voice is broken and swollen with alcohol and anger and tears and fear. “It’s so simple. God, it’s such an easy answer. But you did, you fucked my brother . . .”
“No, I didn’t,” I say, but my voice comes out tiny in the dark. Around us, a crowd is forming.
“I should have known,” he says, his voice still threatening tears, though none are running down his cheek. Only mine. “You didn’t want me. You wanted my family. Hell, maybe you didn’t even want Ro, you—”
My hand on his cheek makes a terrible sound. Loud and hard, and my fingers are stinging so badly. “Fuck you,” I say, and I’m surprised to hear myself speaking almost as loudly as he was.
He’s staring at me with wide eyes, the imprint of my palm leaving a red mark on his face.
“Fuck you.” I say it again, and then I’m pushing through the crowd, ignoring the sound of a girl calling my name. My eyes are blurring so hard I can barely find my car.
I knew it I knew it I knew it . . .
I should never have come tonight.
THEN
Luke and I had our very first fight over it. It was on Wednesday. He’d gone back on Sunday, and he was still refusing to drive down for Rowan’s birthday on Friday.
“Why’s it such a big deal to you if I come?” he’d asked over the phone that night.
“Are you serious?” I asked.
“Well, yeah.”
“First, because I want to see you. Second, it’s your brother’s freaking birthday and you’ve never missed it before and you actually have the weekend off, but you’re just not willing to come down. Because of some stupid ego trip you’re on.”
“I’m not on an ego trip.”
“Could have fooled me,” I said.
“You’re being so unreasonable.”
“No, you are.”
In the end, he’d said something about how this was between him and Ro, and if his brother didn’t care about him not being there, neither did he. I’d said fine and then I’d hung up.
The next day, Thursday, was the first day since our fro-yo date that we didn’t speak once, either over the phone or even by text. I couldn’t believe I was seeing this other side of Luke. He was so damn stubborn. Insufferable was the word, actually.
I’d spoken to Ro about it, and he’d just shrugged and said, “If Luke doesn’t want to come, he doesn’t have to.”
I was certain he was putting on a brave face. I obviously didn’t have siblings, but I knew I would care if they missed my birthday for reasons that were not totally unavoidable. I knew what it was like to have a family that was alive but not living. Here, but not present. Knew what it was like to feel like an afterthought to the people who were supposed to love you. And there were few things that sucked more.
The day of Ro’s party, I’d spent the afternoon at Mel’s house, where we piled the back of Ro’s car with snacks, paper plates, napkins, and two foldout tables.
“There better not be any drinking,” Mel warned, and Ro scoffed and acted like his mother was being ridiculous.
“I’m not an idiot,” he said.
I suspected that he was bluffing and that someone (or several someones) was bound to show up with alcohol, but I would always be loyal to Rowan, so I said nothing to Mel.
At seven thirty, dressed in a pair of jeans, a nice top, and a bomber jacket, I jumped into Ro’s car and waved at Mel and Naomi, who had come over for wine. Ro drove us to the lake.
It was kind of dumb to begin with. Having a party at the lake in October. It had been an unseasonably warm fall, and we didn’t have to worry about snow or ice or anything yet, but it was still fall. When I pointed this out, Rowan shrugged and said he couldn’t help when he was born.
When we arrived at the lake, we got to work setting up. My phone was in my jacket, which I’d thrown in a pile on the beach after realizing that Ro was right; it wasn’t “that cold” yet. By eight, most of Ro’s friends were starting to arrive. Cassie Clairburne greeted him with a passionate kiss, whispering something in his ear. She didn’t acknowledge me as I continued setting up. For some reason, there had been this weird tension between me and Cassie since she and Ro started dating. Before they were together, we never really spoke to each other. And now that they were together . . . we never really spoke to each other. I didn’t worry too much about it, though, since I suspected that their relationship had all the longevity of a juniors tennis match.
The party got underway, and music blasted out from Ro’s speakers. Despite not being as cold as I’d expected, it was still October and mostly dark by six thirty.
For the first hour, I circled among different groups, chatting to people from different classes. I didn’t know half as many people as Ro knew, and I certainly wouldn’t consider them all “friends,” but Rowan and I had never been the kind of best friends who always had to be joined at the hip. I was fine, drifting in and out of conversations, laughing with people I’d known since elementary school and people I hadn’t. The whole thing was going pretty well.
Until I realized I couldn’t find Rowan.
I shimmied through different clusters of people, looking for him. Thought about finding my jacket and grabbing my phone, but then I remembered that he’d asked me to put his phone in my second pocket while we unloaded the car. I grew more and more panicked as I searched. Especially when I saw Cassie sitting next to a lacrosse player who had his arm around her. Instead of feeling vindicated that I was probably right about her, I felt sorry for Ro and hoped he hadn’t seen this.
I continued threading my way through the party, looking for Rowan. Since he certainly was not with Cassie, I knew the most likely person I’d fi
nd him with was Eric, so when I spotted Eric laughing with a group of girls I didn’t know, my heart sank.
“Do you know where Ro is?” I asked him.
“No,” he said. “I’m sure he’s around somewhere.”
Helpful, I thought. And drunk.
My biggest fear was that he had done something stupid and wandered into the water. He wasn’t suicidal, but if there was a bad idea to be found, Rowan would find it. So I started walking, following the path around the lake until I saw a small figure several yards ahead. Just as I feared, I found him way down at the other end of the lake, his jeans rolled up as he stood in water up to the middle of his calves.
“Ro, are you insane?” I cried, running up to where he stood.
“You found me.” He grinned at me like he’d won a bet with himself.
“Yeah. Because I thought, where’s the stupidest possible place I could find him, and that’s where I went.”
I searched his face for signs that he was upset. Maybe he’d seen Cassie with that guy and decided to walk away.
But I saw no sign that he had.
He smiled at my comment and took a swig from the bottle in his hand.
“Thought you told Mel you weren’t drinking.”
“I didn’t tell Mel anything,” he argued.
“Okay. Well—come out. It’s dark, and that water’s looking freaking creepy.”
He looked down at it as if noticing it for the first time.
“Why aren’t you with your friends?” I asked. “Like, who throws a party and then runs away?”
“I’m not in the mood for company.”
“Well, gee, could you have notified all these people before they came out?” I pointed to the other side of the lake. I was feeling increasingly annoyed that I’d spent all this time looking for him, and here he was, fine and totally unbothered about disappearing on me.
“Didn’t know this would happen,” he said.
I took a step closer to the water and saw his face more clearly. His eyes were unfocused, and he was upset. But for some reason, I didn’t think it was about Cassie.
“What would happen?”
“Coach found out about my elbow.”
“Oh, Ro, that sucks,” I said, feeling a wave of sadness for him. Nothing upset Rowan more than not being able to play. “How?”
“I was in too much fucking pain to hit a damn ball today. That’s how.”
“Hopefully this will give you a chance to rest?” I ventured, trying to put a positive spin on it.
“I don’t want to rest,” he said, sounding petulant. “I want to play.”
“You will play. Next season and in college and for the rest of your life.”
He drank from his bottle and then appraised me, a twinkle in his eye. “Want to do something crazy with me?”
“Not really,” I said.
“Come on, Jess,” he said. “Please.”
“What’s the thing?”
“I want to get in the water.”
“You are in the water,” I pointed out.
“I want to get in properly. Like all the way.”
“That’s disgusting. You have no idea what’s been in there or what is in there. And it’s so dark. Ew. No way.”
“I’ll protect you. Nothing will happen to us,” he said.
“No. Come out or I’m going to go and call Mel.”
“Why are you like this?” Ro asked suddenly, glaring at me.
I glared back. “I’m not like anything.”
“You’re not you. You’re not my best friend anymore.”
The words caught me off-guard, and they stung. “Because I won’t let you drink and go swimming in some disgusting lake in the middle of the night?”
“Because you’re different,” he said.
“Different than what, Ro?” I asked, exasperated. Were we really going to do this now? And what the hell did he mean? After all the ways he had changed over the past few months, he was accusing me of being different?
“Remember when we were kids and we’d play mixed together, and you’d call out ‘mine’ for every shot? And then Coach was like, ‘Jessi, you have to let Rowan get the shots on his side of the court. When it’s for him, say “yours.” ’ But for like the next year, you wouldn’t listen. You still called out ‘mine’ every single time, so I just started running for every shot, and sometimes we’d go for the same one and collide?”
Despite myself, I smiled. “Yeah, so?”
“So, you used to fight me. They called us water and oil.”
“Because water and oil don’t mix.”
“They’re just as strong as each other,” Ro said. “They have an understanding.”
I sighed. “If you’re going to say that the understanding is that the water doesn’t tell the oil’s mom when the oil gets drunk, I’m not buying it.”
“No,” Ro said. “I’m going to say that my mom is fucking dying, I don’t know where I’m going when she does, I can’t play, and all I want is my best friend to get in the water and get drunk with me.” He was full-on crying now. “That’s all I want.”
“It doesn’t solve anything,” I told him now, softly.
“For a minute it does,” he said. “Please.”
And because he was my best friend and everything was falling apart, because he said it would make things better for a minute, because we’d been drifting apart for months and it felt like maybe for one moment we could find each other again, I did what everything in my head was telling me not to.
“Turn around,” I ordered.
He grinned through his tears and obeyed.
Unable to believe myself, I unzipped my jeans and climbed out of them. I discarded the tank top I was wearing and started toward the water.
Ro turned around when I was still only ankle-deep. I felt his eyes appraise my nearly naked body and I hugged my arms around my waist. I told myself I was pretty much in a bikini, underwear and a bra, but it did nothing to reduce the exposed feeling washing over me.
“It’s so cold,” I said, regretting this decision with every ounce of me but continuing forward. “What is even happening right now?”
“It’s not that bad,” he said. “You get used to it.”
Rowan peeled off his shirt then and flung it toward the beach, but he missed, and it landed in the water. “Son of a—” he said, wading out to retrieve it. He kept going until he was on the beach, where he started to take off his jeans.
I looked away, my entire body suddenly feeling warm even though I was immersed in lake water up to my thighs in October.
Ro whooped now as he ran back into the lake, the bottle still in his hand. I tried not to look, but my eyes immediately went to the gray boxer briefs he was wearing. They left absolutely nothing to the imagination, and my neck went hot as I snatched my gaze away again.
“Give me that bottle,” I said. “I need some liquid courage.”
Smiling, Ro handed me the bottle. I grabbed it by the neck and took a long sip of something that burned the back of my throat. Together Ro and I waded deeper into the water.
“What if there’s fish in here? Or flesh-eating bacteria?” I asked.
“Nah,” he said. “I know a dude who swims here all the time. He’s missing a few toes, but . . .”
I whacked his chest, and he laughed.
“I’m not going in any further,” I said. I was about hip-high in the water now, while Ro was in up to his mid-thigh.
I took another drink, then handed the bottle to him.
“What do you want to do next year?” I asked. “Do you want to go to your dad’s?”
“It doesn’t matter what I want. It seems like everything I want exists just so someone else can have it. The crazy thing is I always thought you and I were different.”
It felt like the alcohol was already making my mind cloudy.
“I literally have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said.
“Of course you don’t,” Rowan said in a voice that so
unded strangely bitter.
“Am I supposed to?”
“I guess not. And yet you somehow manage to understand the complete lack of facial expression and the caveman grunts my brother makes.”
That was definitely bitter. And completely out of line. “Don’t talk about Luke that way.”
“That’s the thing,” Ro said. “I don’t want to talk about Luke at all. Not with you. Not after all this fucking time.”
“Why are you yelling?”
“Because you don’t get it!” he shouted. “And you don’t get it because you don’t want to.”
I stayed quiet and watched as he got more and more worked up. “All these years. I’m the reason you met him. Me.” He pointed at his chest.
“Ro—” I said, but no words followed.
“There’s nothing about me you don’t know. And there’s nothing about you I don’t know. Except that—oh wait, you’re in love with my fucking brother.”
“I didn’t . . . I don’t know everything about you,” I said.
“Like what?” he spat. “Name one thing you don’t know about me.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, feeling a fire start to burn inside me. “Why did you make me leave that night at your mom’s?”
“I told you,” he said.
“You said you didn’t want me to see you cry. That’s bullshit!” I yelled back, even though I had made my peace with the answer. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t believe it. But it didn’t make any freaking sense. And it hurt.
Why would he ever, ever ask me to leave if I was truly family?
“Because, generally, Jessi,” he spat my name out like it was a bad word. “When you’re in love with someone, you don’t want them to see you bawling like a baby.”
I opened and shut my mouth like a guppy.
I repeated the words in my head. When you’re in love with someone . . .
“You’re saying you love me?” I asked, so stunned I felt as if I had woken up in the wrong body. The wave of doubt he’d started in me about whether the Cohens really cared about me, the cloud of confusion my relationship with Ro had become—and all along it was because he liked me?
“I’m saying I love you,” he said, looking me dead in the eye.
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