No One Here Is Lonely

by Sarah Everett

  Incoming. Five o’clock, Lacey would cough, if she spotted him first.

  What the hell is five o’clock? Just say right or left! I’d hiss back, casually running a hand through my hair.

  Now his absence is the first thing we notice. The strange thing, though, is how indistinguishable this party is from any of the others we’ve been to in the past year. The same people are here, the same music is playing from a speaker behind us and I would bet good money that people are having the same conversations they have had all year. Who is dating who, who got wasted at the last party, who is going where for college, what everyone is doing over the summer. If you didn’t know that one of us was missing—that one of us had died two weeks ago—you wouldn’t be able to tell. The wrongness of it floats through the air, and I wonder how many of us are sensing it.

  People talk about him, of course, about his memorial and memories they have of him. No one talks about the accident; it’s like a tender bruise, impossible to ignore but too raw and painful to touch. Maybe it would make more sense if he’d been drinking, if he’d gotten behind the wheel after knocking back too many at Brendan’s party. Maybe we could convince ourselves he even deserved it. But the way it actually happened—a little rain and a curve and Will hitting the gas too hard—it feels devastating.

  It feels senseless.

  I spot a few of his friends around. Just like at graduation, guys like Kyle Bennett, Brendan Colbert and Tommy Rodriguez form a forlorn cluster under a swatch of drooping trees. I wonder whether they know about In Good Company, that Will signed up to be a Cognitive Donor before he died. Is that the kind of thing they talked about?

  Our first order of business is to procure cans of beer from the massive cooler that is the centerpiece of this party. Then we’re weaving our way from group to group, like we often do at parties and even at school. Lacey and I are chronic blenders. The kind of kids who can slip into pretty much any group. At some point, though, I end up losing her, and then I’m caught in a conversation with Lauren Herbert about some new cleanse she’s trying. Lacey and I refer to her as New Age Lauren—forever on the hunt for the ideal meditation spot or juicing regimen.

  “It’s, like, the perfect regimen,” she gushes.

  I feel an odd sense of fondness for Lauren tonight. For everyone here. It’s more than just Will’s death. It’s that last-day-of-camp feeling, when all sins are forgiven and you’re scrambling to get everyone’s numbers because the summer is ending and you don’t know when you’ll see each other again. I want to throw my arms around Lauren and tell her what I wrote in her yearbook, make her promise not to change.

  “That sounds really cool,” I say instead. When I finally find Lacey again, she’s planted herself in a little cluster on the beach with Hail and Libby and Vance, and they are passing what I hope is a cigarette between the four of them.

  “Hey,” I say, flopping down beside her. Lacey shifts closer to Hail to make room for me. I try to catch her eye, to make her answer the question in my mind, but she is too busy laughing at something Hail has just said. Either Hail has turned into a comedian overnight or Lacey has already had more to drink than I have.

  “So what are we doing?” I ask pointedly, but with a decidedly nonjudgmental air. Lacey claims that I have a stick up my ass when it comes to the friends she made in shop class last semester, and I’m trying to show her that is not at all the case.

  At least, it wouldn’t be, if the smell of weed didn’t follow them around like a shadow.

  Lacey, intentionally or unintentionally missing my point, nudges Hail. “Tell her about the carnival,” she says, already cracking up again.

  I turn to Hail and try to follow a convoluted story about a bad pot brownie and a roller coaster and a girl with hair teased to high heaven. Hail has, it turns out, not blossomed into a comedian overnight, but I laugh politely and try to seem like my ass is completely free of foreign objects.

  As Hail starts to tell Lacey another story, I turn and watch other groups milling around. A horde of people are having a stone-skipping contest behind us and I’m tempted to join them, but I don’t want to leave Lacey.

  This is one of our Lasts, and knowing it is like watching color fade into black and white, like watching day fade into the sunken grays of nighttime.

  After a while, though, Lacey decides it’s not a bonfire without camp songs, and so she coaxes a whole bunch of people to join our group, then runs back to the car she and Oliver inherited from their mom to retrieve the guitar she always conveniently just happens to have with her. She slings it across her body, and along with her loose curls and the way she’s dressed, it has the effect of making her look like some tiny musical hippie vagabond. It’s an aesthetic that works on her, though.

  Speaking of things only Lacey can get away with: getting people to gather in a misshapen circle to sing camp songs while she strums on her guitar. Anyone else would be self-conscious, worried about being the person who always has to get up and perform at every party, but not Lacey.

  Not even when the first few chords start out sloppy, her words slurring like her tongue is slightly heavy in her mouth.

  She’s definitely had a couple of beers.

  Still, she closes her eyes and her voice rings out clear and earnest, louder than everyone else’s. A tear slides out of the corner of her eye, and she keeps singing, doesn’t wipe it away. I have the urge to reach out and brush it off her cheek, but I don’t.

  It’s the first time she seems to have noticed the vibration of sadness in the air.

  She doesn’t seem to notice, though, that everyone else singing is doing so with a hokey sense of irony and irreverence. Or if she does, she doesn’t care.

  I’ve always envied that about Lacey, the permission she gives herself to feel things, no matter who is watching.

  Even though she’s drunk, she’s still good, her raspy voice soothing. A gentle breeze makes the hair on my skin rise. It feels like a song in the dark, like a ghost in an abandoned house.

  For the second time today, it feels like Will is here.

  THINGS DETERIORATE QUICKLY.

  First there’s the skinny-dipping.

  I know it’s Lacey’s idea, because it’s number three on the list of things we plan to do this summer, things we plan to do before we head to college.

  “I thought it would be, you know, private,” I tell Lacey, unable to take my eyes off the kids around us in varying states of undress. For number three—go skinny-dipping—I’d seen us sneaking into the community pool near Lacey’s house late at night, or the lake at Camp Rowan, not this.

  Lace, who is now in her bra and underwear, rolls her eyes. She’s set her guitar against a giant oak tree behind us.

  “It’s more fun this way.” She tugs on my arm. “Come on, Eden!”

  “Yeah, come on, Eden!” Marcus Tyme echoes from the edge of another group.

  But I shake my head and stand in the shadows, holding her clothes. It’s like sliding through the Avery Park tunnel and then visiting Will’s mom put me over the limit of brave things I’m capable of handling in one day.

  With a sigh, Lacey moves to the front of the pack. Hail leads the countdown, and on three, they all burst into a run and plunge themselves into the river.

  As soon as it’s done, when they all amble out, laughing, spitting out water, I feel a pang of regret. Frustration at myself.

  Why couldn’t I let go for just a second, for just long enough to join them? It was on our list.

  The other half of my brain argues back about the reality of baring my ass in front of more than half my graduating class. No matter how daring and fun it sounds to throw yourself into a river on a night like this, reality is always messier, colder, more embarrassing, disappointing, and I don’t know that I can take it tonight.

  I’m bracing myself for Lacey’s teasing, an epic display of disappointment
at my chickening out. It’s pretty common for us, Lacey reprimanding me for not doing something and me feeling sheepish, realizing it probably wouldn’t have been so bad. But she is silent now as she takes her clothes from me, as she pulls them on.

  There’s a moment when she looks like she might say something, but then she changes her mind, and there’s something about the look she gives me. She looks at me not like she doesn’t recognize me, but like she doesn’t want to.

  Like she’s exhausted in some way.

  I tell myself it’s from plunging into the river.

  “I’m going with Hail to grab something from his car,” she says, and there’s a good chance that’s a euphemism for something.

  “Want me to come with?” I ask anyway.

  It’s the wrong move, because she snaps, “Jesus, I’ll be gone for five minutes, not five years!” Then she laughs, but there’s an unmistakable edge to her voice. I want to call her on it, to ask her why she’s this pissed off about me not skinny-dipping, but I decide to let it slide.

  “Okay,” I say, watching her head off in Hail’s direction.

  It feels like there’s something else bothering her, and I wonder if it’s because of what I told her at her house, if it’s because I kissed Will and waited two weeks to tell her.

  I don’t see her again for over an hour.

  And when I do, I nearly have a conniption.

  Lacey can barely stand without assistance.

  “I’m fiiiiine,” she slurs, sounding anything but. Drinking makes Lace even more headstrong than she normally is. It takes minutes before I manage to coax the half-empty can of beer from her hands. She keeps her guitar against her chest, a shield against the night.

  “Stay here,” I tell her sternly before leaving in search of Oliver, our designated driver. I haven’t seen him since we got here. He didn’t drift over when the camp songs started, like most other people, and he didn’t join in the skinny-dipping. He’s not among the little groups scattered around the riverbank and he’s not by the car.

  Where are you? I text, but after a couple of minutes, he still hasn’t responded. I follow the sound of voices like a trail of crumbs into the edge of the woods. As I walk, I try to swallow the feeling of resentment, regret at coming out tonight.

  I knew Lacey was going to get drunk.

  It’s a party and that’s what happens at parties. More than that, we’re celebrating being done with school. I can’t judge her for having a good time.

  Still, this is the exact reason I tend to avoid parties. In movies and in my head, high school parties are these fun, exciting affairs, opportunities to make memories you’ll cherish forever. In real life, they are sloppy and loud and we all act like the worst versions of ourselves.

  It feels exhausting and predictable, watching Lacey drink herself into oblivion. It used to be that we looked down on kids who did that, pitied people who had to be wasted to have any fun. We used to be able to make our own fun, people-watching or reciting our favorite movie lines or doing the most dorky and unpredictable thing we could at any given moment.

  I miss the simplicity of that time, miss who we used to be.

  It’s why I’m so excited to spend the summer at camp. No drinking, no parties, no pot. Just me, my best friend and three wide-open months of adventures, new friends, new boys and the memories of all the years we spent at Camp Rowan when we were kids.

  It’s the one thing I’m allowing myself to feel hopeful about.

  I keep walking until I make out two figures, a couple resting against the trunk of a tree. The girl lets out a sharp trill of laughter, and the sound of it is loud in the night, carefree. The boy leans forward to whisper something in her ear, his hands on her lower back. In the sliver of light that falls through the canopy of trees, I recognize Lacey’s brother.

  Oliver is exactly the kind of boy who would make a girl fall in love with him in the dark.

  For some reason, I can’t make myself step forward and interrupt them. Their laughter rings behind me as I turn around and head back to Lacey.

  I’m hurrying back through the trees when something creaks behind me.

  I jump when I hear my name.

  Turn back, and Oliver is jogging toward me.

  “Eden, hey,” he says, catching up to me. His hair is sticking up in all directions, and he runs his hand self-consciously through it. I try not to stare at his rumpled shirt. “Is everything okay?”

  “Lacey’s wasted. I think we should head home….I mean, if you’re ready to.”

  “Uh, yeah,” he says, pulling out his phone. “Shit. I’m just seeing your text. Yeah, I’m ready if you are.”

  He follows me over to where Lacey is. In the short time I’ve been gone, she appears to have become surgically attached to Hail. She is sitting on his lap, a newly acquired bottle of beer in hand. I see Oliver’s jaw tighten when he spots his sister. His reaction makes me feel validated in my assessment of Hail and Co.

  Oliver crouches so he’s at eye level with Lacey.

  “We’re going,” he says, voice low.

  “Going where?” Lacey asks, too loud, taking a swig from the bottle.

  “Home.”

  She swallows with a gulp. “Who’s we?”

  “You, me and Eden,” Oliver says.

  Lacey leans closer to Hail. “Are you coming home with us?”

  “Lace.” I cringe, filled with embarrassment for her.

  “Do you want me to?” Hail has the audacity to smirk back.

  At that, Oliver reaches for his sister’s wrist and pulls her up, completely ignoring Hail.

  “You’re bad,” Lacey giggles, nearly falling over herself when she’s upright. Luckily, her brother is supporting her. I plant myself on her other side, and between the two of us we are able to keep her from face-planting.

  “Do you have my guitar? I need my guitar,” she whines.

  “I’ve got it,” Oliver says, pulling it across his own chest.

  “Why are we going? We just got here.” She keeps complaining all the way to the car, where we buckle her into the back seat. I climb in beside her, and not long after the car starts moving, she groans and rests her head in my lap.

  “I’m so tired,” she whispers to me. “I think I’m gonna hurl.”

  “Did she just say she was going to hurl?” Oliver’s stern eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror. “Because she better not have said she was going to hurl in my fucking car.”

  “Nope,” I lie, despite my annoyance with her. “In fact, she said she was hungry.”

  He harrumphs, disbelieving.

  Lacey giggles. “It’s our fucking car!” she shouts suddenly, a delayed response.

  “Not tonight, it isn’t,” Oliver says.

  “You’re such a turd,” Lacey slurs.

  He bursts into laughter, then glances over his shoulder at us. “I’m a turd?” He looks at me. “Wanna filter that one for her?”

  “She said you’re a stud. Her favorite brother,” I supply.

  Oliver rolls his eyes. Soon we’re pulling into their driveway, and then we’re helping Lacey navigate the stairs as quietly as possible, so as not to wake up their mom.

  “Shh,” Oliver warns when Lacey’s elbow hits the wall outside her room.

  “You shhh,” she spits back.

  “Shut up, Lace,” Oliver and I say at the same time.

  In her room, Lacey immediately collapses onto her bed. I help her yank off her socks, and then Oliver and I get her under the covers.

  I’m out of breath by the time we’re done.

  “Thanks,” Oliver says, heading toward the door. He hesitates once he reaches it, and I get the sense that he’s still embarrassed about the girl in the woods. Like Lacey, this Oliver is not the same person I grew up with, but it’s different because he’s not my best f
riend.

  “Good night, turd,” I say, to lighten the mood.

  He laughs, raises one hand and then shuts the door.

  I change into my pajamas, turn off the lights and then climb into the other side of Lacey’s bed. She rouses as soon as I slide under the covers.

  “Edie?” she mumbles into the dark, using one of her numerous nicknames for me.

  “Yeah?”

  “I love you, okay?” she says.

  I smile into the darkness, my frustration with her dissipating. “Love you too.” Before I’ve even finished speaking, I hear her soft breaths in the night, the rhythm of sleep.

  A sliver of moonlight works its way into the room and I focus on it while I wait for sleep to come, focus on the sharp-angled shadows it creates against the walls. Instead of drifting to sleep, though, I seem to become even more alert.

  I can hear the scratching of leaves outside Lacey’s window, the creaking of the house, arthritic and slow.

  Several minutes pass, then several more minutes, and I’m still awake. My mother always says that the hardest time to hide from your thoughts is in that space between late night and early morning. That it’s when distraction falls asleep, when ghosts come out of hiding.

  This feels like the exact crevice between late night and early morning.

  I think back to earlier tonight, how I didn’t get into the water and the way Lacey looked at me after. It reminds me of two Fridays ago, the party Will invited me to and how disappointed he seemed when I said no.

  I ended up going, and I’m glad I did.

  But what if the only reason I ever do anything brave is because someone makes me?

  My mind drifts further back. To the memorial for Will, his absence at graduation, his house and his jacket, his voice.

  The number I have for him.

  I glance over at Lacey, and she’s sound asleep.

  Before I think better of it, I’m climbing out of bed, grabbing my phone and heading into the bathroom down the hall. I sit on the edge of the bathtub and go to my redial list. The last number I called was his. Will’s, when I played the sound of his voice for Lacey.