THE TECHNICIAN IS already there repairing the door when I go up to see Del in the morning. She’s sitting on the couch in the living room, her legs crossed. Her feet are raw and angry looking. She looks pale and doesn’t say anything as I approach, carrying a stack of papers and a box tied with a ribbon.
“Hey,” I say. She looks up, her eyes red—either from lack of sleep or crying, I can’t tell. I sit on the couch beside her, the things I’ve brought balanced on my lap. “That was a lot, last night.”
She runs a hand over her head. “My mom is totally freaked out. She almost didn’t want to leave for New York, but she has a bunch of obligations for the new movie.”
I make a noise like I know what she’s talking about, but my knowledge of current cinema extends only to whatever the algorithm recommends to me.
“I was trying to get to the water, wasn’t I?” she asks.
I nod.
She shudders. “Why would I do that?”
“You said you were looking for someone.”
“Who? Maeve? Or Grace?” Del asks.
“I don’t know. Your mom showed up at that point, and you woke up,” I say. “It’s like when you’re asleep, she calls to you. And when it rains, she comes for you.”
“She wants something from me,” Del says. “But why? I’m no one.”
“You fell in the Narrow and lived. You’re not no one. You’re special,” I say.
She says nothing, staring at the floor.
I hesitate, then hold out the things I’ve brought. “These are for you.”
She takes them with a look of surprise, examining each separately, the papers first. “Grave Belles,” she says in a delighted voice.
“Everything I have so far. They’re all scanned in, so don’t worry too much, but try to be careful with them.”
“I can read the scans, if you’re worried,” she says immediately, but I shake my head.
“I want you to have them,” I say. They’re me. I want you to know me, I want to say, but it sounds too cheesy.
“And this . . .” She lifts the box.
My cheeks flame. “Just a present,” I say.
She gives me a curious look, then unties the ribbon and lifts the lid of the box. Inside is a small, delicate arrangement of flowers. Dahlias, in red and orange.
“They’re freeze-dried,” I say. “So no water, and they won’t die. They should last a long time if you put them somewhere protected.”
“They’re lovely,” she says.
“You said the dahlias were your favorites,” I tell her. She looks at me quizzically, and my blush deepens. “The night I first saw Maeve, and we talked? I told you about the fireflies, and you told me about the garden you used to have.”
“Oh. Yes,” she says, but there is a little frown on her lips. “It almost feels like a dream.”
Sudden worry flashes through me. “You do like flowers, right? You weren’t lying?”
She breaks into a warm smile. “I love them. Eden, they’re beautiful. I love them so much, I want a million more.” She laughs.
That’s twice.
“I want to fill this whole place with them,” she says.
“We can,” I tell her. “And you’ll have real flowers soon.”
Her smile falters. She stands, leaving Grave Belles on the cushion, and carries the flowers to a bookshelf, settling them carefully where they will be on display.
“I’m going to try to talk to her tonight,” I say. “Maeve. During Vespers, I’ll go down to the Narrow.”
She looks at me sharply. “Is that safe?”
“She doesn’t want to hurt me,” I say.
“She hurt Aubrey.”
“We don’t know that,” I object, though of course it’s the most likely explanation. But Del didn’t see the sadness and desperation in Maeve’s face. The frantic relief at being heard.
“Be careful, Eden. It isn’t worth getting hurt,” Del says.
I shake my head. “It’s worth it. Because you are.”
The forecast calls for rain tonight. Rain won’t stop Vespers, though. Nothing does.
Vespers is, technically, an illicit party, but everyone knows about it. Most of the staff were students once, after all. It exists in the same liminal space as the leap—tolerated, as long as no one does anything too out of bounds.
The first hour of Vespers is called Little Vespers. Atwood has its problems, but there’s one thing I’ve always appreciated about it: we take care of the babies. With other schools, especially older ones, you hear horrible things about hazing and the way that younger kids are treated, but that doesn’t happen at Atwood. Little Vespers is for the Lower School students, and we protect them fiercely.
This year, as seniors, we’re in charge of policing Little Vespers. Every Lower School student has an Upper School student assigned to them, and if your Little gets in trouble, you basically get shunned.
I show up early, but Veronica, Ruth, and Zoya are already there, supplies in hand. I spot them from a distance and stiffen. We haven’t really talked since I walked out on them. Since Maeve. Zoya raises a hand to wave. If I ignore them now, it’ll be admitting we’re fighting, so I walk over toward them. Since seeing Maeve, my arm has been pretty bad, so I keep it casually in my hoodie pocket as I approach.
“Think we’re going to get rained out?” I ask. There’s already a light drizzle. I’m not worried Maeve is going to show up now, though. She wouldn’t come when other people could see her.
“It’s not supposed to get really bad until two a.m.,” Ruth says, shifting her weight uncomfortably. Veronica doesn’t say anything.
Nearby, a gaggle of Littles is standing around Ricky Tomlinson and Carmen Brennan as they try to get the bonfire going. Remi is herding another group in. “You stick close and we’ll make sure no one eats you,” he assures them.
“We should go collect our Littles,” Ruth says. Relieved at the suggestion of a mission to spare us from further conversation, we all hop to it.
“Janelle?” I call. A blond head pops out from among the crowd. “You’re with me tonight, okay? Try not to sneak off where I can’t find you, and if you’ve got any questions or problems, you can come get me.”
She gives a quick nod and sidles over to me. “Is there going to be drinking?” she whispers, big-eyed.
Veronica overhears and smirks in amusement.
I put a hand on Janelle’s shoulder in what I hope is a friendly gesture. “Don’t worry about it. There’s absolutely no alcohol at Little Vespers.”
“Hear that, Toombs?” Veronica says, giving Remi a meaningful look, and he spreads his hands innocently.
“I would never,” he says.
“Nothing worse than a bunch of drunk Littles puking in the bushes,” Ruth says.
“No, we much prefer drunk Uppers puking in the bushes,” Veronica adds, and Remi guffaws.
Janelle doesn’t look too comforted.
“Seriously, Little Vespers is super friendly and tame. Anyone who wants to party hard doesn’t even show up until later,” I tell her.
“Yeah, the hazing doesn’t start until you’re a freshman,” another Upper offers.
“And if anyone does bother you, tell me and I’ll sort it out,” Remi says, cracking his knuckles. They don’t know what a gentle giant he is; they all go wide-eyed as he flexes.
“We’ve got your backs,” Veronica says with a friendly smile, and a half dozen Littles fall instantly in love. She catches my eye. I wonder if she’s remembering our first Little Vespers like I am. Tiny and terrified in the presence of the giant seniors who herded us around.
Trying to forget why there was one fewer of us than when the year had started.
Little Vespers gets rolling. I have to admit, for all of its tameness, it’s my favorite illicit Atwood tradition. It’s designed to give them all a taste of what these forbidden parties are like without letting anyone get hurt. There are silly spontaneous contests and a “drinking game” with Sprite that’s spent a few minutes in the general vicinity of a bottle of vodka and a lot of horsing around.
The music starts up. The hills around us bounce it around until it’s like we’re in an amphitheater. The wet logs still won’t light, so we send someone for lighter fluid. Ruth goes mama bear on a sophomore who’s bullying a Little, and we hustle everywhere, herding stragglers back in, policing cups—making sure no enterprising eighth graders have sneaked anything in.
It’s always about halfway through that the kids suddenly get into it. It’s like this moment where it clicks—we aren’t just outsiders at this party, we’re part of it. Part of this. Us and them turning into just us, and we put our arms around them and say welcome.
That’s why we volunteer every year. Because we experienced that moment—me and Ruth and Veronica—our first year. All of us, for our own reasons, terrified that we would find ourselves the outsiders in this strange country.
Then someone smiled.
Someone handed you a cup of Sprite and swore that it was moonshine, then laughed when your nose filled with bubbles, and you laughed with them.
Someone pushed you, whooping, onto the dance floor.
You joined hands with two girls you barely knew and spun in a circle as the music pulsed, and you shrieked with joy and knew that you were, always and forever, sisters.
That is Little Vespers.
Then, just as suddenly as it begins, it’s over. One hour and that’s it—it’s us and them again, except that all the Littles are their own Us, and that means they’ll make it. They have each other, like we did, and they know we’ll look out for them when they need it. But not for the rest of the night.
“If you are not an Upper School student, you must vacate the premises before the commencement of debauchery,” Remi announces, using his cupped hands as a bullhorn.
Those of us assigned to Littles escort them back to the Lower School dorm. We herd them in with theatric shushing and frantic motions, though their house parents will all be waiting up to do a headcount.
Veronica, Ruth, Zoya, and I arrive back at the chapel at the same time. We stand in a loose knot, silent and awkward.
It’s Vespers. It’s supposed to be the time when we’re unbreakable. It’s not supposed to be like this.
There’s a lump in my throat. I swallow against it. “Hey,” I manage.
“We don’t have to,” Veronica says, and I know what she means at once. We don’t have to talk about it. We don’t have to apologize, analyze, agonize. “It’s Vespers. Let’s have fun together.”
She takes out a small flask. She takes a swallow and passes it to Ruth. It comes to me next, and I drink without asking what it is. Whiskey, it turns out—the stuff Remi likes. It’s not bad, a little smoky and buttery smooth. Remi has firm rules about drinking. Cheap beer is okay. Cheap whiskey is not. And this stuff tastes like money. I take an extra swig before passing it along. I need it tonight.
“Whoa, careful there,” Veronica says. “Or are you forgetting what a lightweight you are?”
I cough into my fist. “Just getting in the Vespers spirit,” I say weakly.
Veronica flashes her teeth and sticks out her hand. “Come on, losers.”
I take her hand, the warmth of the alcohol spreading through my chest. As we walk back toward the bonfire—now flickering with anemic light—I look out farther, toward the trees. Toward the path down to the Narrow.
“Dance with me, Eden,” Veronica says as the music kicks in. She draws me toward the flat area where people are already dancing and puts her arms on my shoulders. We dance—me, awkward, both because of my arm and because I’m a terrible dancer at the best of times; Veronica, graceful as always—and maybe it’s the magic of Vespers or just the magic of Veronica, but everything that’s happened seems to drop away. It doesn’t matter. At least for a few minutes. Then the song ends, and reality creeps back toward us—but then Remi is handing me his flask, and Ruth is dragging me over to hear a joke Zoya told her, and then it’s the four of us, and it’s perfect.
We’re whole again, as long as you don’t look too close. As long as you don’t notice the cracks.
I usually never drink at Vespers, but I find myself stealing a few sips here and there, keeping up the mild buzz that holds the illusion together. And helps me forget the other part of the night. What’s waiting for me at the bottom of the path.
It’s past eleven when Veronica staggers off, loudly declaring that she has to pee. Zoya is off getting a refill—nonalcoholic—and leaves me and Ruth alone by the fire for a moment. She holds a red Solo cup. Despite the cool night air, her hair sticks to her skin with sweat from the heat of the bonfire.
“Soooooo,” she says, not bothering to pretend it isn’t awkward. It’s kind of a relief.
“So,” I say. “How’s it going? How’s Diego?”
“Oh. He’s great. We broke up,” she says mildly.
I look at her in surprise. “When?” I ask.
“Monday,” she says, shrugging.
“Are you okay? What happened?” I ask. I’m not used to being this out of the loop.
“I’m fine. Nothing happened. Things had run their course,” she says. “He’s cool, but there just isn’t that spark.” She seems to realize as the words come out of her mouth that it’s exactly what she told me when she broke up with me sophomore year. She cringes. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” I assure her. “Ancient history, all that.” I’ve ended up with Veronica’s flask somehow. I take a tiny sip. I’m going to need to go down to the Narrow soon; I want to stay relatively clear-headed.
“I can’t believe I said that to you. ‘You’re cool, but there’s no spark.’ Those words actually came out of my mouth,” Ruth says. “I was a total jerk.”
“You weren’t. I get it—we were better as friends,” I tell her, though the memory is still tender. I’d thought things were going great, and then she just dropped me and disappeared.
“That wasn’t entirely true,” she says, eyes on her cup.
I give her a quizzical look. “What do you mean?”
She shifts almost nervously. “When we broke up, I said it just wasn’t working, but it was actually because my parents freaked out. I figured I was bi, so why not just date guys so I don’t rock the boat? Except that meant hurting you and hurting myself because you were the one I really wanted to be with, and why was I making decisions based on my parents’ bigotry anyway? And then they went to therapy and joined a queer-friendly church and literally will not stop sending me rainbow Pride swag.”
“Oh,” I say eloquently. I’ve been hung up on Ruth and pretending not to be for years.
She bites her lip. “I know things have been kind of fucked between us all, but . . . I miss you, Eden. We all do.”
“I miss you, too,” I say, my voice hoarse. I look away, blinking back tears. Why can’t things just be easy? Why can’t sorry fix everything? It still hurts.
“I know you haven’t really dated anyone since then,” Ruth says leadingly.
“No. I mean yes. I mean . . . I’m sort of seeing someone,” I tell her, stammering and blushing. I hate how easily I blush.
“Seriously? Wait, who?” she asks. Her eyes widen. “Delphine.”
“Nothing’s happened, exactly,” I say.
“Wow. I have really terrible timing, huh? Well, that’s great. I’m happy for you,” Ruth says with forced cheer. Silence falls between us, excruciatingly strained. She looks down at her drink. “I need a refill.” She wanders off, and suddenly I’m alone in front of the fire.
Why would Ruth tell me that? Why would she do it now? I shut my eyes, feeling the heat of the fire against my face. I feel like I can’t stop screwing up.
I open my eyes and look for the others. Ruth has joined Zoya and Veronica in the line for drinks, talking to them. Zoya glances briefly over my way, and I get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, knowing they’re talking about me. But then Zoya looks away, and for a moment I’m unobserved.
I slip away. I stick Veronica’s flask in my jacket pocket and take out my phone, using the flashlight to light the path. Soon the sounds of revelry die down behind me, replaced by the steady tramping of my feet. The rain is still a soft mist pattering down on the leaves. As the light of the bonfire vanishes behind me, I wait to hear that choking sound, to feel her cold hand on my arm, but there’s nothing.
In the dark, the shores of the Narrow are hard to discern, the water as black as the stone. I stay well back from the slippery moss and the uncertain edge.
“Maeve?” I whisper, the rain hissing down around me. “Are you here?”
Something pale catches my eye to the left. I turn, heart in my throat, knowing what I will see. And there she is. Standing on one of the outcrops of stone, near the very edge. Her dark hair hangs bedraggled around her shoulders, her clothes soaked through, clinging to her body.
“Maeve,” I call. It’s soft, but she turns toward me. I take a step in her direction. She watches me, water trickling from her lips. “Maeve. I want to help you. But I need to know what happened.”
“Grace,” she says. The word is garbled. Her body shakes, a convulsion so abrupt it blurs her outline.
“I know. I want to help you find her. But I have to understand. What happened that night?” I ask, drawing closer.
She turns away from me. Looks back toward the water. And then it’s like watching a video played in reverse. She judders backward step by step, then wheels around to face the trees. Her hair is damp now, not sodden, her leg straight. She wears shoes, practical-looking things—she must have lost them in the river.
“Where is she?”
She’s looking at the trees. It’s like in my dream. Someone is there, but I can’t see them. Maeve is angry. Her voice is a snarl, her hands clenching into fists at her sides.
“You can’t keep her from me.”
Her image tears like tissue paper, reforming into the Drowning Girl again.
“I know this part,” I say. “You argued with someone.”
A flicker, and she’s standing at the edge of the river again, her back to me. She stands—and then she’s falling, a sudden, violent explosion of motion as if shoved by a great force. She pitches forward into the river, her arms outstretched in a futile attempt to arrest her fall.
I gasp, lunging forward on instinct, but she vanishes before she hits the water. Gone.
She didn’t just fall, I realize with horror. The way she jerked forward like that—she was pushed.
Someone was here. Someone killed her.
Guh, guh.
The choking is behind me. Water drips, too steadily and too strongly for the light mist of rain. I turn, swallowing hard.
Maeve’s crimson-stained eye stares into mine, her other eye concealed behind her lank, wet hair. Her broken fingers reach for me.
I brace myself, knowing the pain will come. And it does—skittering across my ribs, lancing through my arm. But as she touches me, her breath comes easier. Her eye clears.
“Do you remember who I am?” I ask.
“Eden,” she half sings. She presses her forehead to mine. Her skin is so cold. “I thought I dreamed you.”
“I’m real,” I promise her. She sounds so sorrowful. So lost.
She brushes a thumb across my lower lip. The skin breaks with a sharp slash of pain, and the taste of blood reaches my tongue.
“You’re hurting me,” I tell her, pain warping my voice.
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to. I can’t help it,” she says, shaking her head.
“I know. I know, but I—I—”
Her hand brushes through my hair. Fingernails against my scalp, and there’s a pop under the skin. A blaze like an emergency flare in my vision.
You’ve got a filthy mouth, Princess.
Fist against my teeth. Skull cracking against the floor. The next seconds—those were erased. Lost in the gap between when my head hit the ground and when I became aware of the weight on top of me, the crusty carpet against the side of my face.
“Eden!”
I jerk back, away from Maeve, but she’s already gone. My foot skids out from under me on a patch of mud, and I go down on my ass, the impact jarring all my reawakened injuries. I don’t have the breath to shout or scream, only managing a moaning wheeze. The flask falls from my pocket. The loose cap pops off, spilling Remi’s expensive liquor onto the ground.
Veronica strides down the path behind me. Zoya and Ruth are with her, lagging behind. I shove myself to my feet, fumbling to grab the flask. Nausea rolls in my gut, my head spinning. I remember this part. Feeling like the ground was pitching under my feet.
“Eden, are you okay?” Veronica demands.
“I’m fine,” I grind out. “Just—”
Then, quite abruptly, I’m not fine. Luckily, none of my not-fine gets on anyone’s shoes as I bend over, vomiting into the mud.
“Fuck!” Veronica yells, jumping back.
“Shit, are you drunk?” Ruth asks.
“Not drunk,” I mutter, but my words are slurring. When I finally get up, I’m confused, disoriented. Luke walked me back to my room, put me in my bed.
You’re not going to tell anyone, are you?
Veronica snatches the flask from my hand. She turns it upside down. A few drops shake out, and Veronica makes a disgusted face. “She’s wasted,” she says.
“No, I’m not,” I insist, and shake my head—but that only makes my head hurt and the world spin.
“Eden doesn’t get drunk,” Zoya says doubtfully.
“Well, she obviously is now,” Veronica snaps. “We’ve got to get her out of here.”
Get out of here. Yes. I need to get out of here before someone sees my lip or realizes why I’m stumbling around. I googled all my symptoms. Mild concussion. I recovered pretty quickly. I’ll recover again.
You’ve got a filthy mouth, Princess.
What had I even said to him? I can’t remember. I never remembered. Just the punch. Fist to the mouth. Falling. Drowning—
No, that wasn’t me. That was Maeve.
“Since when do you drink?” Ruth asks.
I turn in a tight circle. They’re all around me. Hemming me in. My heart starts to pound. I need to get away. I move toward the gap between Zoya and Ruth, but Ruth steps in my way.
Panic jolts through me. “Let me go,” I say. I need to go. I’m trapped and I need to get away, and the fear of it is like a bright sun blotting out my vision. It’s all I can see.
“Eden, you’re drunk, you can’t go off on your own,” Veronica says.
“Just let me go,” I say again, and turn, and step toward the empty space that’s opened up between Veronica and Ruth. But Veronica steps in front of me, reaching for my shoulders—
Where do you think you’re going, Princess?
The past blots out the present. Panic drowns out every other thought. It isn’t Veronica in front of me. It’s Dylan. Grabbing me by the shoulders, pushing me back toward the couch.
Stick around.
And I didn’t fight him. I didn’t struggle, I walked back to the couch and let him put his arm around me and all I wanted to do was scream and hit him and run, to get away, so I do. I shove him hard in the chest, as hard as I can, a shriek in my throat, and he topples back—
But it isn’t Dylan, it’s Veronica, sprawled out on the forest floor as I stagger and sob.
I press my hand over my mouth, stifling a moan. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I say.
Ruth and Zoya only gape at me as I back away, hands up, pleading, placating. Veronica gestures sharply to them. “Come on, let’s get her home.”
The world is spinning around me. I can’t breathe properly, only in hiccuping gulps. But Veronica reaches out gently, tentatively, two fingertips against my shoulder.
“You’re okay. We’re going to get you to bed, okay, Eden?” she says, tender and calm.
I shut my eyes. They sting with tears. “I’m sorry. I’m—”
“I’m fine,” Veronica says, worry—not anger—in her eyes. “I’m not hurt, and I’m not mad.”
“We’ve got you,” Ruth adds, and Zoya murmurs agreement.
I surrender to their care. Stumblingly, I follow them up the trail as Veronica murmurs encouraging, meaningless things. I can’t stop crying and apologizing. I’m barely aware of when we get to Abigail House.
“Maybe we should take her to Westmore,” Zoya suggests.
“If she gets caught in Westmore, they’re definitely going to have to cite her for being drunk, too,” Veronica counters. “What’s the code, Eden?”
I manage it on the third try, my fingers fumbling with the buttons. I can’t think. Can’t keep track of when I am. I keep sliding, toppling back down to that pit where Dylan is waiting.
Stick around.
“Okay. Here we go. Let’s get you into bed,” Veronica says encouragingly.
“Have to—the rain,” I say, gesturing at the showers.
“I think we can skip it for tonight.”
I shake my head violently and immediately feel dizzy. “Don’t let it in. If you let it in, she gets in too.” I grip her arm. She needs to understand. I can’t see Maeve again, not tonight. I don’t know if I’ll survive it.
“Okay. Everybody shower, I guess,” Veronica says.
She helps me strip down, then gets undressed herself. She has to step into the shower with me to help me wash my hair, and my face goes bright red. “I used to be in love with you,” I tell her as she kneads shampoo through my hair. When her fingers touch my scalp, they set off pulses of pain.
“I know,” Veronica says lightly. “You fall in love with all your friends. It’s kind of a beautiful thing about you.”
I make a noise of protest, but she’s right. How could I not be in love with them a little? They’re all so incredible.
“It’s tragic that I’m so completely straight. We’d be an amazing couple,” she says.
“You’re an amazing couple,” I mutter, and give a snort-laugh. “That didn’t make sense.”
“That’s because you are epically out-of-your-mind drunk for some ungodly reason. You’re supposed to be the sensible one.”
“I thought I was the sneaky one.”
“You can be both,” she tells me, and then she’s shutting off the water and wrapping me up in a towel.
I whimper as my head throbs, and she moves more gently as she helps me into sweats. The three of them herd me down the hall and into my room.
“This is actually pretty nice,” Ruth notes.
“Is the Fournier girl up there?” Zoya half whispers.
“Where the hell else would she be? She can’t leave,” Ruth says at full volume, and Zoya hushes her.
Veronica ignores them. She walks me straight to bed and makes me lie down while I am still slurring my apologies. The room spins insistently around me. Their voices murmur in the living space, and then Veronica appears again with a glass of water. “Sit up.”
I obey. She pushes the water into my hand and then looks over toward the door.
“Did you find any ibuprofen?”
“Not exactly.” Ruth comes in and hands Veronica something. I squint. It’s the ibuprofen bottle. The one I stored the pills in.
Crap.
“What are these?” Veronica asks. She has a pill in her palm.
“Nothing,” I say, shaking my head, but Ruth is holding out her phone with a matching image on it. Trust her to know how to quickly look up a pill by its appearance. Stupid brilliant premed friends.
“Why do you have these?” Veronica asks.
I don’t answer.
“Did you take one of these? And then get drunk?”
“I didn’t take one,” I say. Or did I? I have a sudden memory of downing a pill before I left, but that was yesterday, right? “How many are there?”
“Two,” Ruth says.
That’s not right. I had six. I’ve taken three. Right? “I can’t remember.”
“Fuck, Eden,” Veronica says. “What were you thinking? Why do you even have these?”
A wild laugh bubbles up in the back of my throat. I hold it in, and it turns into a horrible kind of whine.
“She’s completely out of it,” Ruth says, equal parts disgusted and concerned.
“Should we call someone? Get her to the nurse?” Zoya asks, peering around from behind.
“She’ll get in trouble,” Veronica says.
“I’m fine,” I say. No one seems to hear me. Or maybe they’re not listening. I’m not drunk. I’m concussed—because of Maeve, because somehow her touch brings my injuries back. And I’m maybe a little tipsy. Suddenly it seems hilarious, but I have the sense to stifle my giggle. I’m not even trying to lie this time. But nobody believes me, so it doesn’t matter anyway. I could tell everybody the truth, I think wildly. I could tell them and they wouldn’t even care.
I’m going to tell them.
That was what I said. After I called Dylan whatever horrible thing I could think of, and he laughed at me. All I needed to do was shut up for one more day, but when he laughed, when he said, You have a filthy mouth, Princess, I’d threatened to tell.
And that’s when he hit me.
Not Dylan. Luke.
Dylan was the one standing, laughing, the same way he laughed a moment ago, but now it was in shock rather than amusement.
Luke was the one with his hand on my face.
His knee in my back.
It wasn’t his fault. It was Dylan’s. He’d been working so hard. Doing so well. Dylan was the one who ruined it.
He apologized after. Over and over. Begged me not to tell.
“We can’t just leave her here. It’s not safe,” Ruth says.
“No, it’s fine,” I tell her, lying down. “As long as you keep the water out, she can’t get in and I’ll get better and it’ll be fine.”
“What is she talking about?” Zoya asks.
“I have no idea,” Veronica says. “Look. I’ll stay with her. I’ll stay on the couch and make sure she doesn’t throw up or anything, and I’ll be back in Westmore before morning.”
“Maybe we should all stay,” Zoya says.
“We could take shifts,” Ruth suggests.
“I’m not drunk,” I tell them, shutting my eyes. That makes the spinning worse. My stomach lurches, and I open my eyes again, fixing my gaze on the wall to try to steady myself.
You can’t tell anyone about this, my mother said when I told her.
“You don’t know if you took a serious opioid before getting drunk. Which you should know is a major no-no,” Ruth says.
Of course I know. I spent several summer nights up late googling interactions and side effects and horror stories, convinced my heart was going to stop.
You’re fine. Right? You’ll be fine. We just need to handle this ourselves.
I didn’t take a pill tonight, and I haven’t had more than a few sips to drink, but they aren’t going to leave me alone. “Wait. Check my pocket,” I say. I remember stashing one in case I needed it.
They exchange looks. With a sigh, Ruth heads back out into the hall. When she comes back, she has the pill.
“Looks like we’re safe,” she says. “Now we just have to worry about alcohol poisoning.”
“She’s a lightweight. She probably didn’t have enough to worry about,” Veronica says. She doesn’t know how much my tolerance improved over the summer. “I’ve got this. You can go.”
“Okay, but I’m taking the pills,” Ruth says. “And we’re talking when she’s sober.”
“Make sure you don’t get caught with them,” Veronica advises.
Ruth gives a curt nod, and she and Zoya head out.
“I’m sorry,” I say again, staring at the wall.
“Stop apologizing and drink more water,” Veronica says. She sits beside me on the bed and puts her hand on my hip. She sighs. “I don’t know what’s going on with you these days, Eden.”
I don’t answer. After a while, she stands up and goes out to the living room, and I hear her getting blankets out of the linen closet. I lie there, staring at the wall, trying not to be sick.
I can’t tell her. I can’t tell anyone.
Not about the summer.
Not about the ghost.
They won’t believe me. They don’t believe me.
I’m on my own.