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day 79
I get an e-mail from the housing office alerting me that my roommate is one Roisin O’Malley from Savannah, Georgia.
“Does that say Raisin?” Tess asks, peering over my shoulder at the computer in the office, her braid damp from the pool and dripping onto my back. “Raisin O’Malley?”
“Yes,” I tell her, laughing, closing down the browser. We’re almost done for the day, and have a plan to get dinner at Bunchie’s. “That’s exactly what it says. My roommate is a sun-dried grape.”
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day 80
The next morning when I get into the office, there’s a giant package of California Raisins sitting in my desk chair.
“You girls are very strange,” Penn says.
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day 81
After dinner I bring a cup of coffee up to my bedroom, sit down at the desk beneath the bulletin board and the cheerful Golly, Molly. I log into my incoming student account, click through the pages until I find the drop-down menu full of majors: Architecture and Art History, Education and Engineering. I scroll through the list until I get to Business, my fingers hovering over the track pad on the laptop.
I take a deep breath, and declare.
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day 82
I head over to the Donnellys’ the next evening to watch some weird Canadian import show Gabe can’t get enough of, everybody dressed in plaid and saying “aboot” all the time. His long fingers play idly in my hair. The episode’s just ended when the screen door in the kitchen slaps open, Julia’s giggle ringing out through the house. She appears in the doorway of the family room a moment later. I hear a set of footsteps behind her, and I’m terrified it’s going to be Patrick, but instead it’s Elizabeth at her heels, holding a pint of Ben & Jerry’s. “Oh, hey,” Julia says, her eyes flicking from Gabe to me and back again. “I didn’t know you guys were here.”
“Here we are,” Gabe says mildly, but I wonder if he can feel the muscles in my arms and back and shoulders seizing up, how self-conscious I feel about the way I’m sacked out across the cushions. How many times has Julia walked in on this exact tableau over the course of our lifetimes—but with me tucked into the crook of Patrick’s arm instead of Gabe’s?
If she thinks it’s weird, though, she doesn’t say anything about it. “You want ice cream?” she asks instead. Then, without waiting for us to answer: “Lizzie, you wanna get two more spoons?”
Which is how I wind up splitting a pint of Phish Food with Gabe, Julia, and Julia’s girlfriend, the two of them sitting on the floor and scrolling through the channels for close to an hour, all of us making fun of lame car insurance commercials and passing the ice cream back and forth. Elizabeth, randomly, does a really good William Shatner impression.
“I heard you talked Penn into throwing an end-of-summer staff party,” she says as she’s getting ready to leave later, sliding her feet back into her Sperrys. “That was pretty cool of you.”
It’s not exactly Sorry I tormented you at our place of business, but I’ll take what I can get. Gabe nudges me in the back with all the subtlety of a big brass band. “Yeah,” I tell her, ignoring him and smiling a little. “It should be fun.”
Gabe walks me out not long after, the smell of coming rain wet and heavy in the air. “Thaaaaaat was something out of an alternate universe,” I say, shaking my head. “Like, in all seriousness, did I just hallucinate this whole night?”
Gabe shrugs. “Face it, Molly Barlow. We’re old news.”
“I guess so.” I smile in wonder. None of us talked about anything important, nothing was awkward or heavy or weird. It felt . . . normal.
Gabe’s not interested in processing the events of the night with me, though: “So, hey,” he begins, and right away it’s clear he’s got else entirely on his mind. “You know my buddy Ryan, the one who had the party? He’s at some music festival in Nashville the next couple days.” Gabe shrugs a little then, too casual to actually be nonchalant. “He said the camper’s empty, if we wanted to use it for a night or two.”
I raise my eyebrows at him, unable to hide a grin even as my stomach’s flipping over at the notion. “I’m sorry,” I tease, glancing instinctively at the barn, which is dark and shuttered. “If we wanted to use it for what exactly?”
Gabe shakes his head at me, all that fake coolness melting away like ice cream on a sun-warmed sidewalk. “Shut up,” he mutters, smiling.
“No, really, tell me,” I nudge, bumping my bare ankle at his. “I want to know what exactly you were imagining we’d be using Ryan’s super-swank camper to do.”
Gabe rolls his eyes, rubs at his jaw a little. “You’re the worst.”
“I know,” I tell him, still grinning. “Tell me.”
He changes tactics then, slips a finger into my belt loop, gets closer. “To be alone,” he says.
“Oh, to be alone.” I pretend to consider it—as if there’s anything left to consider at this point. I pop up onto my tiptoes to press a kiss against his mouth, gentle. “I see.”
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day 83
The carpet in Ryan’s decrepit camper by the lake is this truly hideous green shag number, the kind I feel sure must be housing some kind of wildlife; Gabe and I sit on it anyway, my legs canted open over his and an ancient checkerboard on the floor between us. He traces patterns on my ankle with one finger, the skin prickling there.
“My dad used to love checkers,” Gabe tells me, skipping his red checker over two of mine. There’s a Young the Giant song on his iPhone, quiet and slow. “We used to have these epic tournaments every time it snowed.”
I smile at him, remembering. “I know.”
“Shit, of course you do.” Gabe shakes his head. “I love that you knew my dad, you know that? I love you.” Then, as my surprised gaze comes up away from the board to look at him: “I do. I mean it. I know I kind of said it at Falling Star, but I mean it.”
“I love you, too.” It’s tumbling out of my mouth before I even think about it, maybe the first thing I’ve done or said all summer without worrying about how it’s going to look or sound. It’s true, though, I know as soon as I hear it. It feels like everything that happened since I got back to Star Lake—including, especially what happened with Patrick—has led me here. “Hey. Gabe.” I grin, the feeling of it breaking open inside me, molten and real. “I love you, too.”
“Yeah?” He looks surprised at that, and so happy—it feels good and powerful, to make someone so glad. He leans across the board and he kisses me. I hold on as tight as I possibly can.
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day 84
I wake up in the camper’s tiny bed the next morning and find Gabe rummaging through Ryan’s mini fridge, the kind you’d find tucked under a lofted bed in a college dorm. Pale yellow sunlight trickles through the tiny windows, making kaleidoscope patterns on the rug. “Hi,” I say around a yawn, rolling over onto my side to see him more clearly, his tan unblemished skin and the T-shirt he slept in. “Whatcha doing?”
“Scoping out the breakfast situation,” Gabe tells me, smiling at my presumably sleepy expression. “There’s eggs.
And, like, gross instant coffee. Or we could drive into town and go to French Roast, if you want.”
I look at him for a beat longer, a package of questionable Kraft Singles in one hand and his easy morning grin. Last night’s I love you echoes inside my head like the refrain of my favorite new song. I take a deep breath.
“I don’t,” I tell him, reaching my hand out across the tiny camper. “Come back here.”
Gabe doesn’t move for a second, head cocked to the side and his face a quiet question. “Okay,” he says after a moment, and laces his fingers through mine. He gets both knees up on the narrow mattress, hair falling across his forehead as he gazes down at me. “You sure?” he asks, barely more than a murmur. I look up at him in wonder, and I nod.
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day 85
Imogen’s art show is a roaring success, French Roast packed to bursting with friends and strangers alike: She pushed this event hard on Twitter and Instagram, put up fliers in every shop in town, and it paid off in a crazy, crazy way. Nearly everywhere I look I spy pieces with little red SOLD stickers on them, the collages and the brush script, the series of the lake in the fading light. A lot of people love Imogen: It’s a trip watching her make the rounds and talk to everyone, Handsome Jay’s arm slung casually around her shoulders. I’m proud of her.
“She’s good, huh?” Gabe asks me, in front of a line drawing of Tess in profile, her expression mysterious and wry. He’s right—it’s a gorgeous piece, the texture of her braid just right and the rich way the ink’s soaked into the thick paper. I can hardly do more than mumble my vague agreement, though, because just then the door to French Roast opens and Tess herself walks in, Patrick’s long fingers hooked through the belt loop on her jeans. He catches my eye for a moment, and stares.
I swallow. It’s the first time I’ve seen him since the awful night in my bedroom, both of us beaten to wreckage like ships—we’ve avoided each other carefully, orbiting around each other in our little social circle like magnets with repelling poles.
“What’s his problem?” Gabe asks, following my sight line to Patrick’s stony expression.
I shrug, turning purposefully away. I’m surprised he can’t smell it on me, the sweaty sheen of guilt coating my skin. “I dunno.”
“Deep existential angst no layman could understand,” Gabe diagnoses. “You want food?”
I don’t. It seems like it should be easy to get lost in the crowd milling around in the coffee shop, the big tables of pastries and drinks and so many things to look at and people to chat to, but instead from the moment Patrick turns up it feels like he and I are the only two people in here, this weird animal awareness of him no matter where he goes. He’s tracking me, too; I can tell he is, can feel his gaze on my body like a constant, low-grade hum. I stick close by Gabe’s side and try not to look.
Afterward there’s a party at Handsome Jay’s tiny apartment, all of us crammed onto couches and in his little galley kitchen, a fridge full of Bud Light and a few cheap bottles of liquor on the counter. I step over Jake and Annie, who are making out on the futon, and mix myself a vodka cranberry that’s mostly juice.
When I see Patrick duck out onto Jay’s tiny balcony, I glance over my shoulder to make sure Gabe and Tess are both distracted before I follow. “I am a champion of the world,” Imogen is saying, holding up her beer bottle with a giggle in a tipsy toast to her own success. Tess clinks, and they both take long gulps.
Patrick’s leaning over the railing staring out at the patchy woods beside the apartment complex, a bunch of anemic-looking pine trees ringing the economy-filled parking lot. “Got a minute?” I ask quietly.
Patrick shrugs. “Is a free country, I guess,” he tells me, which is a thing we used to tell each other real snotty-like when we were little. “Then he sighs. What do you want, Mols?” he asks, and he sounds so tired of me. “I mean it, what could you possibly want from me?”
He’s drunk, I can tell by the way his gaze is a second slow to focus. Not exactly ideal conditions for a resolution, but I have to try anyway. I have to see if I can get this out.
“Look, will you talk to me for a second?” I ask him, still trying to keep my voice low—the party’s noisy inside the apartment, but the sliding door’s still open a bit. I feel like I’ve spent this whole entire summer worried someone’s going to overhear. “The summer’s almost done, you know? And I don’t—I love you, and I care about you, and I don’t want—”
“You love me, and you care about me.” Patrick snorts. “Okay.”
“I do!” I protest, stung by the dismissal. “Why the hell else would I have done what I did with you all summer, huh? Why would I have risked hurting Gabe like that—?”
“I don’t know; why did you do it last time?” Patrick demands. “Because you like the attention. That’s what it is with you. You’re a poison, you want—”
“Can you keep your voice down?” I hiss, but it’s too late—here’s Tess sliding the glass door all the way open, fresh beer in her hand.
“Everything okay out here?” she asks.
And Gabe on her heels: “What’s going on?” he asks.
Patrick focuses his reply on his brother: “Why don’t you ask your girlfriend?” he suggests nastily. “And while you’re at it, why don’t you ask her what the fuck else she’s been doing, the whole time she’s been fucking you?”
I freeze in total horror. Patrick moves to shove his way past us all. Gabe grabs his arm to keep him from going, though, and just like that Patrick whirls on him, his fist connecting with the side of Gabe’s face with a sick crack like something out of a movie. Tess screams. Gabe hits back. And I do the only thing I can think of, the only thing I’ve ever been any good at in my whole entire life:
I run.
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day 86
I can’t—
I didn’t mean—
Oh God oh God oh God
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day 87
Overnight it’s like something heavy and poisonous bursts open inside me, a cyst or a tumor: I wake up sobbing into the mattress, and I can’t for the breathing life of me stop.
I ruined everything; I destroyed it.
You’re a poison.
dirty slut.
I lie there for a while, curled in a ball and wracked with it like some stupid Shakespearean tragedy character, crazy Ophelia eating her own hair, but eventually crying that hard makes me feel grossly like I’m going to barf, so I force myself into the bathroom, which is where my mom finds me when she comes upstairs what could be minutes or hours later, I’m not sure.
“What’s wrong?” she asks urgently, flying through the doorway and dropping right down onto the tile beside me, getting her arms around my shoulders and squeezing tight. She smells like sandalwood, her flowy cardigan soft and cool against my damp, blotchy skin. “Molly, babe, what happened? What’s wrong?”
I blink at her through my tears, surprised: Even back before communication went solidly to crap in our house, the two of us weren’t really huggers. It’s basically the sum total of the physical contact we’ve had all summer and right now it only makes me cry more, way too hard to answer her with words. My breath is this awful shuddering wheeze, this feeling of being physically crushed like how they used to kill witches in Massachusetts, slabs of rock piled one after another on my chest. I feel like I’m running a marathon I haven’t trained for at all.
“Molly, babe,” she says again, warm breath at my temple. It’s like some weird dormant instinct is taking over for her, stroking through my hair and rubbing my back like I
can’t remember her doing since I was really, really little. “Shh. You’re okay,” she promises. “I’m here; your mom’s here. You’re okay.”
You’re mom’s here. You’re okay.
It’s the same thing she said the night I told her about Gabe, I remember suddenly—me breaking down and coming to her in her office, the feeling like I was the last person on Earth. I used to think that was what set this whole awful game of dominoes in motion to begin with, that none of this would have happened if she hadn’t gone and used me like she did.
Now? I’m not so sure.
We must think of it at the same time, though, because my mom draws back and shakes her head. “You don’t have to tell me,” she promises quietly, and it sounds like an absolution. “We can just sit here. You don’t.”
So that’s what we do, the two Barlow women, on the floor beside the bathtub, the tile cool and clean. Eventually, the tears stop coming. Neither one of us say a word.
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day 88
I drag my sad, sluggish self downstairs for a run the next morning, the fog rolling off the lake like clouds of milky chowder. I’ve barely made it out the door when I freeze.
It’s not eggs this time, coating my mother’s house all slick and sludge-slimy.
It’s toilet paper.
Toilet paper that got rained on overnight.
I sit right down on the lawn when I see it, rolls upon rolls of super-absorbent two-ply soaked through and clinging to the shingles and shutters and gingerbread scrollwork in mushy, sodden clumps. It’s clogging all the gutters. It’s hanging from the trees.