The challenge I see flashing in his eyes makes me dizzy. “I’m not doing anything.”
“Why don’t you guys invite me anywhere anymore?” a familiar voice says behind us. “You’re giving me a complex.”
My brother shifts his glare to Alex and the group of friends clustered around him, but Sam grins and gives him their slap-slide-punch. “You’re an annoying bastard, that’s why. But you already knew that.”
The booth guy has already pocketed Sam’s money, and the little boys are getting antsy. “You guys playing or what?” the older of the two complains. “We don’t got all night.”
“C’mon, Sarah,” James grumbles. “I’m done.”
Alex bursts into maniacal laughter. “Seriously? James O’Brien is afraid of getting his ass handed to him in front of a couple kids?”
I want to hit him, but the guys hanging out with Alex think this is hilarious. James doesn’t budge.
Ignoring my protest and James’s glare, Sam takes the stool right next to my brother and grins at the boys. “You ready to lose?”
“Yeah, right,” the younger boy says with a grin.
I figure out how the game works pretty quickly. Whoever gets the most water into the clown’s mouth using the ridiculously overpowered water guns wins. As James and Sam take a clear lead over the two boys, I watch the clowns’ cheesy rainbow hats rise higher and higher.
I know Sam’s going to win three seconds before the lights in the booth flash and his clown lets out a terrifying computerized laugh.
“Now, we’re leaving,” James growls.
With a triumphant hoot, Sam ruffles both boys’ hair, then snatches the blue teddy bear from my hands and gives it to the booth guy. “She’ll take one of those,” he says, pointing at the worst possible prize—a giant, stuffed heart with Kiss Me scrawled across the front in cheesy, white embroidery. Handing it to me, Sam murmurs, “My heart.”
I’m torn between the urge to stuff the stupid heart under my arm and slap him for flaunting our secret in front of James and all of their friends, and my earlier desperation to wrap myself around him like a blanket. If my brother hadn’t been onto us before, he’s going to be now.
James grabs my arm. There’s no way I’m going to let him drag me away in front of everyone. Sam’s gaze is challenging, daring me to do something about the way my brother is treating me. If I don’t, I know he will. And that will be disastrous. Keeping my eyes locked on his, I say the first thing I think of. “James and I are camping up at Mack Lake this weekend. If you guys wanted to come, we could make a big party out of it. We’re heading up tomorrow.”
“Wait—Sarah—no,” James stutters. “It’s too short notice. No one’s gonna be free.”
“I’m free,” Sam says.
“So am I,” the short guy next to him says.
“Us, too.”
I recognize the dark-haired guy who chimed in. Jesse Morgan is standing with his curly-haired girlfriend, Melinda. All last year, I witnessed their daily cuddling session from two seats away in fifth period Civics. Neither of them ever looked in my direction, let alone smiled at me like Jesse is now.
“Hell, yeah!” Alex cheers when another three of his friends confirm that they, too, can come. “There’s no way I’m missing this. We haven’t done shit this summer!”
All the plotting and planning going on around me is lost to the screams of people on the Tilt-a-Whirl, and the computerized laugh of the clown behind us as one of the boys beats the other in round two. I almost don’t hear Melinda’s quiet voice. Only her fingertips brushing across the stuffed heart Sam gave me and the scent of vanilla when she leans closer alert me to our “conversation.”
“Jesse and I can bring a bunch of hot dogs and hamburgers. He bags groceries at Shop Mart and they let the employees take home any meat that’s past its expiration date.” She gives me a shy smile. “It still tastes fine, so why waste it?”
Someone is talking to me? Planning with me? “Oh, um. That would be great, actually. Thanks.”
“Do you think it’ll get really cold at night? Jesse only has one sleeping bag, but maybe I can borrow one…”
The worried expression on her face draws my attention to how worn her shorts and tank top look against her tanned skin. Every few seconds, she folds the frayed hem of her tank top in on itself. I see why when it comes undone almost immediately—a hole the size of my thumb. Melinda must live in the neighborhood behind the mill, which is even crappier than my neighborhood. Only a kid from the south side would be caught wearing holey clothes in public.
If things were different—if I were different—maybe Melinda and I could’ve been friends. I return her shy smile from earlier and wonder if maybe things will ever be different enough. “You know, I think we have an extra sleeping bag. I’ll make sure James packs it with ours.”
“Thanks!”
Jesse slides his arm around her waist and she melts into his side. Anyone looking at them would see the love in his eyes when he kisses the top of her head and murmurs something about tents. My heart aches for the openness Sam and I can never have.
Sam’s watching me from where he stands barely an arm’s length away. Even surrounded by all these people, I feel the pull between us, the draw I haven’t been able to ignore since the night James parked in the gravel outside of Leslie’s and I saw him standing in the dingy green light.
Miss you, he mouths.
I hug the stuffed heart to my chest and try to suppress the smile that breaks across my face.
“Well, if anyone wants any caramel apples or elephant ears or anything, you know where to find me,” he says to everyone else before looking back to me. “Looks like I’ll see you all up at the lake tomorrow?”
Several confirmations and a few slap-slide-punches later, he heads back to his mom and the line of hungry carnival-goers twisting through the crowd like a snake. Taking a shaky breath, I turn back to James, ready to face my fate.
Just in time to see him shove his way through the last of the crowd in front of the two-story “haunted” funhouse at the edge of the parking lot.
“See you guys tomorrow,” I mumble before dashing after my brother. When I get to the funhouse entrance at the top of a tall ramp on the second floor, I fish my last ride ticket from my pocket and hand it to the scary-looking man guarding the door.
He waves me in with a grand gesture. “Watch out for beasties…”
The idea of ghostly lights and freaky Halloween costumes doesn’t bother me, but I can’t stand funhouses. My sense of direction is horrible, and what good could possibly come of wandering around in a dark maze of mirrors that make me look even worse than I already feel?
Three turns, two guys in zombie costumes, and a narrow hallway later, I’m lost. Which is ridiculous even for me because the place can’t be very big if it’s crammed into the mall parking lot with a Ferris Wheel, a vomit-inducing spinning ride, concession stands, and all the game booths. What if there’s a fire? A natural disaster? I’ll die in here with all the cheap plastic spiders before I find my way out. Feeling a panic attack coming on, I swat away a guy dressed as a vampire and rush further into the maze, up and down ramps, and shout James’s name.
No answer—just more of the crazy creepy carnival music. Cobwebbed mirrors taunt me with hundreds of disfigured reflections that laugh at me, sounding exactly like Sam’s clown when he won the game. Scared, they whisper. Unworthy. Weak.
I am never setting foot inside a funhouse again.
Somewhere up ahead, someone grunts and James curses. Maybe he punched the annoying vampire? I dash around the next bend and run smack into his hard chest. He’s breathing hard, and when he grabs me by the arms and wrenches me against him, I see our father in his eyes. Frantically, I search the ground behind him, expecting it to be littered with bodies. If he hit someone, whoever it was is gone.
“How could you invite them?” he demands. “Shit, Sarah—did you even stop to think how I’d feel about it? I’m all fucked up about Mom an
d needed to get away, just me and you!”
My stomach churns with guilt as I stare up at my hurting brother. I hadn’t cared why he wanted to get away. Why he only wanted me there. I was only thinking about me, about the gun in our bedroom closet, and Sam. Wasn’t this exactly what I realized James and I needed when Sam took me to the river?
I’m so very selfish.
The stuffed heart falls to the ground when I throw my arms around his neck, to hell with the consequences, and hug him as tightly as I can.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell him. “I’ll tell them we changed our minds or cancel altogether and go somewhere else by ourselves. To the coast, maybe, like you wanted.”
James buries his face in my hair and groans. “I wish we could, but we can’t.”
“Yeah, we can. Just let me—”
He doesn’t let me finish. Hands holding me tight to his chest, he brushes his lips across mine. “No. We’ll go with my friends.”
Stunned, I blink at him. There isn’t any heat in his eyes and I’m not feeling any of the weird tension coming off him at all like the last time. Instead, I feel…calm. Soothed. I’m not sure what to make of that and he doesn’t give me the chance to decide. After picking up the stuffed heart without so much as a sneer, he hands it to me and leads the way out of the not-so-funhouse.
We pass Sam on our way to the gate. Just before James and I are lost to the crowd, Sam pushes away from the booth he’s leaning against, catches my eye, and gives me another look so full of want, I feel it dance across my skin.
When he sees my hand in James’s, the want shifts abruptly to determination. James complains when I pick up the pace and haul him toward the exit. I ignore him because I know exactly what Sam’s determined to do, and there’s no way I’m letting him ruin everything.
Twenty-eight
By the next day, James is acting like a totally different person. Maybe it’s because he slept like the dead last night, his scraggly blue blanket tucked under his chin and one of his arms thrown over his head. Too bad I hadn’t been as lucky. Most of my night was spent staring at the shadows perched on the top shelf of our closet, wondering which one hid the gun.
Two weeks ago, if someone had told me I’d feel safer in the forest with a bunch of people from school than in my bedroom, I would’ve rolled my eyes and walked away.
Funny how fast things change.
I spend the two-hour drive to Mack Lake tired and thinking about things I’ve tried very hard not to think about. Like the fact that it’s been eight days since Sam and I had sex.
The first and only time we had it.
After an hour of listening to my brother’s off-key singing, I come to a horrible conclusion. What if Sam’s not interested because the first time was so awful, he doesn’t want to repeat it? Sam’s probably been with lots of girls already. Girls with more experience than me, probably. What if I did it wrong?
A few minutes later, I’m slammed by an even worse thought. We’ve kissed and touched plenty since that afternoon, but Sam’s always been careful to keep my clothes in place.
What if he was grossed out by my scars?
My brain churns through the possibilities, each more disastrous than the last, until I think I’ll be sick. Not that my brother notices. As soon as the ignition is cut and the emergency brake is set, James hops out of the truck, strips off his t-shirt, and barrels toward the lake where Alex and some of their friends are doing crazy dives off a floating log. The yellowed bruise on his stomach is nothing compared to the softball-sized ones that mar his back; angry, purple splotches that glare at me from the base of his neck to beneath his left shoulder blade.
Razor blades of panic slice my skin. I have no idea where those came from or what I could’ve done to piss our father off enough to beat him up.
Where was I when this happened?
Before I can stagger over to the nearest bush and throw up, Sam saunters over in a pair of low-slung shorts and flip-flops, temporarily blanking out my fears.
“That’s a pretty small tent,” he says, frowning at the two-person tent James picked up from Goodwill that morning. “You know, me and Alex are sharing his family’s twelve-man tent. You guys should bunk with us.”
I grab the extra sleeping bag I brought for Melinda and set it on the picnic table. It takes everything I have to force words out when he follows me back to the truck, hovering close enough to touch. “There’s no way James will agree to that and you know it.”
He leans closer. “Leave that part to me.”
He’s going to kiss me. Right here in front of James and all their friends. Try as I might, I can’t make my body move away to prevent this catastrophe. My eyes flutter closed like they did that first night and I hold my breath.
Sam’s bare chest presses against me, but his lips never find mine. From the back of the truck, he lifts out James’s duffel and our two sleeping bags. “Mmm,” he murmurs in my ear before pulling away. “Hold that thought.”
Stumbling through the pine needles with the plastic sack of hamburger and hotdog buns dangling from my wrist, I follow him across the main campsite, through a sparse row of pine trees, and into another clearing which houses an enormous blue and gray tent. He gestures me into the empty interior and dumps James’s bag onto the floor.
We’re alone—very much so. The sound of Sam quietly zipping the tent shut is drowned out by the splashing, shouting, and hoots of Alex’s laughter coming from the lake. The bag of food is on the floor and I’m in Sam’s arms before I can think twice about what we’re doing. The thrill of knowing how dangerous this is tingles across my skin as we kiss deeper and deeper, more desperate by the second.
“I missed you,” he groans.
“I missed you, too.”
Only one thing will give us what we both need, and I don’t care that he’s been resistant, or that now is neither the time nor the place for my brother to catch us together. I unbutton his shorts and try to drag him down onto the dusty tent floor. He doesn’t try to stop me.
“Oh, God,” he groans when I touch him. “I want this so bad, but not here. Later. I promise.”
My mouth drops open. Before I can ask if he means it, someone tromps up to the tent and unzips the door. I drop to my knees and pretend to be looking for something.
“You seen my goggles anywhere?” Alex asks, scanning the floor until he spots me fumbling with James’s duffel bag. “Oh, hey Sarah. You sleeping in here?”
I glance up at Sam, who has his back turned to Alex. The zipper on his shorts appears to be stuck, but his shoulders are shaking with barely contained laughter despite what will happen if Alex puts two and two together. Turning away from him, I give Alex my brightest smile. “Is that okay? The tent James bought is tiny, and Sam said you guys had plenty of room.”
“I’m fine with that,” Alex says with a sly grin. “You’ve gotta share a sleeping bag with me, though. It’s only fair.”
Zipper unstuck and zipped, Sam grabs something from the floor and chucks it at Alex, who ducks. The goggles sail past his head and land in the dirt several yards away.
“Good luck convincing James,” Sam snaps. “He’ll be sleeping in here, too, asshole.”
Alex narrows his gaze on Sam, then shifts it to me. I don’t like the conclusions I see forming in his bright green eyes. Not at all. Especially not when those conclusions solidify and he gives us a shrewd grin. “So… whatcha doing in the tent by yourselves, anyway?”
“Bugs,” Sam says matter-of-factly. “I told Sarah I had mosquito repellent in my bag.”
I shudder for good measure and nod. “Mosquitoes freak me out.”
“Riiight.” Alex shakes his head, then gives my body a thorough once over. “You’re going to have a hell of a time camping, if that’s the case. And I don’t think it is.”
As soon as he’s gone, I stagger to my feet, grabbing onto Sam’s shoulders for support. If Alex figures it out, we’re as good as dead. He’d never purposely hurt me or Sam or James—I’m sure
of it—but no one in Granite Falls has a bigger mouth than Alex Anderson.
“He’ll tell James,” I gasp.
“Alex doesn’t know anything,” Sam says, and kisses me on the forehead. “He just wants you to think he knows something.”
Except, I know what I saw in Alex’s eyes.
On edge, my hopes for the weekend officially ruined, I follow Sam down to the shore and sit in the shade. Mack Lake, ten acres of sparkling, blue water ringed by tall pines and fir trees, stretches out in front of us. There aren’t any families here today, just a group of giggling, bikini-clad sophomores watching the guys dive off two floating logs in the center of the lake. I’m not surprised. The Logan High kids claimed Mack Lake as the school’s summer hangout years ago, scaring away any normal campers with their loud parties. I’ve heard so many stories about this place. To be here in person feels… surreal.
“You shouldn’t miss out because of me,” I tell Sam. “Go swim. I’ll be fine.”
“I’m good,” he says.
He’s lying, but I doubt he’ll admit it. I’ve heard enough about Sam’s back-flip diving prowess over the years to know he’d much rather be out there than sitting on the shore with a girlfriend too scarred to wear a swimsuit. I see the way he scrutinizes everyone’s jump.
“Sam…please?”
He examines the soft, reddish-brown silt and prickly pine needles at our feet as if they’re the most interesting things he’s ever seen. “Is it so hard to believe I want to spend time with you?”
No, but James keeps glancing in our direction, a concerned look on his face. Sighing, I grind the heel of my flip flop into the dirt. There’s only one way to win this battle of wills. “I want to spend time with you, too, but if you don’t get out there right now, we’re breaking up.”
His head snaps in my direction. “Don’t even joke about that.”
My smile doesn’t help the stern impression I’m trying to make, but I try anyway. “I’m not.” I nod toward the water and my brother, who quickly turns away when he sees me looking at him. “James doesn’t look like he wants us sitting together, and he will break us up.”