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I look to Cass, whose gaze doesn’t move from Logan, not when he rips the foil from the bottle, not when he opens the cork with a loud “pop” that echoes through the night air. A small smile decorates her lips the whole time, the adoration painted on her face. As Logan begins to pour the champagne into six plastic cups—Frangipani’s apparent glassware of choice—he looks up at her andhis eyes spark. Everyone else is distracted with their own conversation, but I catch him mouth “forever us two” in Cass’s direction. Her smile widens, turning into a laugh when Logan pours too much champagne into one of the cups, making it overflow.
The love between them is palpable. My heart should warm at this display of affection, but the hollowness from earlier returns to my chest, tinged with something else.
When Greta starts handing out the glasses, I catch Logan returning to Cass’s side, his lips brushing lightly against her forehead. And that’s when I grudgingly acknowledge the feeling I’ve been trying to ignore.
Envy.
“Okay, quiet down, quiet down,” Greta demands, and we all turn our attention to her. I’ve seen the crew together enough to understand the dynamic here. Greta seems to have leaned into the group’s maternal role. “Logan, Cass. I can’t tell you how much love I have for you two,” Greta begins before turning to face Logan. “Logan, where would I be without you? Since you’ve arrived on this island, you’ve been my rock. Koh Sang would be an entirely different place without you in it.”
Logan gazes up affectionately at Greta as she talks.
“And, Cass, you’ve been such a wonderful addition to our group. I can’t imagine how we ever functioned without you. We always refer to ourselves as a family, and that’s exactly what we are. The family we’ve chosen. And we’re so lucky to have you be a part of it.”
Greta’s voice catches briefly, and she clears her throat. Despite myself, the words pull at me, and I feel self-pity stab between my ribs.I wish I had someone who would say that about… I shake my head slightly, stopping the thought before it can fully form.
“Anyway,” Greta says, shaking her head. “Neil, Doug, and I got you a little something to show you how much you mean to us.” She pulls a gift bag from behind her, handing it over to Cass, who accepts it like an award. The group falls silent as Cass pulls a hardbound book from the bag, gasping when she sees the cover.
Her eyes fill with tears, and Cass flashes the book at the rest of us, revealing a photo of the five friends on the cover. Cass flips through it, the tears threatening to flow over as she examines the photos lying on the carefully constructed inner pages.
“We wanted to show you how much you both mean to us,” Greta says. I notice how careful she is to give credit to Doug and Neil, but the fact that this is her gift is lost on no one. It’s incredibly thoughtful, especially considering the lengths she must have gone to put it together. The island has no place to develop photographs, let alone the materials to create a scrapbook as intricate as this, and Amazon delivery isn’t exactly an option out here. The gift must have involved at least one trip to the mainland. The pain in my rib cage returns.
“It’s everything,” Cass says, wrapping Greta in a hug.
Logan follows suit, whispering something in Greta’s ear before they separate. They do the same for Doug and Neil. I’m left, leaning against the bar, watching them. Alone. A voyeur peering in the windows of a perfect friend group. I look at the champagne bubbling in my cup, suddenly desperate to chug it all in one go.
When they finally separate, I breathe a sigh of relief. Greta raises her plastic cup in the air, the rest of us following suit. “To the new Mr. and Mrs. Logan McMillan. Logan, Cass, we couldn’t be prouder of you. The little brother and sister of our Koh Sang family.”
And I realize that’s exactly what Cass is to this group. The little sister. Kind, sweet, dependable, someone for them to look after.
“I mean, that’s a wee bit incestuous, isn’t it?” Logan’s eyes are light, but his voice is thick with emotion.
“Oh, you know what I mean,” Greta says, landing a playful punch on his arm. “We’re happy for you.”
Neil and Doug nod in agreement, and all at once, a flurry ofskolls,cheers, andslainteserupts from around the table.
I take a sip of my champagne. Despite my best efforts at keeping it chilled, it tastes warm and overly sweet. But the others don’t seem to notice. Everyone has downed theirs in one or two glugs. Everyone except Cass.
“Hey, what are you waiting for?” Doug teases her. “You planning to make that drink last all night?”
Cass looks down at the champagne as if she’s seeing it for the first time. Then she swings her eyes to take in the group. “Bottoms up,” she murmurs and downs it.
Everyone erupts in cheers, and Cass smiles, but as the others begin to break into conversation, I watch as her smile fades.
Logan eventually suggests that we move the party over to the picnic table, and we encircle it, the six of us squeezing shoulder to shoulder. As I look around, the string lights that once sprinkled a magical sheen about the courtyard now paint a strange glow across everyone’s faces.
Logan brings over six beers, and Doug pulls a bottle of Thai whisky seemingly out of thin air. It quickly traverses the table, with everyone taking a celebratory swig. When it reaches me, I allow a small stream of the liquid to pass my lips, just enough to make my swallow seem authentic. It takes mere seconds for the burn to lead down my esophagus.
Conversation flows easily around the table, jumping from topicto topic. It starts innocently enough with discussion of wedding planning, but as the bottle of whisky tours the table more frequently, the conversation begins to veer into more risqué waters.
I’m squeezed between Neil and Greta. Occasionally, I feel Neil’s leg brush against mine, intentionally or not, I can’t tell. Either way, it sends a thrill up my spine to feel his skin on mine. I would be lying if I said it wasn’t purely from my physical attraction. For a brief second, I allow myself to imagine what this could be. Neil, bringing me into this group as his girlfriend, his partner. Making me a Permanent, a person who belongs. The idea fizzes intoxicatingly inside me. This time, I don’t pull away from his touch.
As Doug starts talking about a particular resort guest with whom he became intimately acquainted last week, my attention shifts to Cass, who’s seated directly across from me. The glassiness from earlier has returned to her eyes, and she seems distracted, her gaze drifting beyond me, out onto the street. I turn around to follow her line of sight, but the street is completely empty. It’s not surprising. Given the Full Moon Party down at the beach, there’s no reason for any of the resort guests to come this far inland. By this time, they’re all probably covered in neon paint—like the guy who pulled Lucy away was hours ago—dancing dangerously close to the fire and sipping fruit-flavored concoctions out of fishbowls. I think back to my run-in with the girl—Lucy. I wonder what it was she could have wanted from me. The warning she carried in her eyes still tiptoes through my memory.
When I turn to Cass, her gaze is still glued to the street.
“Cass,” I whisper, just loud enough for her to hear.
“Hmm?”
