And then I found lotion—and Luke dozed off with the pillow over his face—and somehow it was me who had to try using the lotion, and yeah, what a recipe for disaster. Maybe it works nicely in the dirty videos, but I’m me, which meant lotion was all over the place, and I have a hard enough time making it through life without everything being super slippery, so. Recipe. For. Disaster.
One part was like a weird, terrible thumb wrestling match, it just wasn’t our thumbs we were wrestling with. And there was figuring out what to do, how to move, and I would move and then he would and then we’d both stop to let the other one and then we’d just be staring at each other and we couldn’t find a rhythm and. Ugh.
Maybe it wasn’t even about anything going wrong, but there was no moment where everything seemed to go right.
“Bright side?” Luke said after a million years of awful silence. “Things can’t get worse.”
“Everything okay in there?” Joey asked from the other side of the door. “You’ve been quiet. Kind of expecting screams or laughter or a round of applause.” We paid Joey 50 bucks to use his room. Well, Luke did. Could we get our money back? Luke’s money. I wondered if I could get Luke’s money back. I deserved it. For pain and suffering.
“Joey, have you been listening at the door?” Luke asked hesitantly. Just when you thought it was safe to get back in the water, I thought nonsensically. This was the story of my life. Things could always get worse.
“Not the whole time,” Joey answered. “Zach wouldn’t let me.”
There was a pause, then an awkward, “Hey.” I couldn’t even enjoy Zach sounding awkward. “I’m here too.”
Maybe the awkwardness would fade and be gone in a few months when I got back... Who was I kidding? I excelled at awkwardness; it would definitely endure.
* * *
Being a bestie was a privilege and a responsibility. They were there to celebrate the good moments, to lift you up during the bad. But sometimes there were things a guy wanted to keep to himself. Only that guy hadn’t known this would be one of those things until it already happened and so Alicia was at my house the night before I left to get all the dirt.
Besides, there had been witnesses. Oh my god, that was something I could never think about again or the embarrassment was going to make my head explode. And I had such a brilliant brain, it needed to be preserved. Luke and I could barely look each other in the eye when we parted ways but we both admitted there was no way our friends would stay out of it. Not when Joey and Zach already knew.
My dad probably would let Alicia into the house even though it was late because it was my last night here and we were well into the forever part of ‘best friends forever.’ I didn’t get why she was making me climb out a window in the dark and sneak outside just so we could go over my shame, and it would really suck if I accidentally killed myself in the dark and then my last memory would be of my terrible experience with Luke—I was so going to haunt his ass—but then I heard voices ahead of me.
“If I’m being lured out here in the middle of the night so Ryan can kill me,” a judgmental female voice said, “I’m mad that you were his accomplice, Alicia.” Being BFFs totally included plotting murder together, but Lydia was Alicia’s girlfriend, so she would rather not be murdered by her partner even though then they could both be on that show they loved about women killing people.
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the dark,” Alicia responded. “You’re always wearing all black.” They both did. It worked in this instance for camouflage. I followed the sound of their voices.
“Maybe it’s so I blend into the night in a situation like this and won’t be the first to be killed.” Unlikely… but knowing how twisted Lydia was, it was also totally possible.
“Your skin is pretty pale,” Alicia retorted.
“Take Zach first,” Lydia said to any would be murders lying in wait.
Oh, Zach was here too. Déjà vu. Before my brain could figure out if that right there exceeded the embarrassment threshold for explosion, I heard his dry reply. “I can run faster than you and it would be in poor taste to kill off the Arab guy first.” He sounded amused, aloof, and superior, just like always.
“You’re throwing me under the bus?” Lydia asked even though she’d just attempted to do the same thing.
“Like it’s not every man for himself in our friendship,” the aforementioned Arab-American guy replied promptly.
“True, we’d never have it any other way.” While it was nice they were all getting along, I was still going to imagine they would be completely lost without me. I couldn’t see them but walked towards the dim lights up ahead, the soft glow of their cell phones cutting a path for them through the darkness.
I left my phone in my room, so I stumbled blindly. There wasn’t a lot out here for anyone to run into; Dad and I lived on what had once been a bustling farm. However, on account of there being nothing out here now, there was no ambient light for guidance. Even the glow from the moon was dimmed by cloud cover tonight.
“Did you bring the red solo cups, Alicia?” Lydia asked. “Might as well go full hick if we’re out here in the country at night.” Though sort of hushed, the withering quality in her voice still came through just fine.
Instead of meeting them head on, it looked like the fuzzy shapes ahead of me were going forward while I was going to run into them from the side. That worked. “Why am I the murderer?” I asked while jumping in front of them. I also did jazz hands. Did crazy axe murderers do jazz hands? Who said killers couldn’t have flair?
Everyone jumped, and then Lydia and Zach probably gave me death glares while pretending I hadn’t surprised them at all. I let my triumph hold me up because I needed it and because I don’t want to mention how many times I stumbled in the dark, but it was all the times. All.
“Maybe I’m luring Ryan out here at night so you can kill him,” Alicia told her girlfriend. I glared in Alicia’s direction. Though if she was helping to kill me, her bestie, I think there’s a show about that too.
“Should have given me a heads up,” Lydia complained. “I could have brought a weapon.” Great, first things with Luke and now my life was in danger.
“I’m scrappy,” I told Lydia. “I’ll fight you.”
“I’m here too,” Zach said. I wondered if he always pointed that out whenever a conversation went on for too long without being about him. I could ask, but no, I’ve already decided the answer is yes. He totally did that.
