“Are you kidding me?” Cassidy nearly shouted. She hadn’t noticed they were being watched. “He refused to tell us anything and threatened us when we asked.”
“Cassidy, shh!” Edie scolded in a whisper that went unnoticed.
“Were you talking shit about the festival?” Daisy asked. “Because he wasn’t supposed to tell you if you were. We didn’t want you to kill the buzz like you always do.”
Cassidy looked from Apricot to Daisy, clearly hurt. Her voice dropped from a shout but still boomed in the quiet room. “I thought something happened to you. Sorry for trying to be a good friend.”
Edie cringed away from the embarrassment she felt at Cassidy being so passive aggressive and oblivious to the attention she drew to their table, but as she looked around again, she didn’t catch anyone’s eye. She thought maybe it was a trick of the blue lights, but her vision still hadn’t quite adjusted to the darkness.
“Apricot was worried about you, too. Does that make her a buzz kill?”
Daisy scoffed. “Apricot always just goes along with whatever you say so that you don’t lose your shit.”
Cassidy’s mouth dropped, and Edie felt a burning embarrassment for her.
To her surprise, Rose laughed—loudly. “That sounds familiar. No wonder you two ended up together.”
“Excuse me?” Edie asked, the question taking her breath away.
“Oh, Eden, don’t act daft. You know exactly what I’m talking about. You’re so insipid and always just go along with whatever anyone else thinks.” Rose crinkled her nose. “You never think for yourself. It’s completely unsurprising that you immediately latched onto another person to tell you what to think when I left.”
Rose reached her hand out, as though to console Edie following this harsh declaration, but instead she ran her fingers through the short curls on Edie’s head. “This is a really unbecoming look on you.”
“Rose, I—” Edie tried to say something, but she stumbled over her words, unsure how to even process Rose’s attack.
“Come off it, you were doing it before I left,” Rose said, dropping her hand back to the table. “You couldn’t decide if you thought I was right about nothing being wrong or if Cassie was right about the island being haunted. When did you ever have your own opinion about it?”
Edie looked around the table, hoping someone else would stand up for her, but they all remained silent, including Cassidy whose head drooped and who appeared to be staring intently at the candle on the table.
“It’s no wonder you ended up with another fake, vapid nepo baby. You two deserve each other,” Rose concluded, crossing her arms.
The room fell silent, and Edie once again felt every eye focused on them, even though she still couldn’t make out any of the faces turned their way.
“Rose,” Edie said, trying to keep her voice low and composed as tears of betrayal gathered in her eyes and constricted her throat. “If that’s the way you feel, I’ll just go. I wanted to make sure you were safe, but now I really don’t care. I’m going to go enjoy myself and stop worrying about fake friends like you.” Edie stood and felt a hand on her shoulder.
“You can’t do that,” Daisy said.
Even despite how close she was to the man with his hand on her shoulder, pressing her down into her chair, Edie still couldn’t see his face. A chill went up her spine and she let him force her back down.
“We’re not going to tell anyone about it,” Cassidy said as panic made her voice pitch higher and louder. “What would we even say? There’s a room of semi-famous people in the dark basement of a shitty cabin? I’m sure people on this tropical island would really be clamoring to get in.”
“There you go talking shit about the festival,” Daisy said.
“Cassidy!” Edie curled into herself and wanted to melt into the floor. She shouted louder than she intended, but this finally got the other woman’s attention.
Cassidy looked around and finally realized that everyone in the room was watching their table. “What’s happening right now?”
“You shouldn’t have come here,” Apricot said in an affectless monotone.
“But now you have to stay,” Daisy added.
Cassidy tapped Edie’s knee under the table, and Edie slowly slid her hand out of view of the others to clasp Cassidy’s shaking fingers.
“Okay, sorry,” Cassidy agreed.
A tense moment passed and no one moved. The room was silent, as though there wasn’t a single living breathing creature in it, though she still felt the eyes of the dark figures around them. Apricot and Rose fixed their gazes on Cassidy and Edie, while Daisy stared ahead, still as a statue.
Edie cleared her throat, but she could not get it to loosen up. It remained as tense as every other muscle in her body. “So, what have you all been doing down here?”
