She takes my hand in hers and squeezes. “We don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
I want to, but how can I when the last girl who slept with me ended up dead? I close my eyes, focus on my lungs working in my chest.He’s not here, I remind myself.You don’t need his permission;you can have relationships that don’t include him, and there’s nothing he can do to stop it. He’s not here, but you are. You’re here, you’re alive, and you deserve to be loved.
I nod, and she leans closer, her breath settling, warm, in the crook of my neck. “Is this all right?”
“Yes.”
I let my head fall to the side, all the nerve endings coalescing wherever her mouth touches. She travels down the side of my throat to my shoulder, and my hand reaches up, fingers twisting in her curls. She grabs the hem of my T-shirt and tugs it over my head before pulling off her own. She’s almost completely flat-chested in the way that makes some women so deliciouslycool, a tattooed trail of flowers filling the shallow indentation down the center of her chest. She yanks down her underwear, revealing a thick thatch of hair that’s as vintage as her car. Her fingers hesitate at the elastic waistband of my sweats, but then I nod, and she drags them down my thighs. She eases me up onto the edge of the desk. “Stop me if it’s too much,” she says before sinking to her knees.
She kisses her way down my stomach, not seeming to mind the roll of flab there, works her way right between my legs. She guides my hands to her curls, and I pull her even tighter against me. She doesn’t try to push inside me; instead, she focuses on what’s right there on the surface.
It’s good—so, so, so good.
I watch her wild shag of black curls working between my legs and imagine this moment unspooling, each blissfully painful moment stretching out forever and ever. And for the first time, I wonder if this could be something more than a single night.
If this could finally be a thing I get to keep.
22NICOLA
WHEN I WAKE UP,Greer’s still there.
I roll onto my side, every muscle in my body feeling like a cloth that’s been wrung out and hung on the rack to dry. Watching her sleep, mouth half-open, little wheezes of breath whistling out of her, I’m filled with an embarrassing amount of gratitude. I expected her to slide out of bed in the middle of the night, collect her clothes, and tiptoe into the hallway, but here she is. Maybe I need to stop assuming the worst. That everyone I care about will leave. Or be taken away.
I trace my finger down the length of her arm, through the garden of peonies and gardenias that’ve been tattooed there. It skids over wisp-thin hairs, over freckles scattered in between dragonfly wings, over rough patches of scar tissue that are all too familiar. Scars are the cost of growing up in a rural community, where anything can get you. The broken wires on the playground’s chain-link fence that scrape your skin. The rusted nail puncturing the heel of your sneaker. The hammer strike to your thumbnail that turns it purple, so it falls off a week later. We all have our fair share of scars. Me and Greer and—
Steffani.
Could she really have killed Zach? They disappeared at the same time, which doesn’t seem like a coincidence, but she seemed so small, so weak. Then again, striking someone from behind doesn’t require any great show of strength, just the element of surprise, and she certainly would’ve had that. But why would she have done it? Why would anyone? It’s like Greer said last night, he may have been a little prickly, but everyone seemed to like him. What am I missing here?
Outside, sunlight’s just beginning to bleed across the sky. It’s still early; there’s probably no one else awake yet. Zach’s room is at the end of the hallway; it’s only a few steps from my door to his. I slowly ease the tangled mess of bedsheets from around my ankles. I don’t want Greer to wake up and find me gone, but at the same time, I feel like I owe this to Zach. Especially after how quick I was to believe him responsible for his own death.
All the doors in the hallway are closed. I hurry to his, half expecting to find it locked. However, when I turn the knob, it opens easily. I take in the neatly made bed, the uncluttered desktop. Is this the right room? It doesn’t look like anyone’s been in here this weekend. I throw open the closet, check under the bed, but whatever he brought has already been removed. Someone must’ve packed his belongings and carted them off somewhere. How could he have been erased this easily? Gone without so much as a leftover receipt in the trash, a smear of toothpaste on the sink. I remember a lecturer at Cooper telling us aboutdamnatio memoriae, the condemnation of memory, when someone’s name, their image, was struck from all records. Historical negationism.
A statue, nearly identical to the one in my room, stands on a pedestal in the corner. Zach told me about it when we first arrived at the lodge, suggesting maybe Greer had bought them in bulk to decorate. Unlike mine, this one’s clutching some sort of rolled-up blanket. I take a closer look, realize it’s a replica of an ancient fertility statue,and what it’s holding is very much not a blanket. I stifle my laughter, not wanting to wake the others, although honestly, it’s a relief to snicker at something so juvenile after everything that’s transpired this weekend. I pick up the statue, bring it close to my face. All things considered, it’s pretty well-crafted. We took a ceramics course sophomore year, and I remember using a similar shade of dark umber paint. Different finish, though, one that was more spongy and—
My thoughts stutter out suddenly.
Wait.
Wait, is that—
I don’t have the ceramic shard with me—Connor took it with him after our conversation—but this statue looks like it has the same finish and color. I rotate it in my hands, checking for any missing slivers, but find none. If there’s one in this room, though, another in mine, how many more statues might be scattered around the lodge? Could one of these have been the murder weapon?
I’m about to set it back on the pedestal when I remember the hinge at the back of its neck, the empty cranny within. I lift the head and peer inside.
Notebooks.
There’s an entire stack—pocket-sized ones, like the kind you’d buy at Dollar General in a four-pack. I extract the top one, flip the cover open.
Overheard Imogen asking Connor for advice, since she’s being sued by one of her clients for harassment. The client presented thousands of texts between them as evidence, claimed Imogen “breached physical boundaries” by hugging her at the ends of their sessions, then started showing up, unannounced, at her house to “check in.” Imogen claims she was concerned for theclient’s well-being, since she was planning to leave an abusive relationship; however, since no domestic disturbance reports were ever filed, she’s having a hard time proving the relationship was troubled.
I reread the paragraph. Why did Zach feel the need to write this down? Maybe it’s a personal journal, and he was reflecting on how that information made him feel? But as I flip through the rest of the pages, there’s no self-examination, only more dry facts about Imogen: snippets of conversations between her and the other club members, the location of her private practice.
I remove another notebook.
Connor keeps a photo of his brother—Michael? (Needs to be fact-checked)—in his wallet. Apparently, he used to call Michael every week to exchange memories of their parents. When Michael finally pushed back, saying he didn’t want to revisit that part of his life anymore, Connor tried to guilt him into continuing. After the cult was disbanded, Connor moved in with his grandparents, who wouldn’t even allow his mother’s name to be spoken in the house. He claimed Michael was the only person he’d ever been able to speak with openly. Less than a month later, Michael died by suicide. Connor blames himself; he probably should.
“Needs to be fact-checked.” Why would anything about us need fact-checking? A dull, throbbing inevitability stirs the air. I thrust my hand into the hollow belly of the statue, pull out the remaining notebooks, almost fumbling them to the floor in my haste.
