I don’tknowEthan, I thought. I’d followed a boy I didn’t know to a place I didn’t belong to anymore. Lewellen wasn’t mine. There wasn’t anywhere on earth that belonged to me. The world was constantly shifting beneath my feet, and I was sick of all the motion.
The silence between us was the loaded kind. It settled at our feet with flakes of ash as we prodded the flames with our sticks until Ethan materialized beside me out of nowhere.
“Laurel kicked one of Petey’s housemates in the face doing a keg stand.”
My face froze, processing. “What?”
“And Petey’s, like, the only sober person at this party. He’s gonna take Laurel and Seth home tonight. Seth is the—”
“The guy Laurel kicked in the face?”
He nods. “Do you want to head back with them or stay here with me?”
His hand clapped my back like he was shaking loose a rogue bite of hot dog from my windpipe. Sadie peeled her eyes off me to grin at Ethan. It showcased all of her perfectly straight teeth. Ethan acknowledged her with a nod, and something like jealousy slithered around my neck. She really was very pretty, with a sultry edginess that complemented Ethan. They made sense together.
“Let’s stay,” I told him, willing myself not to look at Sadie’s expression.
A commotion seethed behind us somewhere. Ethan’s attention drifted in the direction of the rising voices. “Uh…Beek…” he started, and I followed his eyes to an animated Laurel and Petey.
“It’s not about thelabel. It’s theexpectationsof the label.” Laurel leaned deep into each consonant. With that one sentence, I knew she was starting to erupt. Laurel fought like a volcano: she provided plenty of warning signs to evacuate, but if you ignored them, there would be no escaping her destruction.
Petey hoisted either a teammate or a literal giant into the back seat of his SUV. “It’s just a word, babe. There are no expectations.” Petey’s tone was teetering dangerously between mollifying and oblivious.
“Oh my god! I can’t explainthe worldto you, Peter!” Laurel stomped in our direction, knocking me with her shoulderas she charged past. “I think we should call it. Whatever this is,” she declared, gesturing between them. Petey’s face fell.
She hesitated, and for a second, it seemed to the gathering crowd that she might take it all back. But she cleared her throat and said, “Leave, Peter. I’ll stay with Charley. Your car is too crowded anyway.” She turned away from him and kept walking.
“It’ll be fine,” Ethan whispered against my ear, somehow perceptive of the tension gripping my neck. “I’ll be back in a sec. I’m just gonna…”
Ethan gestured toward Petey, who was pacing and kicking up hunks of grass next to his car. I nodded for Ethan to go and trotted after my sister.
“Laur, slow down. What’s wrong?”
When I caught up, I hooked my arm through hers. She leaned her head on my shoulder. “Nothing’s wrong,” she said in that wet-throated way people sound when something is most certainly wrong.
“Did Petey do something?” I asked.
“No.” She tried to turn her head away from me, but I outmaneuvered her. Her eyes were red with unshed tears. “He called me his ‘girlfriend’…and like…we’ve been talking a lot more, but it wasn’t…I mean, I guess it sort ofwas, but…” She hid her face with her hands.
I didn’t say anything. Instead, I pulled her into my arms. She was stiff at first, like she wasn’t sure she deserved it, but then collapsed into the hug.
“He thought by my coming here…But he didn’t even ask, and I’m not…I don’t know why I’m like this,” she murmured into my shoulder. She was so quiet, and I wondered if I was even meant to hear her.
“Like what?” I asked.
“Poisonous,” she answered, her voice wet and wobbly.
I’d seen my sister’s dramatic side, but the way she was speaking now flipped inside my chest.Poisonous.“What do you mean?” I pressed her.
She pulled away from me, wiping her face with the sleeve of her Lewellen College sweatshirt. Then she lifted her head and revealed a completely different Laurel—bright, sunny, and unbothered. Her emotional heel turn flattened my stomach.
“It’s nothing,” she said with a straight-lipped smile. “Thanks for letting me stay with you guys tonight.” Then she walked in the direction of a red Jetta blasting Fetty Wap, leaving me to wonder if I’d imagined the whole interaction.
•••
After a forty-minuteheart-to-heart with Petey, Ethan let his friend leave in an SUV packed with six or seven other hockey guys. I waited for him inside the tent, entranced by the glowing yellow light of the camping lantern. It was the kind that exploded stars in every direction.
“Is the lamp too ‘try hard–y’?” he asked when he stepped inside. “I wanted it to be perfect.”
