Page 69 of Within These County Lines

I swipe my keys from my bedside table. “You guys ready?”

“Wait,” Xander says, touching my forearm. “Can Whitley take a picture of us? We need to start your collection for Tennessee. So you can remember me.”

“Good call. Whitley, can you take our picture?” I toss her my phone.

Her head flinches back. “Of you and Xander?” I nod. “Suuure.”

Xander presses against my side and nuzzles his shoulder into mine. He wraps his arm around my back, then his hand squeezes my hip. His warmth seeps into my skin and unravels the tension in my muscles like when a sip of hot tea slides into my stomach.

“Is he ready?” Whitley raises the phone.

“Yes,” Xander and I say in unison. We laugh through our posed smiles.

Whitley snaps a few shots. “I took a bunch.”

I grab my phone from her, eager to see our first photo.

“Oh,” I say, turning to Xander as my face falls.

Xander leans in, looking over my shoulder. “What’s wrong?” he asks.

The picture is only of me. My arm is wrapped around nothing.

His smile sags into a frown. “Yeah . . . that makes sense.” He exhales. “I don’t know what I was expecting.” A beat of silence passes, then, forcing a grin, he takes a sip of beer. “You’ll just have to remember me from this summer, then.”

He pats my back, then walks out with his eyes on the floor.

The warmth of his touch lingers, but soon, it just feels cold.

The party house sits directly across the street from Penango College. Register now for fall classes! flashes on a big LED sign at the campus entrance, which is a row of identical three-story brick buildings standing lifeless on a bed of dead, yellow grass.

Three girls perch on the front porch steps of the house. They wave us over with arms covered in blue star stickers and smeared fake tattoos. We follow their call, stepping over smashed beer cans and crushed red plastic cups littering the lawn like the aftermath of a country music concert tailgate.

“That’s the girl who said she could help us out,” Whitley whispers in my ear.

“Which one?” I ask.

Before she can answer, one of the girls struggles to her feet, gripping the splintered banister for balance. Her half-lidded eyes don’t match the energy of her glittery hair ribbons and glossy nails.

“You made it!” she calls out, her voice sluggish from alcohol.

“Yeah, thanks for inviting us,” Whitley says. “This is Stetson and—” She glances at me, then bites her lip. “Um, it’s just Stetson.”

“I’m Amanda. This is Amy and Julie,” Amanda says, tapping the other girls on their heads. Amy is asleep. Julie blows us a kiss. Her face is badly sunburned, and her French braids are moments away from unraveling.

Whitley leans closer to my ear. “Amanda is the girl who knows about Pinehurst,” she says. I nod subtly.

“They want to do the interviews too,” Amanda says. “I hope my answers for that were okay. I never really thought so much about becoming an adult.” She grins. “It felt like therapy or something.”

Whitley touches her shoulder. “Oh, no. Don’t think like that. You were good. There weren’t any right answers, to be honest. We’re looking for personal stories about growing up.”

Amanda nods. “Right on. That’s cool. So, do you want to come inside?”

We follow her in. The house is livelier than the front yard, though it reeks of warm beer, sweat, and something sour like a mix of my oldest cross-country shoes, Murray’s football pads at the end of the day, and Bennie’s accidents when Whitley forgets to clean them up.

A pulsing speaker in the living room spits out a country song; its flashing purple light serves as the backdrop for two girls snapping selfies in its glow.

Xander grabs my shoulders from behind and coughs into my ear. “What is this place? This isn’t the kind of party I was hoping for.”