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Chapter 29

Felicity

Junior Year

“So then David said there was some freshman at two-a-days who passed out, and when they lifted his legs to get the blood to run to his head he wasn’t wearing his jock strap and his balls popped out of his shorts . . . or should I say ball?”

“He only had one?” Brynn asks.

“One,” Gretchen says, holding a finger in the air, in case we don’t get it.

“I’m surprised he had any, the way he hits,” Hugh says, and Brynn winces.

I look down at my lunch, shaking my head. Hugh can never see that she’s not impressed when he says shitty things. Gretchen sure is, though. She stops eating to run both her hands over the expanse of his chest.

“Everything bounces off this brick wall,” she says, practically purring.

Brynn becomes completely entranced by her pizza at that point, and I have to stop myself from clarifying that the only thing that hasn’t bounced off Hugh’s chest is Gretchen. He won’t have anything to do with her, despite her multiple attempts.

I’m stirring my soup—something called “cheesy hamburger” that consists of gelatinous cheese and hunks of meat—when the freshman in question walks by, his face turning a bright red when Hugh shouts, “Uno!”

Hugh jumps up and gives him a high five, which the kid returns half-heartedly, balancing his lunch tray in the other hand and trying not to tip over when Hugh hits him harder than strictly necessary.

“Did you have to do that?” Brynn asks when Hugh comes back to our table.

“What?” Hugh says. “He loved it.”

Brynn gathers up her stuff and walks away, leaving a stricken Hugh behind.

“What’d I do?” he asks, looking at me for clarification.

I could tell him. Explain that Brynn has an ex-boyfriend she could never quite please, how even the affection he showed her always had an edge on it, or a taunt, just like what Hugh did when he called that poor kid Uno. Or . . . I could just shrug, because David is coming over to join us, and he always brings out the worst in Hugh, and I don’t think my voice will carry over his.

“What’s up with you?” Gretchen asks, giving me an elbow right when my spoon is halfway to my mouth. Cheesy hamburger sprays across my lap, the grease soaking in, the cheese leaving a residue.

“Sorry,” she says, handing me a napkin.

“Nothing’s up with me,” I tell her, dabbing at the mess.

“Really? ’Cause those are the first words you’ve said all lunch.”

They might actually be the first words I’ve said all day, but Gretchen doesn’t need to know that. I didn’t have a good night. Something was trying to break through, old memories rising like they’d been filled with helium, fighting their way to the surface. I can feel them, sometimes—floating dread. My therapist says it would be best if I let them into the light, deal with whatever it is trying to come out.

But I can’t. So instead I popped an Oxy and had dreams with red lights and water, the feeling of floating not being limited to the drugs in my bloodstream. I was being carried, not smoothly and efficiently the way Hugh does, the raven tattoo flashing in and out of my vision, but sloppily, awkwardly, my rescuer—or attacker?—running through the woods, branches slashing my legs, long and exposed under my nightgown.

Gretchen snaps her fingers in front of my face, rousing me. I jump, knocking my soup bowl, this time the mess slopping onto the table—not anyone’s clothes.

“Jesus—get with the program, Turnado,” David says.

“Fuck off,” Hugh snaps at him, and the mood at our table is most definitely altered—because of me. I’m not being the bright, smiling blonde today. Not being the person they know.

“Sorry,” I say. “Didn’t sleep much last night.”

“That’s my boy,” David says, slapping Hugh on the back.

Brynn is gone, so Hugh lets it hang, like maybe we were having insane sex for hours and that’s why I’m not at the top of my game today. When really it’s the opposite; I slept too much. I’m slow and foggy, the Oxy still doing its job even when I’m done needing it to.

Brynn has moved over to the table with the volleyball team, and Hugh wanders in their direction, knowing one of them will call for him to join them. A sophomore does, and he plops down next to her. Brynn looks away when he tugs at the girl’s fishtail braid.