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He urges me out the door with a smile. He’s perked up this past week after Chase informed him of the diagnosis on his car. Maybe Chase was right, after all—maybe the Stagg is all my dad has. Maybe he uses it as a lifeline.
Archer says nothing as me and Cassie clamber into the back of his car. I told him yesterday after we had sex that I was coming to Chapter One. I was cautious about telling him, but I hoped the endorphins we’d just released would benefit me.
They hadn’t.
He said I was interfering with something he and his friends did every year, and he said ‘You’re not like us,’ which stung more than I let on. When I questioned why he was so pissed with me tagging along when I have just as much right as him to be there, he got in my face. His eyes bulged as he cut me off, saying ‘Don’t raise your voice at me don’t raise your voice at me don’t raise your voice at me,’ over and over again. And then I tried to apologise for shouting, and then he ignored me, and thenIfelt bad.
Somehow, he’d turned what was merely me letting him know I was joining him at the festival into me doing something wrong.
He did say I could share his tent, though.
For the whole four-hour drive, I glare at Cassie in the passenger seat. She’d shoved me aside and clambered beside Archer when we’d stopped at a service station for the bathroom, and she took liberty in blaring trance music and skipping the songs about halfway through.
When we arrive at the festival, Chase is already here, his three-man tent set up behind him. Brian’s tent is next to his, and Greg’s flimsy pop-up beside Brian’s. Dave doesn’t have a chair; he sits on a mattress and stares ahead vacantly.
I don’t need to ask what he’s taken.
I stare at Chase. His head is tipped back towards the sun, glinting off the stubble along his jaw and exposing the vulnerable column of his throat. I’m not even sure why I find his manspreading so attractive—I think it has something to do with knowing he’s making room for himself.
We haven’t acknowledged what happened Wednesday night, when I’d fallen asleep with my head on his chest. But now I definitely know it happened, because there’s a sort of stillness between us when our eyes meet, a sort of punch to the gut that leaves me breathless as I recall what it felt like to fall asleep in his arms, warm and safe. How my shirt still smelt like him long after he left, and how I keep reliving that moment as we laughed at the TV—
‘Frankie,’ Archer barks.
He holds the tent sticks in one hand and the tent in the other.
My cheeks burn. I can’t believe I’ve been caught staring at Chase.
I help Archer thread the sticks through the tent, but when the end keeps snagging on the material, Archer growls.
He marches over and snatches the tent from my hands, and then, with deliberate slowness that makes me feel very small, he demonstrates how to thread the poles. ‘See?’
My eyes find Chase. He stares at me, but there’s no amusement in his gaze. Something like concern flickers in his expression, but I glance away as my face heats.
How. Fucking. Humiliating.
The pole snags again, and this time Archer throws up his hands. ‘Are you actually stupid? Can’t you do anything right?’
‘It’s not a big deal.’
Archer’s nostrils flare.
‘Just say it,’ I go on. ‘You’re still mad that I’m here. That’s all this is.’
Cold death roils in his eyes. He stalks towards me, his hands balled into tight fists—and then Chase stands between us, a solid wall of protection.
He gently pries the tent from my clenched fingers and says, ‘Take my seat.’
Was Archer going to strike me? I hate that I even think it. That cold detachment is scarier than his anger.
By late afternoon, about an hour before we’re due to head to the main stage, I’m drunk. Cassie thought it was hilarious to loosen the legs of Chase’s chair, so when I returned from the toilet, the chair collapsed backwards beneath me. Greg took it a step further and cellotaped my arms and legs to it and pushed me onto my knees and said I was a tortoise, and everyone found it far too amusing.
I’d planned to wear eyeshadow tonight, but it proved futile, and the more I focused on not messing it up, the more nauseous I felt. The heat in the tent stifles me, and I shimmy into my shorts as the tent flap opens and Archer steps in.
I can reach my full height in here, but Archer has to bend his knees.
‘You’re not wearing that,’ he says matter-of-factly as he secures his bum bag.
My laugh comes out shaky. ‘Um, yes, I am.’
