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“No idea.”
“Do you think he’s going to come back?” She asks.
“My bet would be yes,” Six answers.
“Should we check on B?” I ask.
“I don’t think so. She’ll come out if she needs us.”
Distantly, I hear them keep talking as we hang around the kitchen. That moment of adrenaline got my blood pumping and I don’t want to go back to watching TV. I’m afraid if we lay back down, my thoughts will just continue to spiral. I know how this story ends if they do.
I think back to Tristan’s words.
You should do something that makes you happy tonight.
Part of me wishes I’d never asked that question in the hotel suite. I’d meant to tell a secret to a stranger, to get it off my chest in a moment of total anonymity. I hadn’t meant to expose a vulnerable part of myself and have it follow me around, becoming a subject of conversation with him.
And yet, the other part of me finds myself wanting to listen to his advice. He’s listened without judgment to the little I’ve told him thus far and been surprisingly thoughtful in his answers.
I want to be happy.
“We should go skinny dipping,” I hear myself blurt out.
Two heads turn to look at me.
“What?” Thayer asks, a smile starting to stretch her lips.
“I just want to do something a little crazy tonight. Something different, you know? I never do anything impulsive.” I don’t tell them that the last time I did, I fucked a stranger in a hotel room. “We can jump off the pontoon into the pond. I don’t think it’s against the rules,technically, but no one will catch us if we go at this time of night. It’ll be too cold if we wait until next week, but we can go tonight.” I pause. “I know it’s random but…that’s kind of the point.”
“Say less,” Thayer replies, ever the spontaneous one. “I’m in.”
I look at Six, the more cautious one. She chews on her lower lip as she looks at me.
“We can be there and back in twenty minutes,” I tell her, then move to my next approach — bribery. “I’ll make you hot chocolate when we come back.”
There’s a defiant look in her eye that I’m not used to seeing. Something’s changed since we’ve been back for our fourth year, but I’m not sure what.
“Hell yes,” she answers.
Excitement swells in my chest as a real smile takes over my lips.
Twenty minutes later, we pull into the parking lot closest to the pond and jump out of the car.
Six shivers and puts her hands in her pockets. “It’s freezing out,” she says, and I’m afraid she’s going to change her mind, but she starts running. “Come on, let’s not spend more time out here than we need to.”
Thayer runs after her, her peals of laughter roaring in the wind as I follow after them. My heart pumps and my breaths are frozen and I’m so aware of my hair as it whips around my face and of the wind as it blows against my skin, rosying my cheeks.
“This is going to be more of a polar plunge than anything!” Thayer yells, and I hear the adrenaline in her voice.
“We can do this!” I yell back, catching up with them.
My feet pound on the wet ground, softened by the cold mist of the night. I extend my arms out as I run, letting the giddiness of the moment take over and clear my mind.
We reach the pontoon and jog all the way to the end, the sounds of feet slapping against hardened wood mixing with our heavy breaths and jubilant laughter. There’s something electric in the air as we stop and look at each other.
Then we’re frantically reaching for our laces and kicking off our shoes. Unzipping jackets, removing shirts, and shimmying trousers down our legs.
“We have to be in and out, otherwise I think I might freeze to death,” I say.
