Chapter 34
MAX
Aslight nibble from a rabbit on my fingers snapped me out of a deep sleep.
Or what felt like sleep.
I must have lost consciousness. Or blacked out? My brain wouldn’t land on a word that felt right.
The sun shone brightly through the trees. It was fucking bright. I squinted, shielding my eyes as I looked up. Had the sky always looked like that? It looked like someone had pulled a fake sky down over the real one.
Heat bounced off my skin in thick, sticky waves. I was soaked in sweat. Damn. I felt hungover. My fingers rustled through the leaves as I hurried to find my phone.
It was cracked and lying on the ground beside me. I didn’t remember dropping it. I didn’t remember lying down. I didn’t remember anything after Heather’s face leaned in too close.
I tapped my phone’s screen three times until the light pierced the shadowed corners of my surroundings.
1 p.m.
Holy shit.
Camp check-out was in an hour. It should’ve been loud—cars, kids, counselors, parents—but the woods around me felt padded and far away.
I knew these woods so well. I had grown up around them. But today, I felt like a stranger in a new world.
I felt so dehydrated that I could have drunk a lake.
I sat up and almost fell backward. My head was pounding, but not in a normal hangover way.
It felt like pieces were missing. Every time I tried to grab a memory, it slipped through my fingers and left this raw, empty ache behind.
A heavy wave of depression rolled over me from nowhere, like I’d just gotten the worst news of my life and forgotten what it was.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
Something had happened, but my brain was mush. The last thing I remembered was talking to Heather. She’d slipped me something, right? A drink? A pill?
Panic struck me when I thought about Mackenzie.
Shit. She must be so worried about me. Actually, she was probably furious and planning to make me pay.
She was plotting my death right now. I could just see her furrowed brow as she bent over her journal, jotting down all the ways she was going to kill me.
I stood up too fast. The world lurched sideways. I staggered, catching myself on a tree. My steps felt delayed. Like, there was a half-second between my brain telling them to move and them actually doing it.
The walk to the cabins felt eerie. It was almost silent. Usually, the camp buzzed with kids’ chatter as they waited to be picked up.
By the time I stepped out of the trees, my shirt was damp with sweat, and my hands were shaking.
As I returned to my cabin, most of the counselors had already left. The only person remaining was Heather, passed out in her bunk with her blonde hair splayed across her face.
I ignored her and headed straight back to my room to find Mackenzie and apologize. But it was empty.
At first, I didn’t panic. Perhaps she was in the dining hall or in the bathroom. Maybe I’d walk in, and she’d be there, sitting on the counter, rolling her eyes, calling me an idiot.
I opened the bathroom door and was met with darkness. The air was stale, like no one had been in there for days. I flicked the light, just to be sure. The harsh yellow glow fell on the tile and an empty trash can.
I looked around. Her bags and belongings were gone.
I tried to rationalize with myself that I wasn’t seeing what I was seeing.
My ears started ringing, a high, thin whine that drowned out my own breath.
No, no, no, no.
I grabbed my phone and shot her a text.
Trouble, where are you? I’m so sorry to worry you. I dk what happened last night.
I’m at the cabin. Please txt me as soon as u get this.
The bile rose in my throat as a distant alarm sounded. I stared at the text after I hit send, half-expecting it to disappear, for the words to rearrange themselves into something I hadn’t typed.
Nothing was making sense.
I ran to the front of the cabin and poked Heather’s shoulder. I used more force than I would’ve used for a girl, but I was freaking the fuck out. My fingers felt clumsy, too strong, and too weak at the same time.
She opened her eyes, rubbing them.
The look she gave me told me that something bad had happened, something really bad. It stirred a paranoia inside me I hadn’t felt before.
“What the fuck happened?” I croaked.
Heather flinched but didn’t answer. Her lips trembled.
“Say it, Heather,” I growled, struggling to stand on wobbly legs. I had to grab the side of her bed to keep from falling over. “What did you give me?’
Her arms tightened around her chest.
“Just something to help you calm down,” she whispered. “You were spiraling, and I didn’t think you’d take it if I told you what it really was.”
“What. Was. It.” My voice dropped to a dangerous octave.
“GHB,” she said quietly. “The date rape drug. It was just… it was supposed to help. I swear, Max, I swear.”
The room spun. Not just the room—my thoughts. My memories.
“You drugged me?” I snapped, stepping forward. She recoiled. “You gave me that shit? Why?”
“I… I just wanted to know what it was like to be with you.”
I stared at her like she was something rotten.
Images tried to push their way into my head. Memories of her hand on my chest, her breath on my neck, her body pressed against mine, rolled to the front of my brain. But they kept slipping, cutting in and out like a bad signal. Every time I reached for one, it broke apart.
“You fucking bitch.” The words came out hoarse. Something flickered at the edge of my mind: her touching me, her kissing me, her trying to climb on top of me. My stomach rolled.
“You knew exactly what you were doing,” I said through clenched teeth. “You touched me when I couldn’t even think straight.”
I paced the room, my hands pulling at my hair like a madman. The cabin felt too small, the walls too close, like they were inching in. The floor seemed to tilt under my feet, then snap back.
“You’ve been fucking waiting for this moment all summer, huh, Heather?”
Heather’s eyes welled with tears, but it didn’t move me.
“Did we fuck?” I asked.
If she said yes, I’d probably kill her.
“No,” she said quietly. “You told me no.”
At least I knew that even in my drugged-fueled state, I wasn’t a complete fuck-up, and was still faithful to Mackenzie. It was always going to be her.
A jagged flash hit me, the memory of me shoving Heather off, slapping her hand away, my voice slurred, saying no, crying, telling her I love my wife.
“So you tried to rape me then,” I said flatly. The words hung in the air like a guillotine.
She got up, legs unsteady.
“Please, Max, please don’t say that.”
“Why not?” I asked. “Because if I had done this to you, I’d be in jail already. If I had drugged you and tried to rape you, everyone would burn me alive. Why is it okay for you to do it?”
Heather was crying now, messy, choked sobs. She collapsed onto the mattress and curled in on herself.
I shoved my duffel bag onto my shoulder. It felt lighter than it should have. Or maybe I was going numb.
“Now, where the fuck is she, by the way?”
“Who?” Heather asked, voice thin.
“My wife.” The word scraped my throat. “Mackenzie.”
Heather shook her head, not meeting my eyes.
“She… she came in this morning. I mean, she saw us last night.”
My lungs squeezed so tight I couldn’t breathe. Had she seen? What had she seen? A loop of her voice sounded in my head.
What the fuck? Oh, my God, Max?
I couldn’t tell if it was a real memory or something my guilty conscience made up. I didn’t do anything, I kept telling myself. So why did I feel like I did?
I hadn’t protected her.
“Did she… did she say where she was going?” I asked, my voice trembling.
Heather shook her head again. “No, but she was crying. She looked… rough. Like she’d been through hell. She was barely dressed… you know, she had been with Rhett.”
My vision blurred at the edges. A red haze crawled in. I almost punched a hole through the goddamn wall.
I huffed, grabbing my phone out of my pocket. My fingers didn’t feel like mine.
“Max, please. I’m so sorry. I just wanted to see what it would be like,” she cried.
“Go fuck yourself,” I said, coldly.
Heather’s jaw settled, and then she went in for one last attack.
“She moved on, you know.” She looked at me so matter-of-factly that it stopped me in my tracks.
“Shut the fuck up, Heather,” I warned.
“After she fucked Rhett, she hooked up with another guy—older. Black hair, dark skin. He had his hands all over her. Her hair was a mess, his hair was a mess. She was wearing his clothes. He was shirtless.”
The picture formed in my head instantly, too vivid, like it had been waiting there. Like I’d already seen it somewhere. Like someone was feeding it to me.
She wouldn’t do that to me, would she?
I stopped, staring at Heather, and then walked over to her dresser, ripped one of the drawers out, and threw it. It landed with a loud bang next to the bunk. I grabbed another drawer and threw it.
I screamed so loud, so deep, so fucking primal that my throat was raw. Heather shrieked.
“Max! Stop! You’re scaring me!” She had her hands over her ears.
Good, I thought, for one sick second. Then even that thought scared me.
I grabbed my phone again and found Mackenzie’s number in my favorites.
MRS. MCKINNON
As the phone began to ring, I looked over at Heather and said, “Have a great life, you fucking cunt,” before walking out of the cabin.
The phone rang and rang and rang, then flipped to voicemail.
“Hi, it’s Mackenzie! Leave me a message—”
The sound hit me like a physical punch. For half a second, I felt like I was glitching. I stuttered into her voicemail like a scratched CD.
“Trouble… where are you? Please, please call me back.” My voice was shaking so badly I could barely get through the message. “I’m sorry. I don’t—I don’t know what happened. Please just call me.”
I ended the call and immediately opened my messages app. My previous message was unread.
I started typing as fast as my fingers would allow.
Trouble, please call me. Please.