Chapter 42
42
I jolt awake. My mouth is dry, and I have a small headache. The back of my throat is sweet but sooty.
I try to go back to sleep, but vignettes of last night flash in my mind, vibrant bursts of memory. The dinner, the bonfire, the s’mores… the burning of my aunt? Or at least the burning of some effigy. It’s ridiculous, almost surreal. Maybe I had too much to drink. I downed a few glasses of wine and I’ve always been a lightweight. Was I drunk the whole time? Seeing things?
I roll over to my side and check my phone, as if it will give me some clarity. But I left it on my nightstand last night, so there are no videos or pictures to jog my memory, no follow-up texts, no social posts.
How can I tell what’s real without a record?
When we have breakfast, no one comments on what happened. Everyone is fresh-faced while sipping on their juice, forking fruit into their mouths. Bella Marie taps at her soft-boiled egg, which is nestled in a porcelain eggcup, with a golden spoon, creating a jagged crack along its hemisphere. As she peels back the beige shell, she glances at me with a smile. “Would you like one? It’s delicious when you dip a slice of toast in it.” She points to the well of bright yolk, yellow and goopy.
I look away without answering, suddenly sick. Everyone is so normal, I almost convince myself that it was all in my head, some odd dream or hallucination.
Only Iz is out of sorts. She’s off to the side, sucking on a cigarette without rest, flicking her golden lighter, schwing, clack, schwing, clack , making the flame appear and disappear. When our eyes meet, she raises her brows in an expression of disbelief. Neither of us say anything, as if we don’t want to be guilty of disrupting their pleasant and peaceful breakfast.
But as I scrape butter on my toast, I can’t help but summon memories of the absurd night. When I try to recall what I was thinking, I stumble onto a dead end. It’s like I wasn’t thinking—like I was acting without rationale. And there’s the issue of my aunt. I can’t deny it: I feel lighter. Like something heavy has drained out of my chest. When I looked at my phone earlier, I didn’t even think about her texts. I wasn’t anxious about her, couldn’t hear her biting voice in the back of my head. Even now, it’s all… gone.
Is my current state because of what happened last night? Did it release something inside me? Detach her spirit from my chest? But how does that make any sense? I wish my aunt could send me some signal, confirm that nothing has changed, that everything I feel right now is a farce.
After breakfast, Bella Marie tells us we have some time to ourselves before our morning group activity. The mention of group activity gives me the chills. If it’s anything like the last one, I’ll have to tap out.
I’m heading back to my bungalow when I hear someone behind me. I turn around, hoping it’s Iz. I want to talk to her about what happened. If anyone could understand the confusion in my head, it would be her. But to my surprise, it’s Kelly. Her inky hair is clipped back. Without makeup, she resembles her teenage self in her viral hair-curling video. Regardless, her presence makes me wary. I pivot, not wanting to deal with her passive-aggressive remarks, but she grabs my arm. “Let’s talk.”
“Oh, I don’t—” But she pulls me toward the beach. In my periphery, I see Lily dragging Iz toward the greenhouse. Bella Marie is farther down the path, eyes trained on them, and I wonder if she sent Kelly and Lily to talk to us. She must have sensed something awry at breakfast. Embarrassment heats my cheeks. What if I spoiled the group mood? I bet Chloe never acted this way.
Kelly sits me down on a wood bench shaded by a palm tree. I can barely look at her, casting my gaze along the horizon. The sky is so blue, it’s like it’s one with the ocean.
“Where’s your head at?” Her voice is gruff and impatient.
“I’m not sure what you mean.” I dig my thumbs into my thighs, wondering why it’s Kelly here and not Angelique or Sophia. Hell, I’d even take Ana. She could recite some bad poetry about feelings, bat her pretty doe eyes at me, and then we’d be on our merry way.
“We used to be pretty close,” Kelly says. “Before your break, you could share anything with me.”
I arch my brow. Given how mean she’s been, I have trouble believing it. Nevertheless, this conversation is drifting toward being too personal, so I attempt an early evacuation. “My stomach is really disagreeing with me—”
My butt is an inch off the bench when Kelly says, “Sit down.”
Her tone is so commanding, I obey without thought, swallowing a knot of tension.
“Things have obviously changed between you and me, but I guess this is our opportunity to set things straight. So, let’s not beat around the bush. You’re obviously concerned about what happened last night. Tell me what’s going on in your mind right now in one word.”
“One word?”
“Congratulations on demonstrating active listening! Do you want a ribbon?”
I bristle at her sarcasm and turn over responses in my head. Better to go along with whatever she has planned than to fight against it. “Overwhelmed?”
“Given everything that happened, it’s natural you’d be overwhelmed. I know you’ve been having memory lapses recently—”
“It’s because my twin—”
“She died and you found her body. Super traumatic or whatever, rest in peace, yada, yada. Will you let me continue now?”
I nod meekly, picking at my nails, scraping out soil from last night that had escaped my notice.
“When all of this happened to me the first time,” she continues, “I was overwhelmed and confused too.”
“You burned an effigy of your aunt?”
“Not exactly, but something like that. And can you stop interrupting me? Seriously, it’s so annoying. The Chloe I knew didn’t do that.”
I bite my tongue. “Sorry.”
She sighs. “Years ago, I had a string of viral videos and was growing faster than I ever thought possible. My parents even let me drop out of high school and move from Oklahoma to New York to pursue influencing full-time because they recognized my potential. These days, I know that audience loyalty is a fallacy, but back then, I was naive and so hopeful. I didn’t know how easily everything could be pulled out from under me.” She shakes her head. “To be honest, I still don’t know why my audience lost interest, but a few years into my career, my videos barely surfaced four digits and my subscriber count had plateaued. Brands stopped working with me because of limited engagement, and I didn’t have enough views to make good AdSense. I tried to chase trends, change my personality—anything to recover what I’d lost. But people didn’t seem to care.”
I had known about this vaguely. Kelly, like countless other content creators, had fizzled out of the mainstream, often through no fault of their own. As soon as you lose your grip on the attention ecosphere, you slip and fall into a void of obscurity, reduced to another bullet point in a long list of dated internet references. By the time you realize what went wrong, followers have already turned the other way, and the small window to capturing their attention has closed again.
“I was a twenty-year-old has-been without a high school diploma. Getting in front of the camera became shameful and embarrassing, like I was a monkey asked to perform in front of an empty audience. After a year of no progress, my mind was in a dark place. I couldn’t see hope. I was anxious and depressed. In my desperation, I made a last-ditch attempt at regaining my following by reaching out to trending creators for a collab. I was a pitiful case, and most people didn’t even have the decency to reply. But then one person said yes.”
“Bella Marie,” I say, the answer obvious.
A rare and genuine smile curves on Kelly’s lips. “She was my second wind, guiding me through my trouble, giving me solutions to things I thought impossible. Like chewing a strong gum to combat my anxiety by grounding me through my taste buds, simple things like that. And when I was invited on the trip, my career began to soar. I’d had the resurgence I’d been searching for and I finally found hope again.”
“What did she do?”
This time, Kelly doesn’t chide me for interrupting. Her eyes glimmer as she turns to face me. “Close your eyes and feel your body. Compared to who you were before, how do you feel now?”
I do as she asks. Behind the darkness of my eyelids, I consider my present state intensely. “I feel… buoyant.”
“That lightness is your chest is a sign of alignment. Because of our group effort last night, the universe has heard what you’ve been manifesting and has given you a taste of what’s ahead. But this marvelous feeling isn’t permanent. If you want to make your wishes everlasting, you have to truly believe and accept the positive energy we are gifting you. Otherwise, this is only temporary. Can you do that?”
I lace my brows. It’s true. I feel buoyant, lighter, detached from any concern, as if at any moment, I could rise to the sky. But it isn’t an aimless weightlessness, I’m not a mote of dust being pushed by the wind, a molecule at risk of being vaporized by sun. I am solid, in control, ready to make the world mine. If I could remain like this forever, without concern, without burden, protected from the leaden mass my aunt had buried within me, I would do anything they asked.
But a thin thread of hesitancy anchors me to the ground. Is Kelly telling me the truth? Are these sensations a result of a group manifestation? Last night wasn’t a pleasant memory. I hate my aunt and wish she’d stay away from me—but burning her? That has never been my intention.
I open my eyes to see Kelly staring at me intensely. The raven pools of her pupils shoot goose bumps down my spine. I shiver, though the breeze is warm.
“After I became one with this group,” she continues, “accepted what everyone was providing me, protected by our mutual understanding and effort, I was able to be born anew. My dreams became reality again. Don’t you want that too?”
I gulp. “I do.”
“We can do that for you. But to do so, we must maintain a positive group synergy. This means we must trust each other. Believe in each other. That’s the only way we can help uplift and protect each other. We cannot grow tall and command our dreams unless we are supported. Remember, not everyone gets a second chance. We only have your best interests in mind. Do you understand?”
Her words buzz in my chest, making my pulse jump. The string of hesitancy that grounds me frays after everything Kelly has said. I don’t want to be tied down when I could soar to impossible heights.
“Yes. I do. I understand.” And once the words are out in the air, I am weightless once again.