Chapter 6 Eden
Six
Eden
Somehow, I end up riding shotgun in Georgia’s car with this guy Mateo driving, and Daisy in the back seat. Rhys meets up with
us downtown and we walk around, poking into shops. This is my second shopping trip in one day and I’m not sad about it. But
it’s a little random—me and Daisy trailing around with Georgia’s boyfriend and his friend. I’ve met Rhys a couple of times
and never met Mateo, and they’re both a little fratty for my taste, but fun enough. And Laurel is such a cute town. We end
up having a silly time trying on hats and getting boba, and then we drive up to one of the mountain lookout points you can
get to by car, where Daisy and I snap some selfies fully blocking the view while Mateo jokes around pretending to shove Rhys
off the edge of a cliff.
Boys. Sheesh.
By the time the guys drop us off back at the house, the early colors of sunset—fresh peach and pale gold—are starting to filter
through the trees. Daisy and I take the rest of our tea and plop into the hammock, which is so crusty from years of neglect
it almost snaps in half under us.
We sit facing each other, our knees tucked up under our chins, swaying slowly. “So now that those losers are gone, we need to catch up!” I command.
Daisy laughs. “They’re not losers, Eden,” she says, slapping my knee.
“Okay, fine, they’re nice enough. That Mateo guy is kinda cute, actually. Which one do you think is hotter?”
Daisy blushes a little. “Mateo? I mean, I have to say that. Rhys is my sister’s boyfriend. But also, Mateo’s a bit too . . .”
“Brooding?” I fill in. Other than roughhousing with Rhys, the guy didn’t say much all afternoon.
She nods. “Exactly.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Mateo is hot, though. You like a slightly tortured boy, don’t you? Maybe we should set you up with him.”
Daisy coughs a little on her iced tea. “Stop! I’m not sure he even remembered my name. He kept calling me ‘the sister.’ ”
“I’m pretty sure he called me ‘the cousin,’ so I wouldn’t take it personally.”
Daisy shakes her head. “Anyway, he was flirting with you.”
“He was?” I ask, genuinely surprised. I hadn’t noticed anything. I mean, I was sitting shotgun, so I suppose I talked his
ear off, but he was only being normal by occasionally replying.
Daisy sighs. “They’re always flirting with you, Eden. Guys can’t help themselves around you.”
“Wow, that is so not true,” I tell her. “I think you just idolize me because I’m your glamorous city cousin.”
“Maybe. Or maybe you’re a boy magnet and you’re in denial.”
I roll my eyes. “Ugh, you sound like your sister right now. Georgia thinks I’m this horrible heartbreaker. You guys really have a bad impression of me.”
Daisy smiles. “No, we don’t! Anyway, whatever. Let’s agree Mateo is annoyingly brooding and hot, and move on.”
“Fine. Agreed.”
We sway some more in the afternoon quiet.
“So, are you breaking any hearts over there in Sage Port, Daze?”
She studies her iced tea. “Maybe.”
“Wait, really?!” I lean forward so quickly we both almost fall out of the hammock. “Tell me everything!”
She laughs, hiding her face with her hand. “No, it’s nothing, it’s just . . . Okay, first of all, promise me you won’t tell
Georgia. . . .”
I raise an eyebrow. “Why?”
“Because if it turns out to be nothing, I don’t want her breathing down my neck about it.”
“You realize she’s going to college in like three months. You won’t have her around to judge your choices. Not that she would,
but I understand how you feel.”
Daisy sighs. “I guess that’s true. But, like—she knows him, so . . .”
“Knows who?! I’m dying from this suspense!”
She laughs. “It’s my friend Owen. I really don’t know if it’s anything or not. I, like, heard a rumor that he had a crush on me, which to be honest I really didn’t even believe, but then at a party last night we were making guacamole and then one thing led to another and we kind of . . . kissed.”
“Daisy!” I scream, hitting her knees like bongo drums. “That is so cute!” I love watching her go through her little romantic
dramas; my younger brother is like a non-emotive rock, so it’s fun to play big sister every now and then with Daisy.
“It’s probably nothing,” she says, squinting into the distance.
“Wait, why? How did you leave things? Did he say he liked you? Do you like him?”
Daisy shakes her head. “We didn’t really talk about it because I sorta . . . I don’t know. Spooked? I basically sprinted out
the front door immediately after.”
“Oh noooo, Daze. You need to stop with the running when things get good!”
“I know, I know,” she admits.
“But was it? Good, I mean?”
She smiles and blushes all the way to her ears.
“Okay, I take that as an affirmative. Wow, this is so adorable. I love this for you. Should we call him right now and get
some clarity?”
Now it’s Daisy’s turn to spring forward in alarm, shaking the hammock. “No! We are not ‘getting clarity.’ What if it’s all
some weird fluke? And anyway, he doesn’t have a phone.”
I nearly spit out my tea. “Huh? Who doesn’t have a phone?”
“Oh, I mean, he has one,” she clarifies, “but it was confiscated for the summer. And he’s traveling all around Europe. So,
he’s gonna send me postcards.”
“What!” I shout. “This is the plot of a Nicholas Sparks movie.”
“Aren’t all of those tragic?” Daisy says.
“I have no idea. I don’t watch that sappy crap.”
She laughs, and then we’re both laughing, and then Aunt Elena is calling us to help with dinner.
While Daisy and I help get stuff ready for the grill, Georgia comes back with drenched hair from the beach, her gym bag over
her shoulder. She takes a long outdoor shower, seemingly lost in her own world.
Dave is actually a decent chef, as it turns out, and we settle around the table on the enclosed porch for a cozy dinner of
barbecue chicken and kale Caesar. You can see glimmers of the lake through the forest, and you can hear it during the pauses
in conversation. The hum of insects, the lapping of water. It’s insanely peaceful, and a tiny bit scary. I’m not used to the
quiet, eerie sounds of the woods.
I’m also surprised by how chilly it gets as the sun sets. In the city the summer temps somehow only seem to get warmer at
night, after the heat’s been trapped in the pavement all day, but up here the heat of the day dissipates in the breeze, and
I wrap my chambray button-down tightly around my chest.
As we’re clearing dishes, Rhys comes over again—this time without his friend. He whisks Georgia away for “a drive.” Georgia
blushes and I’m pretty sure going for a drive is code for “we’re one of those couples who have to literally schedule sex or
else we’ll never get the chance.”
But I’m sure Georgia would say I’m jealous.
Yeah, right. I’d rather be having no sex than scheduled sex with my too-perfect boyfriend. Yawn. Besides, I lost my virginity last year to this guy named Sebastian Thompson in his dad’s apartment in Brooklyn (while his
dad was traveling for work) and let me tell you, the whole thing is overrated. It was over so quickly I could’ve blinked and
missed it, and while it did last, it hurt and felt awkward. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be rocking my hips like you
see in movies and our rhythm was just not matching up; it sort of felt like trying to walk up the down escalator. And Bastian’s
face was twisted into this weird grimace that made him a lot less cute, so I tried to stare at the walls, but they were covered
in his dad’s unsettling modern art. All told, I was glad when it was done, and I rode the subway home playing sudoku on my
phone to soothe my anxiety.
Bastian and I mostly avoided each other after that. I think he was just as embarrassed about the whole thing as me. Still,
it was good to get it over with, so I don’t have to go to college not knowing anything.
After Rhys and Georgia drive off to sexland, Daisy and Elena and I curl up in our sweatpants and put on a murder mystery series
about a beautiful woman getting murdered on a beautiful beach full of beautiful suspects, and after a few episodes, I’m sleeping
peacefully on the coach with my cold feet under Daisy’s butt.
I wake up on the pullout couch in the upstairs den with a crick in my neck.
The mattress is decent, but I get stiff sleeping in a bed I’m not used to.
Sunlight peers cautiously through the blinds and I stretch, happy to remember I’m at the lake with my favorite people in the world (and Dave, who I really don’t know) .
. . that is, until something occurs to me.
Today there’s this orientation thingy for the Boundless Horizons program.
I’d been hoping to conveniently miss it and just show up tomorrow for day one of the “Journey into the Wilderness Within and Without,” as the website calls it.
But now that Georgia forced us to drive up a day early, I know Elena will make me go. She’s under strict orders from my parents,
so I get it. Elena can be a pushover and probably would not care at all if I played hooky on the whole thing, but she doesn’t
want to upset my mom and dad, and I don’t want to upset her, so. Here we are.
Anyway, maybe it’ll be fine?
I throw on cute black shorts with my skull-and-crossbones suspenders over a white T-shirt, and slip into my most practical
shoes: a pair of neon-yellow rubber platform sandals. (They’re waterproof! It doesn’t get more practical than that!)
In the kitchen, Daisy and Georgia are already up. Daisy’s in her sweats from last night and a giant Fleetwood Mac T-shirt,
while Georgia is wearing an emerald-green one-piece bathing suit with a zipper between her boobs, along with white jean shorts.
Our breakfasts, like our outfits, are deeply reflective of our personalities.
Georgia: Greek yogurt with granola, banana, berries, and a tiny drizzle of honey.
Daisy: a giant, gooey apple fritter from Luna’s Bakery in town.
Me: a generous bite of everyone else’s food and a quantity of Diet Coke that would certainly kill a small dog.