Chapter Fifteen
Fifteen
I WAKE IN THE MORNING to what can only be called A Commotion. The fridge opening and shutting, Mikey whisper-yelling to Felicity, someone tripping over something.
I groan, pressing my face into the pillow.
I never moved to my bed last night, too bone-tired to make the short journey across the apartment. But I’m surprised when I flex my fingers and they brush against warm skin.
I lift my head, blinking through the bright haze of the sunlit living room. On the other side of the sectional, Jamie is still sprawled on his stomach, one arm stretched above his head, our hands no longer entangled but still only centimeters apart.
I snatch my own hand back and sit up quickly, hoping no one has noticed. My legs tangle in Mikey’s weighted blanket, and I stumble as I get to my feet. I shoot one last apprehensive look in Jamie’s direction, but he sleeps on.
The rest of the apartment is in chaos, a pile of towels on the coffee table beside my sour candy hoard, topped by two snorkels. Mikey runs by in an orange unisuit, doing a double take when she notices I’m awake.
“Hi!” she says, turning back. She was clearly on her way to Andres’s room. “How do you feel?”
“I’m okay,” I say blearily, willing myself not to look at Jamie. I scratch at an itchy spot on the back of my arm—with my luck, an allergic reaction to the couch I just slept on, with its years and years of accumulated use. “What’s going on? Are you going… swimming?”
“We,” Felicity says, leaning out of her bedroom, “are going to the beach.”
“Oh. Have fun.”
“You’re included in that we,” Andres says, coming out of his room dressed in only his swim trunks. He picks up a bag of Sour Patch Kids from the table and tosses them at Jamie. “I know you’re awake.”
“I’m pretending this is all a bad dream,” Jamie says, rolling to face the back of the couch. “Go away.”
“Get up,” Mikey says, tugging his ankle. “We’re going to the beach.”
“I have to work,” Jamie replies, voice muffled by the couch.
“Not anymore,” says Andres. “I called out for you.”
Jamie turns his head, glaring at Andres over his shoulder. “You did what?”
My skin begins to sting from scratching, so I switch from nails to knuckles, digging in with the boniest parts of my fingers.
“We’re having a day of fun,” Felicity says, coming into the room wearing black shorts over her black one-piece.
“Of relaxation. Of no phones, no stress, no classes or jobs or anything else that freaks us out. Bee needs a day off, and the more I thought about it, the more I figured we all do. We made an executive decision.”
Jamie glares at her. “A lot of executive decisions happening these days. What happened to a good, old-fashioned vote?”
“You started acting senile,” Felicity replies. “So we took your rights. You’ll get over it.”
Jamie sighs, dragging himself up into a sitting position. His cheek is streaked with red pillow marks, his T-shirt askew. He looks soft and warm. Cute.
Of course, I remind myself, because Jamie is a good-looking boy, and good-looking boys always look cute when they first wake up. It’s one of the laws of the universe, like how they look hot driving and holding babies and doting on their grandmas.
“You’re okay with this?” Jamie asks me, drawing my attention back.
A day of fun. I shouldn’t be okay with it. I have a ton of work to do, and the thought of slacking off and falling even further behind makes a fist clench in my chest.
But maybe the only way to get that fist to loosen is to take a day to let myself float for once, instead of swimming against the current.
“Yeah,” I say carefully. “I think a day off sounds kind of nice.”
Jamie seems to accept this, and by the time I’m pulling my bathing suit on, I’ve almost gotten my brain on board. But as I pull the top of my two-piece over my head, I catch sight of myself in the mirror, and my stomach flips.
Down the back of my arm is an angry red rash, stretching like an island nation across my skin from underarm to elbow.
Perfect. A hives outbreak. On a beach day!
I move to my dresser and slide open a drawer, fishing a big T-shirt from the bottom.
I pull it on, and it catches around my wide hips, creating a bulky lump above my bathing suit bottoms. But the sleeves go all the way to my elbows, covering the rash, and at this point I’m sacrificing style for—well, not comfort. But the closest thing to it.
Now that I know the outbreak is there, I feel the itch acutely. I pop a Zyrtec, then dig out an anti-itch cream and toss it into my beach bag along with my sunscreen.
And if that doesn’t scream day of fun, I don’t know what does.
To my further dismay, we take the Jeep for the hour and a half drive to Emerson, a wealthy beach town on the Gulf of Mexico.
It makes sense logically as the only car big enough to fit the five of us comfortably, and yet also logically, I continue to fear for my life.
Apparently no one else has a problem with whipping down the highway in the high double digits when we could reach out and touch the car in the next lane, and there is zero concern about screaming over the combined sounds of the traffic, wind, and Jamie’s godforsaken chosen soundtrack.
“My car, my music,” he said in response to my plaintive look as the sounds of some screamo hard rock band filled the Jeep.
“Music would be great, thanks!” I shouted back while the others laughed.
“I think my ears are still ringing,” I say now as I float on my back in the ocean, my face turned up to the relentless sun.
The soles of my feet are still tender from the hot sand that slipped into my sandals as we schlepped from the car, but my stinging hives have calmed since slipping into the salt water.
I was the first in the water after Mikey, who definitely did not give her sunscreen long enough to soak in, and I managed to get Felicity’s help slathering my back without her noticing my outbreak.
The last thing I need is everyone thinking there’s something else wrong with me.
“I think you’re fine,” Jamie says, splashing me lightly in the face.
“I think,” Felicity calls, “you two are really fucking up the relaxing part of our relaxing beach day.”
“Yeah, Jamie,” I say, swimming away from him.
Felicity sighs contentedly. “I know we didn’t come here under the best circumstances, but I swear, every time I get in the ocean, I turn into one of those ‘salt water heals everything’ bumper sticker girls. Like, maybe I should throw out my antidepressants and move into a beach shack.”
“You couldn’t afford a beach shack in this neighborhood,” Jamie shouts from where he’s fending off Mikey, who’s attempting to climb on his back.
“Shit. You’re right. Antidepressants are back on, I guess.
” After a minute, she says in a quieter voice meant just for me, “I talk to someone on campus, by the way. If you’re interested.
I like her a lot, and it’s free. They can’t prescribe you anything—I get my meds through Health Services. But it’s a good place to start.”
I smile. “Thanks, but my parents would hate that. They’re all about powering through the hard stuff.”
Felicity frowns, sitting up from her floating position. A wave rolls in, pushing her closer to me. “You can’t power through everything, Bee. And they can’t tell your parents anything either, so no one has to know but you.”
I’m not thrilled at the idea of lying to my parents, though—not any more than I already have.
And I’m already on thin ice with Mom. I’ve missed a lot of her calls lately, and when I posted a photo of the beach to social media earlier, I got a text from her only minutes later, while I was still applying sunscreen: The beach? Do you really have time for that?
I didn’t respond, and guilt and shame have made a nice little home in my stomach, a pulsing reminder of how disappointed she would be if she knew the truth of it all.
Felicity squeezes my shoulder briefly, then turns away and calls, “Hey, it looks like we’ll be adopting a lobster before we go home. Mikaela.” She shoots Mikey a pointed look.
There’s already a strip of red along Mikey’s cheeks and capping her shoulders.
“I’ll reapply in a minute,” Mikey says, swimming over to jump onto Felicity’s back. “But you have to help me.”
“If you think I’m getting out of this water—”
“You have to,” Mikey says, “if you love me.”
“Have Andres help you.”
“He’s busy,” Mikey says, and we all follow her gaze to the beach, where Andres is chatting at the water’s edge with a tall girl who was playing beach volleyball when we got here. Now her friends are in the water, and Andres holds the volleyball under one arm, leaning toward her with a grin.
“As long as her name isn’t Jenna,” Jamie says.
“Why not?” I ask.
They all groan, and Felicity says, “Because he’s a weird, fucked-up Jenna magnet. He dated Evil Jenna in high school—she totally messed him up.”
“Then there was Cheater Jenna fall semester. Andres found out she secretly had a boyfriend while she was with him,” says Mikey.
“And then there was Finnish Jenn?, but she was only here for a study-abroad thing for the spring,” Jamie says.
“What would we call this one?” I ask, looking toward Andres again. “If she’s a Jenna.”
“Tall Jenna,” Jamie says. “Too obvious.”
“I would’ve said Hot Jenna,” Mikey says.
Felicity reaches over and presses her fingertip to Mikey’s reddening shoulder, the skin beneath her finger turning white again, but briefly. “We’ll have to call you Hot Mike soon too, if you don’t get out of the water and reapply.”
Mikey pretends to pout as Felicity drags her toward the shore. “I thought you already called me Hot Mike.”
Felicity tosses her head back and laughs.
I glance at Jamie, unsettled to be alone with him. He’s still watching Andres, but the way he isn’t looking at me feels as heavy as his direct, unblinking stare.
“Maybe you should go wingman for him,” I say, wishing he’d leave.