Chapter 2
Four hours later I walk into Fresco, the Mexican restaurant off campus that’s best known for underage drinking and tabletop
dancing, and slide into the booth with Annica and Danielle.
Annica greets me with an annoyed look; I’m late and they’ve been waiting. She flips her long auburn hair over a shoulder and
slides a jumbo margarita my way from across the table. “Since I knew you’d be late.”
I take it, grimacing slightly as the glass slides over what looks like a footprint. “Oh, you just know me so well.”
“It was nine seventy-five,” she says. That’s Annica Labrant for you, wealthiest one in our friend group but if you owe her
a dollar, she will never let you forget it. Maybe that’s how her family stays rich.
“How about I buy you two Long Islands tonight and we call it even?” I suggest.
“But those are only four dollars,” she retorts.
Ridiculous, I think to myself as I let out a sigh. I pull out my phone to send her the money.
I met Annica on our very first day of college in Writing I, and we did not hit it off.
Her sharp brown eyes were almost always narrowed, sizing up the competition, and her mouth in a perpetual frown.
But once you break through that tough, bitchy exterior, she’s actually a great friend.
The kind that wakes up in the middle of the night to come get you from the campus jail, no questions asked.
Danielle Montgomery, the third to our trio, drains the rest of her margarita and sets it down with a thud. “You have some
catching up to do, Sloane.” She clinks her glass to mine, a silent drink up.
I take a long sip: half lime margarita, half sangria. My favorite, and I know Annica ordered it. She’s always good at that,
remembering details.
My stomach turns when the icy liquid hits, in part from still being hungover, but also from the random guilt that comes over
me when I think of Jonah. I tried to sleep it off after I got the news, but he was all I could see when I closed my eyes.
What if he had left for the airport just a few minutes later? What if he was going just a little bit slower? Would it have
made a difference? Or was it fated to happen? Somehow it just doesn’t feel fair that I get to be here drinking margaritas
with my friends and he won’t see his ever again.
“Hello, earth to Sloane.” Annica waves her hand in front of my face.
“What? Sorry, I zoned out.”
“I said what happened to you last night? One minute you were at the bar and the next you were gone.”
“Yeah,” Dani chimes in. “We looked for you everywhere. You didn’t say you were leaving. I was worried.” Dani is always worried about something or someone. She’s been the designated mother of our friend group since the first night we all got drunk together freshman year.
“Oh, yeah, I ended up bringing this guy back with me, I think Nate or Nick, whatever his name is . . .” I trail off, taking
a long swig from the straw. They both look at me expectantly, waiting for details. But the details won’t matter, because he
wasn’t Wesley McCavern.
When I don’t give any Annica says, “Well?”
“Don’t leave us in suspense! How was it?” Dani asks. We aren’t a shy group; we’ll usually dish out the most intimate details
of our escapades even in a public restaurant. Nothing is off-limits.
“Honestly I don’t remember. I think I blacked out.” I rest my head on my hand with a sigh.
Annica only blinks before diving into her night. “Well, I went home with that hockey player I was telling you guys about yesterday—”
“Is something wrong?” Dani asks me, ignoring Annica, who is now glaring at her for interrupting. “You seem . . . down.”
“I’m just hungover,” I say, swirling my straw around. I debate not saying anything about Jonah, but if I can’t shake this
slump later, the two of them will know for sure that something else is up. “And my high school ex-boyfriend died last night,
so that has me feeling, well, I don’t know, kind of sad, I guess.”
My friends are silent. Annica puts her hand atop mine with a frown.
One table over, a birthday song breaks out in Spanish as the waiters crown the birthday boy with a sombrero.
Disco lights flash around the room and music blares on the speakers.
The whole restaurant is celebrating life and we’re talking about death with three jumbo margaritas in our hands.
It feels ridiculous. So much so that I can’t help but laugh at the timing.
Then I can’t stop laughing, even after the music cuts out.
My friends look at me with concern, which makes it worse.
I don’t know if it’s the lack of sleep or the fact that I now have another buzz on top of the hangover, but I feel delirious.
“Are you having some sort of manic episode right now?” Annica asks, pulling her hand from mine. I can’t stop laughing to even
reply. Annica looks at Dani. “Is she?”
Dani shrugs. “How would I know?”
“You’re a nursing major,” Annica says back.
When my laughing subsides, I wipe the tears that have formed and chug the rest of my drink, making my throat feel frozen and
tight.
Dani leans in, one reassuring hand on my back. “Are you okay?”
I wave them off. “I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?” Annica asks, not convinced. “If you’re not up for going out again tonight we can just hang out at our apartment
and watch a movie or something?”
Our apartment, meaning hers and Dani’s, and no longer mine. Again, one of the conditions of being allowed to come back meant
moving out of our shared apartment and moving in with “a better influence,” as my mother put it.
“Guys, really, it’s fine. It’s our last Welcome Weekend—we aren’t sitting inside.” I force a smile, but I can tell I’m not
selling it.
Annica signals the waiter to bring another round before turning back to me. “Does your mom know you’re going out this weekend?”
Dani follows with “I hope not. I don’t want her to hate us more than she already does.”
“Okay, first, she doesn’t hate you two. Second, I am twenty-one years old. I can do whatever I want.”
“Except sleep with a married professor and get a DUI,” Annica quips. Dani shoots her a look. “What? Too soon?”
Three more jumbo margaritas are set down in front of us, and we each take one. I ignore Annica’s not-funny joke. “Those are
last year’s mistakes. This is a new year, a new me.” I raise my glass. “To being seniors.”
The three of us walk down College Street as the sun begins to set over campus. I trail behind the two of them, tipsy from
our dinner at Fresco and thinking of Jonah. The long road is lined with trees still green from the summer and houses that
are in serious need of upkeep. Faded Greek letters mark porches with string lights hanging haphazardly from the balconies,
and groups of underclassmen stumble about with large backpacks sagging from the missing weight of warm beers they were surely
full of this morning. Red cups and empty seltzer cans are scattered throughout every yard as the daytime revelry continues
into the night.
“You know, I’m gonna miss this place next year,” Dani says before pinning up her short brown hair into a claw clip.
As if on cue, a barefoot, half-naked man with a beer box on his head runs past us on the sidewalk, nearly crashing into Annica.
“Are you sure?” Annica steps out of the way, her face contorted in disgust.
Dani laughs. “I just can’t believe this is the last first pregame of the year with the boys. I think I’ll miss them the most.”
“Gee, thanks,” Annica says.
The boys—Charlie, Sam, Jake, Asher, and Wesley—have been our friends since freshman year. Annica went to a private high school with Wesley and Asher in a ritzy town just outside of Boston, and we quickly fell in with their group.
“Is Wes going to be here tonight?” I ask, my heart skipping a beat in my chest at the thought.
Annica glances at me from over her shoulder and arches a brow. “Why do you ask?”
The look on her face makes me wish I didn’t. Annica has one rule for any girl she introduces to Wes: Do not sleep with him.
She made a big fuss about it freshman year, saying her high school best friend did and when it didn’t end well, they were
no longer welcome to hang out with his group. Wesley is the leader type; if we were to be on the outs with him, we’d be on
the outs with all of them. Part of me always thought it was because she liked him, but another part knows it’s because these friendships mean the world, and not just to her.
“You said last night that he might not come in until Sunday, that’s all.” Though that’s not why I’m asking, my question is
answered as we approach their house.
Wesley McCavern is sitting on the porch railing, one leg dangling over the side with a beer in his hand and a backward cap
on. I watch him as we walk up the sidewalk. He pushes up the sleeves of his PC sweatshirt and laughs at something Charlie
says. Suddenly my mind is transported back to when we were eighteen and I walked up to this very same house, and he sat on
that very same railing. He smiled at me then, and for a moment I forgot about Jonah, who had just broken up with me.
“There they are!” Charlie yells from the doorway. “Charlie’s Angels have arrived.” His nickname for the three of us.
This time Wes doesn’t smile when he sees me; in fact he quickly averts his eyes. But all the same, I find myself forgetting about Jonah, even if just for a moment.
Charlie greets us first, bringing each of us in for a big bear hug, holding on to Dani for a bit longer than me and Annica.
He asks us how our summers were and listens intently as we tell him. I’ve always had a soft spot for Charlie, as he’s easily
the nicest out of the five of them. Always checking to make sure we get home okay and a good person to spark up a deep conversation
with. He was raised in a house with four sisters and it shows.
Sam follows behind, quieter, with his hands in the pockets of his black jeans. He gives us soft side hugs and hardly makes