Reese
I drift to the window like a leaf caught in a breeze, getting carried away by the wind. I stand there watching as the boy
unloads boxes from the bed of a rusty pickup truck, completely hung up on his arms: the suntanned skin, a tattoo partially
visible from beneath the short sleeve of a white t-shirt and the way his biceps flex when he lifts the boxes, carrying them
across the parking lot and then stacking them beside an open door. I can’t look away. I’m hypnotized. Transfixed. I feel warm
all over, my heart fluttering as he closes the truck’s tailgate, thinking how good he looks in his tight t-shirt and jeans
as he turns and walks toward a vending machine on the side of the lodge. He slides money in before reaching down for a Pepsi
that he uncaps and throws back, and then I watch him drink it, completely obsessed with his neck as he swallows, on the sweat
that tumbles down the sides of his face—envying it because of its closeness to his skin—and on his dark eyes that slowly lower
as he finishes drinking, locking with mine.
My heart stops. I freeze like a dummy, telling myself that he can’t see me in the window, that there must be a shadow or a glare blocking his view.
But then a smile pulls on the edges of his lips, and he lifts his hand and waves.
He can see me after all.
I fall away from the window. I hide myself, feeling my cheeks burn. Embarrassed, I ask Wyatt and Mae, “You guys ready to go?” though it isn’t so much of a question.
Only Wyatt answers. “Not yet. Once I get past this level we can go.”
I turn around, thinking Mae is behind me. She’s not, though she should be back by now. It shouldn’t be taking this long to
pick out a movie, especially when there were only like ten to choose from. I let my eyes go to the wall of them, irritated
that she’s being a snail again, though Mae is always a snail. Normal people do everything Mae does in half the time, but she
gets a pass because she shouldn’t even be alive.
The area by the movies is empty. Mae isn’t there; she’s gone.
My heart beats hard again, but for a completely different reason than before.
“Where’s Mae, Wyatt?” I ask, but he doesn’t hear me because he’s too caught up in his game. “Wyatt,” I say again. “Where is
Mae?”
“How should I know? You’re supposed to be watching her, remember?”
I don’t know how much time has passed since Mae went to look for a DVD. I don’t know how long I was staring outside, if it
was five minutes or fifteen.
“Help me look for her,” I say, my eyes darting around the lodge, but Mae is nowhere. “Mae!” I call out, that creep from before
suddenly living rent free in my mind, the way his eyes went from me to Mae when we walked in. I think of every worst thing
I can imagine in that moment. Child predators. Human trafficking. “Mae!” I shout out, loud enough that people turn to look.
Before anyone can offer to help, she appears from behind a dark curtain—her eyes wide and her face white—with some guy’s hand on her shoulder. A sign on the curtain reads Adults Only.
“I think someone’s a little lost,” he says, chuckling.
“Get over here,” I say, snatching Mae by the arm and pulling her away from him. “What were you thinking? Can’t you read, idiot?
That section’s for grown-ups,” I say, pointing to the Adults Only sign.
“I didn’t know,” she says, on the verge of tears, so that I almost feel bad for calling her an idiot. Almost. “I’m sorry.”
“You should be. You scared the shit out of me. Do you have any idea what could have happened to you?” Mae shakes her head,
tears in her eyes, because she doesn’t know, because she can’t imagine the creeps that live in this world and the things they
do to little girls like her, and I’m not going to be the one to tell her.
“Did you find something?” I ask. In her hands is The Parent Trap, which she holds out to me. “Give me that,” I say, yanking it from her so I can pay and we can leave.
“If you’re not careful,” I say to Mae on the way out, as we pass by the poster of that missing girl again, “whatever happened
to her is going to happen to you.”
I watch as Mae stares back over her shoulder at it, scared. Good, I think. She should be. Then maybe she won’t wander off
like that again.
“Are you going to tell Mom?” she asks later, as we make our way back to the cottage, following the same worn-down path through
the woods.
“Definitely not,” I say because it wouldn’t be Mae’s fault. Mae can do no wrong in Emily’s and Nolan’s minds. It would be
mine for not keeping a better eye on her.
“Yeah well, I might,” Wyatt says.
“You better not,” I tell him.
“If you want me to keep quiet, it’s going to cost you.”
“You’re such a jerk. Besides, I have two actual dollars,” I say, reaching a hand into my pocket for the cash, which I try
handing to him. “Here. You can have it if you want.”
But he doesn’t take it. “You have Venmo,” he says, but there’s no way I’m letting my little fourteen-year-old brother blackmail
me again. Wyatt is a shark. The time he caught me breaking curfew cost me twenty bucks. The time he caught me leaving the
house with a bottle of Nolan’s Tito’s in my bag cost more.
“Screw you, Wyatt. I’m not giving you shit.”
We get back to the cottage. Aunt Courtney and Uncle Elliott are there now, along with my little cousin Cass. The adults have
been drinking, which I know because Emily’s voice is high as fuck and her skin is red like it gets when she’s lit up. There’s
an Old Fashioned in her hands too—her favorite and probably not her first. No, definitely not her first. Nolan stands just
behind her, his hand on her shoulder like they actually like each other, though I know it’s a front for company’s sake. Aunt
Courtney sits on the sofa with Cass. Uncle Elliott plays bartender, standing in the kitchen with a bottle of bourbon, and
I know that if I ask nice later, when no one is looking, he might just give me some.
“There you are!” Emily exclaims, setting her glass down and coming to us. “How did it go? Did you find something?” she asks,
leaning down to see what movie Mae picked out.
Wyatt’s eyes come to mine, looking down because, despite being three years younger, he has inches on me. “You want to tell
her, or should I?” he asks.
“Tell me what?” Emily asks, standing up. I think how it would go if Wyatt told her I lost Mae, that I let her wander into
the porn section alone, that I let her wander into the porn section at all, and that she saw things that would make any normal person want to bleach their eyes.
“Nothing,” I say. “Just that you owe me a dollar for the movie.”
As Emily goes for her wallet, I pull up Venmo on my phone and pay Wyatt his hush money, knowing it won’t be the last time
I pay him to keep my secrets quiet.