Reese
His eyes are dark, like melted chocolate, like black tea. I dissolve in them. He steps out of the trees, running a hand through
his dark hair, moving it, though it falls right back into place. He smells like sweat, bug spray and weed. His t-shirt has
the name of the resort on it, which is how I know he isn’t like me, that he works here.
“Hey,” he says, grinning, his gaze cutting and intense.
I can’t help myself. I smile because something about his is contagious.
I say, “Hey,” standing there in my bikini and slides in the woods, one foot on top of the other.
“I saw you yesterday, at your cottage. What’s your name?”
“Reese.”
“Reese?”
“Yeah,” I say, “like the candy,” wishing I could take it back the second it leaves my mouth. Like the candy. I could die. “What’s yours?” I ask.
“Daniel.” I say it in my mind. I wonder if he ever goes by Dan or Danny, or if it’s always Daniel. “Is your mom always like
that?” he asks.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.” He pauses. “A nag.”
The corners of his mouth pull up. I smile too. Because, for maybe the first time in my life, someone gets me. Someone sees the world the way I see it.
“Yeah,” I say, grinning. “Pretty much.”
“This is a family vacation. You’re supposed to be with family,” he says, parroting Emily and the conversation he overheard yesterday from the woods, and we laugh at her expense. “Sorry,”
he says, his smile flattening. “I shouldn’t talk shit about your mom.”
“No. It’s fine. I do.”
“Yeah, but she’s your mom. You’re supposed to talk shit about her,” he says, like it’s my birthright, like every kid is out
there talking shit about their moms. Many are, but then there are the ones like my little cousin Cass, who actually hero-worships
her mom, or Skylar, who has spa dates and goes on shopping sprees with hers, where her mom, Caroline, splurges on Lululemon
and shit.
I ask, “What’s your mom like?”
He shrugs, saying that she’s dead, and I recoil. “Oh my God. I’m so sorry.” What happens next is totally unexpected. My hand
moves as if all on its own, reaching out to touch his before pulling back. In the real world, I’d never do that. I would never
touch him. I would just stand there, feeling awkward, hating myself for asking the question as if I should have somehow known
that his mom was dead, and maybe it’s the fact that I’m on vacation and may never see this guy again that makes me realize
I can be anyone I want to be. I can do anything I want to do.
He shrugs again. “Don’t be. It’s not your fault. You didn’t kill her.” He looks away. When he looks back, he says, “I actually
saw you twice yesterday. At your cottage and again at the lodge. I waved at you.” He waits for me to say something, but when
I don’t, he says, “You didn’t wave back.”
“I didn’t see you.”
“No?” he asks, his smile playful this time, and it takes everything in me not to smile back and give myself away. “Because it seemed like maybe you did.”
Heat fills my cheeks. I think of the way I stood at the window yesterday, watching him unload boxes from the pickup truck.
I wonder what he could see from the other side of the window, just the faint outline of my face or the look on it as I stared,
imagining what he looked like under his shirt.
“Well, I didn’t,” I say. “It wasn’t me. I wasn’t even at the lodge yesterday.”
“That’s too bad. I was kind of hoping it was you, because whoever I saw was pretty as hell.”
My face goes red. I’m about to take it back—to tell him it was me at the lodge after all—when all of a sudden I hear the sound
of voices in the distance, carrying through the woods, closing in on us, and my heart sinks because I know they’re about to
ruin this moment for me because they ruin everything.
When I see them, Emily’s arms are crossed. She tries hard to keep up with Nolan, who walks ahead, the gap between them widening
with each step because she can’t keep pace. I don’t know if Nolan is trying to intentionally ditch her or not because he always
walks ahead of her, like he can’t ever slow down, like he has only one speed. “Why do you always do that?” she asks, her voice
out of breath from trying to keep up, and I don’t even know what they’re talking about, but it doesn’t matter. It’s the same
argument, different day.
“Do what?”
“Why do you always contradict everything I say? Why can’t you agree with me for once?”
He stops, wheels around to face her, his voice loud and unchecked. “Why can you never just fucking compromise? Why do you
always have to tell everyone what to do?”
“Can you just be quiet? Can you lower your voice, please?”
“Why?” Nolan asks, his voice escalating because it can, just to piss her off, to embarrass her. “Why do I have to be fucking quiet? When are we ever going to see these fucking people again?”
I take Daniel by the arm and drag him deeper into the woods.
“Where are we going?” he asks.
I put a finger to my lips and whisper, “Shhh.”
Emily says, “You’re only acting like this because you’re drunk.”
This time, when she says it, Nolan steps up close, entering her personal space with such velocity I’m not sure he’s not going
to hit her. Emily feels it too. She backs away from him as he says, “I am not drunk. I had two beers.”
“You had at least three, if not four.”
“Are you counting? We’re on vacation, Emily. You need to relax.”
Suddenly, Daniel’s hand is on my arm. I turn toward him, losing myself in his eyes. “What are you doing later?” he asks, his
voice low.
But Nolan’s tone is aggressive, incensed, pulling my attention away again as he says, “You’re ruining everyone’s trip, Emily.
Everyone would be having a far better time if you weren’t here.” He turns, walking away from her again, and I feel Daniel’s
hand on my cheek this time, turning my face, making me look into his eyes.
“When?” I ask.
“Tonight,” he says. “I want to show you something.”
“Show me what?” I ask, but the truth is that I don’t care what he wants to show me. Whatever it is, if it means being with
him, then I want to see.
He shrugs, the sun hitting his eyes just right so that they actually twinkle like stars in a night sky. “Just something.”
I look at Nolan, climbing the hill to the cottage.
This time, Emily doesn’t follow. She doesn’t want to go where he’s going, because his last words—Everyone would be having a far better time if you weren’t here—cut deep.
She throws a look back over her shoulder and toward the pool, wondering if she should go back and be with Aunt
Courtney and Uncle Elliott. But she doesn’t want to do that either, because they’re happy and having fun and their energy
doesn’t match. She doesn’t want to bring everyone down. In the end, she turns and climbs the hill for the cottage, following
Nolan at a distance, her arms still crossed, her head down and looking at her feet. I almost feel sorry for her. Except that
Nolan isn’t wrong. Everyone would be having a better time if she weren’t here, telling everyone what to do.
“I don’t know if they’ll let me leave,” I say, though I think that if I have to spend the entire night in the cottage with
them either fighting or giving each other the silent treatment, I might actually kill myself.
He’s grinning out of the side of his mouth. “Do they have to know? Do you tell them everything?”
My stomach flips. Butterflies dance inside of it.
“No. Not everything.” I smile back, a gust of wind sweeping in from behind, blowing my hair forward and into my face. I clutch
a fistful of it by my neck, waiting for the breeze to pass. I glance again at Emily and Nolan in the distance and say, “Let
me see if I can sneak out after they’re asleep.”
“Okay. If you can, meet me by the beach, on the pier. If you can’t—” he starts to say, but I cut him off, my words free from
doubt this time.
“I’ll be there. Wait for me.”