Chapter 4
I stand in front of the mirror scrutinizing my reflection. Cassie salvaged my hair, swept it back into a stylishly messy bun. My makeup is fine. Maybe a little too much, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. I gently sweep under my eyes with a Q-tip, eliminating rogue flakes of mascara.
The dress isn’t a complete disaster. Plain, black. Loose but not wholly unflattering. Paired with my red strappy heels, red beaded clutch, and some jewelry it’s wedding appropriate. Not a knockout, but it’s not the worst.
I finally tear myself away from the mirror and step out into the living room.
“You look amazing,” Evan says, giving me a hug. “And you smell like a bachelorette party.”
“Are you serious?”
“Evan,” Cassie says, reaching into her bra and adjusting her cleavage. “Not now.”
“I’m only joking,” he says. “You have nothing to worry about, Willa.”
“Of course not.” I’m fucking vibrating with nerves. I dig my nails into my palms, nibble on my inner lip. There is no calming down. No preparing. I need to accept what’s about to happen. What I’m about to see. Who I’m about to see.
“We all set to go?” Wyatt asks, scratching his neck. He’s not used to wearing a tie. He hates it.
“All set!” Luke says, holding the cabin door open for us.
He slaps Cassie’s ass on her way out and she calls him a pig before making a crude sexual gesture and giving him a wink.
It’s all very sweet and nauseating. Their relationship has changed over the years.
Since marriage. Since the suburbs. Since Theo.
Cassie getting increasingly uptight, Luke further mellowing to accommodate.
They used to be the couple that would fight in front of everyone, that would hook up in front of everyone.
All passion. If they’ve managed to maintain it, they’ve moved it behind closed doors.
Cassie will still get on Luke’s case, but it’s not the same.
To have this brief glimpse at their old dynamic instigates a surprising jealousy. What if I was pining after an old version of a love that I could never get back, and it made me blind to any possible future?
Or…what if I’m just spiraling? What if that?
“Hold up! I want a picture,” Luke says. We pose in front of the cabin, and he takes a selfie.
“My phone, too,” Evan says.
It turns into a whole photo shoot. My cheeks hurt from forcing a smile.
Then the group starts down the path toward the lake.
I wish I could feel some strength in numbers, but I don’t.
It’s all happening too fast. Before, this weekend was an abstract thing.
A problem for future me. I always seem to forget that future me will eventually be present me.
Then I’m angry at past me, but there’s nothing I can do about it.
We’re getting close. I can hear live music.
Steph hired musicians for the ceremony—a married couple who play piano and acoustic guitar, who are mildly YouTube-famous.
There will be a DJ for the reception, thank God.
I’m so fragile right now a mediocre wedding band cover of “Single Ladies” really might do me in.
“Okay, Wills,” Cass says. “You ready?”
My gaze travels ahead toward the charming party setup—mismatched vintage couches and chairs and high cocktail tables topped with mini lanterns and a mobile bar operating out of a restored retro silver Airstream.
Just beyond that are rows of chairs facing the water, an aisle cutting through leading to a delicate lattice awning draped with gauzy fabric that dances erratically in the wind, lights blinking underneath like hostage fireflies.
There are three tall floral arches that separate us from the wedding. The loveliest gate.
And he’s there. Ravi. Standing in the center arch.
White button-down, slacks, his favorite bomber jacket.
He bought it at the Brooklyn Flea in Industry City.
With me. I was the one who found it on the rack.
Handed it to him. Insisted that he try it on.
Told him that he had to get it. That it was made for him.
He’s so close to me. He’s right there.
But he’s a memory. I can’t touch him. He’s gone.
He’s ordering a small black coffee. He’s asking me out. He’s asking me to marry him.
He’s standing in the kitchen watching me shake. He’s asking me if I’m serious. He’s asking me why I didn’t say anything sooner, and I’m trying to explain that I couldn’t, that I didn’t know how. He’s asking me not to leave. Don’t do this. Not now.
He’s telling me we can work it out, that he wants to fix it, but says nothing when I ask him how, what that even means. Says nothing when I tell him I think it’s too late.
He looks the same. Actually…no. No, he doesn’t. He let his hair grow out. He knows I like his hair long. When we were together, he’d shave it anyway.
I watch a manicured hand appear and stroke the back of his neck, a pretty finger wind through one of his curls.
It’s her. Pink satin dress clinging to her curves. Long, caramel-colored hair in glamorous waves. Black heels. Black ribbon choker. Black YSL bag. She’s gorgeous. Striking. Perfect glowing skin. Thick fluttering lashes. Big, pearl white smile. She looks like a fucking model.
The two of them together. Ravi with someone else. With her. Me alone, still reeling. It’s too much.
“Um, no.” My knees buckle. “I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can,” Cassie says. “I’m right here.”
“We got you,” Evan says.
“I just…need…” I can’t breathe. “…need a second.”
I pull free of my friends and take a shaky step back.
“Where are you going?”
“Just one second. Just one…one minute.”
The shiny new couple, they’re going to turn this way. They’re going to look at me. They’re going to see me, here, distraught, and it might kill me. It really might kill me.
Panicked, I dart off the path and into the woods. I know I’m acting like a lunatic, but I don’t care. I don’t stop. I run until my heels betray me and I roll my ankle.
“Shit.”
I hate running. I collapse against a tree, hyperventilating. The world warps around me. For a moment, everything is neon, wavy. Then sepia toned, still. Loud and pulsing. Eerily quiet.
What if it wasn’t too late? What if we could have worked it out? Why was I so certain then that there was no salvaging our relationship, our life together? Why am I so uncertain now?
Is it being at this wedding, surrounded by love? Flowers and vows?
Is it her? Knowing that there’s someone else, that he’s moved on?
Is it because I’m low and lonely and afraid of feeling this way forever?
My heart thud-thud-thuds, vision blurs, the ground gives underneath me—squish—the earth soft, warm, yielding, like an open mouth.
My skin prickles, and I experience the sensation of falling. That flip in my gut.
It doesn’t matter why I’m feeling how I’m feeling. There is no going back. It’s over. He’s with her. And I’m going to have to watch them together. Sit together. Eat together. Dance together. Be together. Be happy in a room full of happy people, while I’m nowhere even close.
I’m so dizzy I don’t know which way is up. There’s grass in my eyes, sky swallowing my feet. A swirling iridescence.
Am I about to pass out?
I close my eyes, press one hand against the tree to keep myself steady, hold the other to my diaphragm and attempt to breathe normally.
Inhale. Exhale. I summon my friends, their voices telling me that I’ll be fine.
Inhale. Only way out is through. Exhale.
Inhale. What story worth telling starts with a retreat? Exhale. You’re going to be okay.
I just need to survive the night. That’s it. Survive.
Breathing now under control, I open my eyes and turn my attention to my ankle. I reach down and massage it. It feels all right. That’s one crisis averted. Imagine? Adding injury to insult?
Another deep breath. Inhale…Exhale…
It’s sudden, the sound. A rustling somewhere.
The ugly snap of a twig pops my head right up.
Disorienting, what’s in front of me. The image unplugs me from reality, so uncanny I can’t really process what it is I’m seeing.
I’m off-kilter. My brain doesn’t know what to do with the information.
It takes a while for it to register. For me to understand that there’s a figure standing in the distance.
Beyond the clearing, up on a slight hill, between the trees.
They’re partially obscured by shadow, by the shade of the woods.
I can’t tell what’s most disturbing. The shade, or the angle they’re at, which makes them seem freakishly tall.
Or that they’re dressed in all black—combat boots, what might be coveralls, and a mask, a black three-hole balaclava, with silver duct tape over the mouth.
There’s a red smile drawn on, with a zipper between, like metal teeth.
And the eyes…I can’t see its actual eyes, I’m too far away, but I can see that there are big fake eyeballs adhered to the mask near where its real eyes should be.
The figure has one hand hidden behind a tree. With the other, it waves. It wears black utility gloves.
I stumble backward. Into something. Someone. I whip around, a scream tripping across my lips.
“Whoa, whoa.” A guy in a navy blue suit. He puts his hands up. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
“I…”
“I’m Danny. Jason’s friend,” he says through awkward laughter. He has a goofy half smile. Dimples. Messy corn silk hair he attempts to tuck behind his ears that immediately spills free. High cheekbones. Thick brows. Sea green eyes. He’s cute.
Very cute.
“I…I’m…” What the fuck is my name? “I’m…Willa. Willa. I’m sorry, I just…”
I turn around, back toward…toward nothing. There’s nothing there. No one.
“You just?” Danny asks.
I just saw a masked figure in the woods.
I can’t say that out loud. It sounds crazy. Is crazy.
It’s the stress of the situation. Emotional exhaustion.
Anxiety. Angst. It’s having overdosed on horror these past few months, thanks to Cassie’s questionable advice.
That fucking podcast. Bingeing entire slasher franchises, falling asleep to obscure independent zombie apocalypse B movies viewed on a new-to-me streaming service I absolutely should not be paying for.
I’m out of my head; my nerves fried to a crisp. I didn’t see what I thought I saw.
“Nothing,” I say, facing Danny again.
He smiles that crooked smile. “What are you doing out here?”
“Running away,” I say. “What about you?”
“Satanic shit, mostly.”
I laugh. “That so?”
“Nah,” he says. He takes a flask out of his suit pocket. “Unless you consider drinking whiskey satanic.”
“I do not.”
“Knew you were cool.” He passes me the flask. “How do you know…”
“Also a friend. Bride and groom. We met in college.” I take a swig. The whiskey travels smooth down my throat. I’m grateful for it. The pregame at the cabin wasn’t sufficient.
“Ah, right. The college crew. Willa, you said?”
“That’s me.”
“So you were there at the beginning. When they met.”
“I was.”
“And?” he asks. “Hey, give me that back. Mooch.”
“Oops.” I return the flask. “And what?”
“And…I don’t know. I wanted the story. The real story. Inside scoop.”
“We were all wasted at a party. It’s not much of a story. I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
“Ah,” he says, shrugging. He takes a gulp from the flask and offers it back to me.
I shake my head. “I shouldn’t. Don’t want to show up drunk to this wedding.”
“Damn,” he says, reaching up and tucking his hair behind his ears, again. It immediately comes loose, again.
Here’s what I know about Danny. He’s Jason’s childhood best friend; they were inseparable until Danny’s family moved across the country halfway through high school.
Danny is a charismatic nomad who parties too hard, who made a ridiculous amount of money at a Silicon Valley tech start-up a few years back and hasn’t worked since.
Steph once randomly found him passed out on their patio set wearing a Santa suit.
It was June. I’ve never met him before because he never shows up to anything.
I’m shocked that he’s here, especially since last I heard he was living out of a hotel in Reykjavik.
“I’m not that cool after all,” I say.
“You are. I’m the asshole.” He slips the flask back into his pocket. “I get so anxious at shit like this. Formal. Stand here. Smile for photos. Sit-down dinner. Speeches. And the weird mix of family and friends and strangers. Not my thing.”
I put a hand on his shoulder. “Tonight’s not for us, bud.”
He sets his hand over mine. He holds it there. He looks at me. The look is dopamine, the touch electric. “It could be.”
Oh.
I laugh him off in case he’s kidding.
But, God, I hope he’s not kidding.
He squeezes my hand, then slides it slowly down his arm. He maintains eye contact the entire time. And he wears that fucking grin.
He has the obscene confidence of someone stupid cute and rich.
What a twist. What a pleasant surprise. Things just got interesting.
He releases my hand.
“We should probably go,” I tell him.
“Probably.” He rolls his shoulders, adjusts his collar. “How do I look?”
He’s fishing. How do I want to play this?
“Good.” I run my hands down over my hips, smoothing my dress. “How do I look?”
He steps back and gives me the once-over. He doesn’t say anything. He just does his awkward laugh and fidgets with his hair again. I raise my eyebrows at him, and he bites his lip, and I wonder if we’re about to hook up. It kind of feels like we are. Am I losing my mind? What is up with me today?
“Okay, okay,” he says. “Let’s go. Let’s do it.”
He gestures for me to walk ahead of him. I hesitate.
Part of me doesn’t want to leave these woods, doesn’t want to leave this moment, this exchange between us fizzing with potential.
Part of me wants to stay here, ditch the ceremony and all its inevitable sentimentality.
Avoid Ravi and Tanya. Pretend they don’t exist for a while. Defer my feelings. Dissociate.
I should be motivated by the fact it’s my best friend’s wedding, by some sense of love and loyalty. Instead, I’m motivated by the memory of the masked figure.
I turn around, scan the woods again. There’s no one there. No one I can see. I try to swallow the fear, but it sticks between my teeth.
“What is it?” Danny asks. “You’re freaking me out.”
“Satanic shit.”
“One little ritual sacrifice and now look at me, I’m all paranoid.”
“Just the one?”
“Not trying to make it a habit. Come on.”
He offers me his arm, and I take it. We’re quiet until we make it out onto the path.
“Sit next to me,” he says, as we approach the floral arches. “At dinner.”
“Pretty sure there’s assigned seating,” I tell him. “Charts and all that. It’s a wedding.”
“Damn. Then just find me later. I’ve got the goods,” he says, tapping the flask through his jacket.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I say, retracting my arm. Standing on my own.
“I’m waiting for you to go first. I’m following your lead.”
I push him forward.
“Hey!” He reaches back for me.
“I’m sorry! I am. I’m sorry. All right. Together?”
“Deal.”
We step through the arches.