Chapter 5
“You can’t help yourself, can you? Flair for drama,” Cassie says, appearing with a drink in each hand, a sour expression on her pretty face. “Running off into the woods like some gothic heroine.”
I watch Danny get circled by an assembly of older women who I assume are Jason’s relatives, who must know Danny from back when. One of them literally pinches his cheeks. “You’ve always been such a cutie!”
I catch his eye, and he gives me a hint of a grin that proves contagious.
“What?” Cassie asks, craning her neck to peer over my shoulder. “Who’s that?”
She’s being too loud. I can’t tell her about Danny, about our high-voltage exchange in the woods, can’t game out the probability of us fooling around tonight while he’s still within earshot.
I point to the drinks in her hands.
“Is one of those for me?” I ask, changing the subject.
“No,” she says, flatly. “They’re both for me.”
“Why do you need to double fist?”
“I don’t know, Willa. The state of the world.
I’d say about seventy percent the state of the world, ten percent because it’s fun and I feel like it, ten percent because I’m away from the kid, and, maybe, like, five percent because I’m worried about you.
” She takes a sip from each glass, one after the other. “What?”
“I was just checking your math.”
She sighs. “Ravi is at the bar. Alone.”
“And?”
“An opportunity to rip off that metaphorical Band-Aid.”
The guitar-piano duo is currently playing a cover of “Can’t Help Falling in Love” and I’m not convinced that now is the time. “Later.”
Cassie drinks. From both glasses. Sip, sip.
I execute a quick scan of the party with the spy-like subtlety I’ve developed over years of socializing as an extroverted introvert.
It’s crowded. The gang’s all here. Evan and Wyatt are at a cocktail table talking to Tanya over highball glasses, the small lantern between them glowing artificially bright thanks to a flameless votive.
They appear to be enjoying themselves, fully engaged in the conversation.
I wait for bitterness to manifest, for that intensely unpleasant heartburn sensation, but it doesn’t come.
They’ll loop back to me with an honest assessment.
Even if the report is positive, even if it stings, they’ll still provide me with the recon.
Because they’re loyal to me. Because they’re my friends.
They’ve been my friends for more than a decade—an amount of time I still can’t quite wrap my head around.
Clocks tick, the world spins, and I’m hyperconscious of my mortality in a way that I’ve never been until lately.
Ever since the split. I know the years with Ravi weren’t wasted, I don’t regret them, and I don’t want to.
But I’d spent those years picturing the rest with him, and now they’re just…
empty. And that, that I regret. I resent.
The blank future I don’t know what to do with.
The youth I can’t get back. Having to start all over. Not really knowing how.
Luke comes up behind Cassie and wraps his arms around her shoulders. She hands one of her cocktails back to him. “Here. I don’t like this one.”
He takes a sip. “Backwash. My favorite.”
“Do you guys remember the party? Where Steph and Jace met?” I was quick to dismiss Danny’s curiosity about that night.
In retrospect, I’m not sure I gave his question proper thought.
It was so long ago—all those college nights have since tangled together into a single feverish montage.
The memories are lost to me but maybe not to my friends.
Reminiscing is the only way back, and I crave it.
A way back. Because there’s a sense of safety in the familiar.
Because it’s an easy out of the here and now.
Luke exhales. “Uh…”
“I think we were off campus,” Cassie says. “Allston.”
“Yeah. It was at the SAE house. It must have been September, because I remember the leaves hadn’t changed yet.
I was with Jace, and he saw Steph pouring drinks and he grabbed my arm, like this—” He claws Cassie’s bicep.
“And I was like, dude, relax. But he didn’t relax.
He didn’t relax until he went over and talked to her.
Then he finally…” He sinks his shoulders.
“It was crazy. I thought he was just like that. Like”—he lifts his shoulders up to his ears—“all anxious and intense. But he wasn’t. Or he was and Steph cured him.”
Cassie gawks at her husband. “You remember all that?”
He boops her on the nose. “Yeah, babe. It was the night I met you.”
“Aww,” I say.
“No, it wasn’t,” Cassie snaps. “We met moving into the dorms, asshole.”
“Oh. Right.”
“Love at first sight,” I say, and they both laugh. They didn’t get together until junior year, after a truly exhausting run that proved will-they-or-won’t-they is only cute on sitcoms.
Evan saunters over, Wyatt at his heels.
“What do we think of this whole…situation?” Evan asks, gesturing to the musicians, who stare deep into each other’s eyes as they play a slow, sweeping cover of “Stand by Me.”
“I think they fought on the way over here,” Wyatt says.
“And I think they fucked,” Evan says. “Pulled over. Back seat.”
“Por qué no los dos?” Cassie asks.
“Whatever it is, it’s making me uncomfortable,” I say.
Luke frowns and shakes his head. “Yeah. Do you think they take requests? I—”
“Don’t. We should be nice,” Cassie says.
Evan and I exchange a look.
“For Steph and Jace,” she clarifies.
“Sure,” Evan says, shrugging. He narrows his eyes at something. Someone. He points. He doesn’t care about subtlety. Unlike me, he’d make a terrible spy. “Who is that?”
I step next to him to align our views. He’s looking at Danny, who is looking back at us, grinning.
“Jason’s friend Danny.” I know I’m blushing because my face is hot. My whole body is hot. My ears. My neck. Even my elbows. My fucking knees. It’s insanity. I turn away.
“Really? That’s too bad,” Ev says. He shrugs again and adjusts his bow tie.
“Why too bad?” I ask, feigning a casual attitude.
“I like Danny all right,” Luke says. “He’s chill. I mean. Not chill, but…”
Evan opens his mouth to say something else but is interrupted by the pianist. She plays this jarringly jaunty tune that quiets the crowd as quickly and effectively as a car crash.
She continues for a solid minute, then stands up and announces, “On behalf of Stephanie and Jason, we’re delighted to welcome you to this celebration of their love.
If you would please make your way to the lake and find a seat, the ceremony will begin shortly. Thank you.”
“I was convinced she was about to wrap it up with jazz hands,” Evan says, a little too loud.
The crowd shifts gracelessly toward the ceremony space. Our group hangs back, too cool to follow instructions.
“We’re gonna get shit seats,” Cass says, downing her cocktail and setting the glass on a nearby table.
A cater waiter dressed in black comes by and scoops it up.
Their all-black getup reminds me of the figure I saw in the woods.
Maybe it was one of the caterers. Maybe they weren’t wearing a mask.
Or gloves. Or they were and my brain distorted the image into something sinister.
I’m eager to rationalize it away, to vanish the needling of dread.
But it’s so visceral. And the zipper mouth, the fake eyeballs…
how did I manage to conjure that up? Even fresh off my recent horror kick, I haven’t been plagued with nightmares or jumping at every creak in the floorboards.
My imagination has never been particularly good.
It’s never played a trick on me like that before.
I stare off toward the tree line, toward the woods curtaining pastoral secrets—chipmunk burrows, spiderwebs, the initials of summer lovers carved deep into bark.
The growth is so thick, the colors so vivid, it’s like a scene from a fairy tale.
I should allow it to be what it is. Beautiful, not menacing.
Me and my flair for drama.
I catch Ravi and Tanya crossing the lawn. They’re holding hands. The sight is stranger than whatever I confronted in the woods. More surreal.
The shadow of a sensation—fingers threading through mine. But my hand is empty. I look down at it. Yes. Empty. A void. An open wound.
An odd thought—this isn’t right.
Something’s wrong. Feels off. Everything, everything, everything.
It’d be easy to blame my ex and his new girlfriend, but I swear it’s not just that.
And yeah, I’ve been doom and gloom lately, but this?
This feeling right now is…it’s pure, profound dread.
Beyond dread. It’s heavy and intense and all-consuming and super inconvenient.
Now is not the time for a panic attack. Now is not the time to fall apart.
I clench my fists tight. Release. Breathe.
Evan squeezes my shoulders. “Earth to Willa.”
“Willa to earth,” I say, faking a smile and pretending I’m fine, like I’m not flirting with the edge of a cliff. “Roger, roger.”
“Shall we?”
—
As Cass predicted, we get shit seats. Back row behind a horde of older men—I’m guessing uncles—all with abnormally large heads. I’ve got Evan and Wyatt to my left, Cassie and Luke to my right. I crane my neck attempting to get a better view.
Steph’s older sister, Olivia, stands beneath the lattice awning, smiling and waving like Miss America. She’s officiating the ceremony, and apparently the power vested in her has gone straight to her head.
The fighting-and/or-fucking husband-and-wife musical duo start to play “Here, There and Everywhere” as Jace walks down the aisle.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen him in a suit before.
His idea of dressing up is denim-on-denim.
He looks handsome, a little nervous, like an action star on his first red carpet.
“Please rise,” Olivia says.
The song changes.
“What is this?” I whisper to Evan.
“ ‘Love in This Club,’ ” Wyatt answers for him.
“How did you know that?” Evan asks.
“Stephanie told me. It was the song playing when they met.”
“To each their own,” Evan says. “There she is.”
I turn around to Steph floating past us holding a bouquet of pale roses and purple dahlia and bright fuzzy moss, looking like the darling ethereal princess she is. We blow her kisses, and she smiles at us, crinkling her nose as she always does when she’s drunk on happiness. Or just plain drunk.
Two photographers zip around snapping photos. I’m distracted by them, by the way they contort their bodies to get certain shots. By their stern focus.
Steph makes it to Jace, and the music fades.
We all sit down.
Olivia starts the ceremony. “We are gathered here today to unite Stephanie and Jason in marriage, to celebrate their love and the opening of this new chapter…”
Ravi and I were supposed to get married on the rooftop terrace of a restaurant in Alexandria, near his parents’ house.
The events coordinator was a stern woman who wore her hair in a low bun and had a uniform of khakis and black sleeveless turtlenecks that were always covered in orange cat hair.
She smelled like Bath & Body Works, like Warm Vanilla Sugar.
Every time I spoke with her, my heart rate would spike.
She’d email me asking about the color of the tablecloths for the reception and I would slam my laptop shut and go grocery shopping or dust the baseboards, do some chore I’d been putting off.
“She intimidates me,” I once complained to Ravi over dinner.
“Do you think it’s the turtlenecks?”
“You think turtlenecks are intimidating?”
“Don’t you?”
“I think I’m just overwhelmed. There are so many little details. So many decisions.”
“Don’t stress yourself out,” he said, topping up my glass of wine. I realized in that moment I was asking for help and disappointed he offered none. Only words. They were pretty words, though. “No matter what happens, we’ll look back on the day and remember it being perfect.”
Today is perfect. This, right now, is perfect.
The sun is just beginning to set, steeping the horizon pink.
Steph and Jace exchange their handwritten vows.
Birds sing. People laugh. Cry sweet tears that I imagine must taste like sugar instead of salt.
It’s heavenly weather, not too warm or too cold.
The air feels like silk and smells so clean.
The promise of signature drinks and dinner and dancing twinkles over our heads like stars.
But I’m struggling to be present, because I’m thinking about the wedding that never happened, tormenting myself with what-ifs. I know better. Rose-colored glasses make everything blurry.
Steph and Jace kiss. There’s applause. I press my hands together. Luke does the loudest finger whistle known to man. Everyone’s on their feet again. Cassie’s pulling me up. Propping me up.
I wonder where Ravi is. I wonder if he’s also thinking about our ill-fated wedding. Probably. It’s a waste not to wonder.
I search the crowd, going dizzy with all these people hollering and clapping and not holding still. And sudden as a siren, I sense it. Eyes. Someone watching me.
Ravi?
Danny?
As much as I want it to be, I somehow know it isn’t either of them. I can feel it.
There’s this sinking, slimy knot in my gut. Mega dread.
Everyone else is turned toward the aisle, where Steph and Jace walk through a shower of confetti. They don’t see what I see, as I turn my gaze toward the woods.
Beyond the picturesque cocktail setup—the vintage couches, the glowing lanterns, the retro Airstream—across the grassy lawn, between the slim crescent of lakeshore and the edge of the woods, there’s a flash of darkness.
What could be someone disappearing among the trees.
What could be the figure I saw earlier. But it’s there and gone too fast. I have no proof, nothing other than this heartsick feeling.
And even that I could attribute to the vast number of other issues I’m currently dealing with.
“Willa?” Evan asks, stepping into my line of sight.
“Yeah,” I say, shaking my head. Shaking off my unhinged jitters. “I’m sorry.”
“What for? You’re doing great.”
“Am I?”
“Well,” he says. “Sure.”
“Haven’t doused myself in gasoline.”
“The night is young.”
“Let’s go eat and drink and party!” Jace shouts as he passes us, Steph beside him with her bouquet lifted overhead like a trophy.
“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Luke says, stepping onto his chair and promptly backflipping off it. He lands with a smirk then struts toward the bar.
“Why do straight men love doing flips?” Wyatt asks.
“I wish I loved to do anything as much as straight men love to do flips,” Evan says.
“Is that a thing?” I ask.
Cassie shuts her eyes, grits her teeth, and does one of her epic sighs. “I can’t with him. All right. Let’s go. I’m starving.”
I follow my friends, but my eyes travel back to the woods.