1. Zoey #2
Denial is not just a river in Egypt. It is also a personality type.
“In writing?” Cris asked.
“In writing,” I said. “With their whole stupid chest.”
Morgan stared at me. “I would simply pass away.”
“I disable the plugins. The problem stops immediately. Surprise, surprise.” I picked up my glass again. “Client replies that they fixed it themselves and asks why I took so long if I was a professional.”
The table went dead silent for about three seconds.
Then chaos erupted.
“What do you mean they fixed it?” Jamie yelled.
“I don’t understand how you’re not in prison,” Morgan said.
Alex leaned back, staring at the ceiling. “I would have committed a crime.”
I shrugged. Took a sip. “I dissociate professionally.”
“Finish your drink,” Alex said, wiping tears from her face.
I did. After that, the noise got louder, but somehow more contained. Someone slid a bowl of pretzels down the table, and it stayed there like shared property. It was a level of trust I didn’t personally endorse, but I respected it.
Cris had angled her chair toward mine at some point. She put her hand on my shoulder when she laughed, and by some miracle I didn’t wince. My nervous system made a note of it and filed it under Unclear but Not Bad.
Was I making a friend? I would deny this later if asked.
She leaned forward, eyes still on Alex and Morgan as they argued about whether printers were sentient because they were so spiteful.
I laughed, surprised by how easy it came. I hadn’t noticed how quiet I’d been for most of the night until I wasn’t. It felt good, which was deeply inconvenient.
I took another sip and let myself pretend this was normal for me. Let myself pretend I hadn’t spent years keeping people at a careful distance because closeness always came with expectations.
Pete slid another round toward us and raised his brows at the empty glasses. “You ladies celebrating or coping?” He said it like he already knew the answer and was simply being polite.
“Both,” I said.
He nodded in understanding. “Excellent. Hydration is available if anyone wants to pretend.”
“No one wants to pretend,” Morgan said.
Pete glanced at me. “You look like the responsible one.”
That was absolute slander. I snorted. “That’s a terrible first impression.”
He smiled. Not the greasy kind, but the genuine, bartender-who-has-seen-things kind.
I liked men like this. The older ones who were married to their jobs and completely uninterested in me. It was the safest kind of flirting because everyone went home alone and emotionally intact.
“You want water on the side?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said immediately. “And another of whatever this is. For balance.”
“Smart,” he said. “I like you.”
I eyed him. “Careful. That’s how it starts.”
He laughed and set the glasses down without spilling a drop. This man was professional and respectable.
I approved.
As the night went on, glasses kept appearing, and somehow, they kept emptying. Jamie was laughing at something Morgan said three minutes ago like it had just occurred to her, which felt like a strong sign we were officially past the point of dignity.
This was how it always went. I watched for the moment everyone crossed the invisible line between fun and regret. Usually, I was the one standing there with a flashlight and a plan.
Cris eyed me with a conspiratorial grin on her face. “You’re smiling.”
“I am not.”
“You are.”
“It’s a facial malfunction.” Which would, eventually, resolve itself.
It had been a long time since I had sat in a room full of people who didn’t need anything from me.
No emergencies. No “just a quick question.” No one quietly waiting for me to fix what they broke, smooth the mood, keep the night moving, make sure everyone got home safely and nobody forgot anything important.
I had spent most of my life being the responsible one, and not in the flattering, capable-adult way people like to compliment when they aren’t the ones carrying it.
I had to make sure the bills got paid on time. I had to remind my mother about appointments she had made herself. I had to sign permission slips and track deadlines and learn, early, that if I didn’t hold everything together, it simply would not hold.
The drag. That was the word that lived in the back of my head. The wet blanket. The fun killer. The person who showed up to remind everyone that actions had consequences.
My jaw tightened before I even realized it. My free hand curled against my leg, nails pressing into my palm hard enough to anchor me. I caught it a second later. Forced my fingers to uncurl.
So yes, I was drinking more than usual. On purpose.
I lifted my glass and took a long sip.
Cris lifted her glass and squinted at it. “I think this one is empty, which feels unfair.”
Alex squinted at hers. “Mine is full, which also feels unfair.”
Morgan raised both hands. “We have reached the point where fairness is theoretical.”
Last call happened at some point. We didn’t heed it.
Jamie stood too fast and swayed, then planted both hands on the table like someone about to propose either a crime or a bonding exercise. “I’m done with this game,” she announced. “I want to do something dangerous but socially acceptable.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Those two things do not generally overlap.”
“Skinny dipping,” she announced.
Cris gasped. “No.”
Jamie pointed at her. “Yes.”
“No.”
“Absolutely yes.”
I rubbed my forehead. “You are all drunk, and that is a lake out there. Lakes have rules. You can’t see them, but they’re there.”
I didn’t know what they were, but I trusted them to be punitive.
This was upstate New York, not Cabo. The lakes here weren’t decorative.
They were glacial and moody and owned by men named Gary whose belief in property lines were as intense as their belief in religion.
Each body of water came with at least three warning signs, two passive-aggressive dock notes, and one retired contractor who would absolutely call the sheriff over a misplaced kayak.
Adirondack hospitality was real, but so was Adirondack territorialism.
You could borrow a snowblower. You could not skinny dip uninvited.
“Live a little, Zee,” Morgan said.
That phrase had never once been spoken by someone with a plan.
Cris looked at me with an earnestness that only appears after too much alcohol and too much collective relief. “I wouldn’t usually do this either.”
And that was the problem. I would never. Not sober. Not the careful version of me that made checklists and backup plans.
But I wasn’t sober, and I was suddenly violently tired of being careful.
“Fine,” I said. “If I drown, though, I’m haunting all of you.”
The trail down to the lake was more a suggestion than a path, which seemed appropriate for a bad decision made after midnight. We stumbled through it in a loose line, hands on each other’s shoulders, laughing too loudly for people who were trying not to be noticed.
Someone started singing our ridiculous boss song again, and by the time we hit the chorus, we were yelling it into the trees like women trying to exorcise an entire corporate structure by force. Somewhere overhead, a bird made a clear judgment call and relocated.
The lake spread out in front of us, dark and still. Jamie had already kicked off her shoes. Morgan was halfway through pulling her shirt over her head.
Surrounded by pine and rock that had been here longer than anyone arguing about it, the flat surface of the lake looked harmless.
But Adirondack lakes were cold year-round.
Snowmelt fed them well into summer. You stepped in thinking you were brave and came out reconsidering your life choices.
Somewhere under that black water were ancient tree stumps, abandoned anchors, and probably a canoe from 1987 that someone had sworn they were coming back for.
“This is happening,” Cris said.
“I’m aware,” I said.
We shed our clothes and ran into the water. The cold stole my breath but woke every nerve ending in my body. I gasped and laughed as I went under with them, letting the water close over my head.
I came back up to Jamie screaming at the sky.
“Why is it this cold?” she yelled.
“Because it’s a lake in the Adirondacks,” Morgan said, completely calm, before diving under again like she was trying to escape the conversation entirely.
Cris splashed me hard enough to get water up my nose. “You needed to commit.”
“I did commit,” I said, wiping my face. “This was a mistake.”
Jamie lunged toward me, arms out, and before I could dodge, she dragged me under. The cold hit again, sharper this time, and when I came back up, I was laughing for real.
Then a flashlight shone across the water.
Ah. Actions meet consequences.
“Hey,” a man yelled. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Jamie swore. Morgan vanished under the surface like she was being hunted. Cris’s hands went flying up to cover her tits.
My brain finally caught up. This was the part where I was supposed to do something smart. De-escalate. Get us out. Protect the idiots I had never agreed to be responsible for.
Instead, I was still standing there, half drunk and waist-deep in a lake, tits hanging free.
“We’re swimming,” I called back. “It’s a lake. That is the whole point, no?” I had not planned to die on this hill, but here we were.
“Get out of there,” he shouted. “This is private property.”
Of course it was. Everything was private property up here.
Shoreline maps were studied with the intensity of battle plans.
People built docks two inches over a line and fought about it for decades.
If you were going to commit public indecency, this was not the region to do it in.
These people measured their lawns, for God’s sake.
“Your property touches public water,” I shot back. “That sounds like a you problem, buddy.”
Apparently, the part of my brain that cared about self-preservation was as inebriated as the rest of me.
“Get your stupid naked asses out of the water and off my property right fucking now!” The beam of the flashlight jittered, catching bare skin and startled faces.
Before I could escalate further, a large form stepped out of the trees. Another man, tall and solid, moved into the light, putting himself between us and the yelling like it was no big deal.
“Evening,” the man said calmly. “They’re leaving. No need to keep this going.”
The neighbor snorted, but he backed away almost immediately, grumbling.
“Unbelievable. No shame anymore. None. Just out here like animals.” He swept the flashlight toward the trees, still talking.
“This is why I don’t talk to people. Bunch of damn exhibitionists.
” He kept grumbling as he stomped down the trail.
“Used to be a quiet place. Used to have standards.”
The light finally vanished, his commentary trailing off with it.
The second man stayed where he was, unruffled. He turned back toward us and stared resolutely at the stars, like this was the most disciplined thing he’d done all night.
The mountains rose dark behind him in a backdrop that made every small human drama feel embarrassing.
For a moment, the world went very still.
I was cold. I was wet. I was surrounded by naked coworkers.
This was not in the employee handbook.