Chapter 35
THIRTY-FIVE
HARPER
We pile in. I end up driving, with Caleb shotgun, and Z sprawled across the back seat with Marie tucked beside him, both of them cradling Z’s stolen bottles like precious cargo.
“Where to?” I ask, hands gripping the wheel.
“Anywhere but here,” Caleb mutters, head thunking against the headrest. “Just... anywhere.”
I pull out of Tyler’s circular driveway, leaving his palace of drama behind. In the rearview mirror, kids are still spilling onto the lawn, phones held high, buzzing like flies around roadkill.
“You know,” Z says lazily from the back, “that was either the most badass thing I’ve ever seen... or the dumbest. Haven’t decided yet.”
“Probably both,” Caleb says. His voice is wrecked but real. More real than I’ve heard it in days. “But fuck it. I’m tired of pretending.”
“Good,” I snap, surprising myself with how fierce it comes out. “You should be tired of it. McKenzie’s a fucking nightmare.”
Z whistles low. “Pretty sure someone got it on video.”
“Pretty sure everyone got it on video,” I mutter, still gripping the wheel tight.
“Great,” Caleb groans, dragging a hand down his face. “My public humiliation immortalized forever.”
“Nah, man,” Z corrects with a lazy grin. “Your public liberation. There’s a difference.”
“He’s right,” Marie pipes up, voice soft but certain. “You said what everyone’s been thinking for years. That was brave.”
Caleb turns to look at her, something vulnerable in his face. “You think so?”
“I know so.”
We drive in silence for a while, the kind that feels weirdly comfortable—four teenagers drifting through New Year’s Eve with no destination and way too much night ahead of us.
The highways are mostly empty. Everyone else is where they’re supposed to be: drunk at parties, sloppy-making-out in someone’s basement, or lining up their midnight kiss with people they actually want to be kissing.
“Turn here,” Z says suddenly, jabbing a finger toward a dirt road splitting off from the main stretch of asphalt.
“Where does it go?” I ask.
“Tyler’s family basically owns half this mountain,” Z replies. “There’s all kinds of random shit back here. Old buildings, hiking trails... probably some creepy abandoned stuff too.”
Caleb twists in his seat to look at him. “And how exactly do you know that?”
Z just shrugs, smug as hell. “I know things.”
I don’t argue. Sketchy and abandoned sounds about perfect for our current vibe. So I crank the wheel and follow the dirt road as it snakes through the trees, gravel crunching under the tires.
Ten minutes later, the trees part into a clearing, and there’s the skeleton of a barn—long forgotten but still standing, weathered beams clawing up at the star-scattered sky like bones reaching for something they’ll never touch.
“Holy shit,” Caleb breathes, and for the first time all night, he sounds sober. “It’s like a movie set.”
“It’s beautiful,” Marie whispers.
And it kind of is. Beautiful in a lonely, tragic way. The air smells like crisp pine and something sharper—the bite of winter, like snow’s coming soon.
“This’ll do,” Z declares, already in motion, grabbing fallen branches scattered around the clearing. He kicks a rusted barrel onto its side. “We can make a fire in this.”
“Is that safe?” Caleb asks, but he’s already rolling up his sleeves to help.
“Safe’s a spectrum,” Z grins. “And we’re on the fun side of it.”
“I’ll gather kindling,” Marie offers, already moving toward the tree line.
“Take your phone,” I call after her. “Use the flashlight.”
She gives me a thumbs up and disappears into the shadows.
Again, when did I become this person? This mom friend who worries about flashlights and makes sure people have their phones?
It takes us twenty minutes and way too much arguing about fire-building techniques, but eventually flames crackle inside the barrel, heat and shadows spilling across the weathered barn walls.
Z unveils his prize—the stolen bottle of whiskey, expensive enough that I know it belongs in some leather-bound study, not a rusted barn in the middle of nowhere.
He raises it high like it’s the Olympic torch.
“To liberation,” he intones like it’s a sacred rite, and takes a swig before passing it to Caleb.
“To liberation,” Caleb echoes. His swallow is way too big, and he coughs through it, eyes watering, but the determination on his face makes my chest ache.
“To saying fuck it and actually meaning it,” I add when it’s my turn. The whiskey burns like hellfire down my throat, but it’s a good burn. A cleansing burn.
Marie takes the bottle with both hands, studying it like it might explode. “I’ve never...”
“First time for everything,” Z says, but his voice is gentle. “Small sip. Trust me.”
She does. Makes a face. “That’s disgusting.”
“Welcome to the club,” I laugh.
Z sparks up a joint he’s been saving, lighting it straight from the fire like the little pyromaniac he is.
“Oh, I definitely shouldn’t—” Marie starts.
“You don’t have to,” I say quickly. “Seriously. No pressure.”
She looks at me with relief. “I think I’ll stick to one new vice at a time.” She smiles and takes another little sip of whiskey.
But Caleb stares at the joint like Z just pulled out a live grenade. “I’ve never...”
“Of course you haven’t,” Z snorts. “Golden boy like you? But hey, tonight’s for firsts, right?”
I watch Caleb’s face in the firelight. The flicker of indecision. The exact second he makes the choice.
“Fuck it,” he says, reaching out. “How bad can it be?”
Famous. Last. Words.
Twenty minutes later, Caleb Graham—future valedictorian, Mr. Harvard-bound himself—is flat-out giggling. At nothing. At everything.
“You guys,” he says, eyes fixed on the jagged hole in the barn’s roof, “the sky is so big. Like... stupid big. Do you see it? Do you see?”
I snort into my sleeve. Z’s already howling. Even Marie’s giggling, curled up against my side for warmth.
“And stars!” Caleb goes on, gesturing with both hands like he’s discovered a new galaxy. “Stars are literally giant balls of fire just... just floating out there! And we’re down here like ‘aww, pretty lights’ when actually—ACTUALLY—they’re fucking explosions, millions of miles away!”
“Oh my god,” I wheeze. “You are the most adorable stoned person I’ve ever seen.”
“I’m not stoned,” Caleb insists, then instantly betrays himself by collapsing into another fit of giggles. “Okay, maybe I’m a little stoned. But everything’s just so... intense. Like, why didn’t anyone tell me feelings have colors?”
“What color are your feelings right now?” Z asks, grinning like the Cheshire cat.
Caleb thinks very hard about this, face scrunched in concentration. Then he starts giggling again. “Dude. What the fuck kind of question is that?”
“A valid one!” Z protests.
“My feelings don’t have colors, they have—” Caleb waves his hands around. “Vibes. Bad vibes. Good vibes. Currently experiencing... floaty vibes.”
“Floaty vibes,” I repeat. “Very descriptive, Harvard.”
“What about you?” Marie asks me. “What color—I mean, what are your vibes?”
I think about it. About this moment, this night, these three ridiculous people. “Warm. Like that feeling when you come inside from the cold and your hands start to thaw. That weird, painful-but-good feeling.”
“Shit,” Z says. “That’s actually kind of deep, Harper.”
“Shut up.”
“No, seriously. That was poetic as fuck.”
That’s it. We completely lose it again, sprawling on the barn floor until we’re breathless, staring up at the massive, stupid sky while the fire snaps and pops.
The laughter fades. For a while, nobody talks.
“This is nice,” Caleb says finally, voice softer. “It’s been so long since I just... stopped.”
“Stopped what?” I ask.
“Trying.” He turns his head, those blue eyes catching mine. “Trying to be perfect every second. It’s so fucking exhausting.”
“So stop,” Z says.
“Can’t.” Even stoned, the weight in Caleb’s voice is heavy. “If I’m not perfect, what’s the point of me?”
The words land weird. Too honest. Like he didn’t mean to say them out loud.
“Jesus, man,” Z mutters. “That’s dark.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize for being honest when you’re high,” I tell him. “That’s literally the whole point of being high.”
Caleb laughs, but it sounds sad. “What if being perfect is the only thing keeping my mom alive?”
The barn goes quiet except for the fire crackling.
“Dude,” Z says carefully. “That’s... that’s not how cancer works.”
“Isn’t it, though?” Caleb’s eyes shine. “First time she got sick, I was a mess. Crying, panic attacks, making everything harder. She almost died. Then I got my shit together—straight As, no drama, no stress. And she went into remission. Five years. What if the second I stop trying, she—”
He doesn’t finish.
Z is quiet for a long time. Takes a drag. “I spent like ten years thinking if I was quiet enough, invisible enough, my stepdad would stop beating my ass.”
The words drop like stones.
We all freeze.
“Took me until I was fifteen to figure out he was gonna do it anyway. Because the problem wasn’t me. It was him.” Z shrugs, but his hands shake a little. “So like... some shit just happens, man. You can’t control it by being perfect.”
“Z...” Marie starts.
“It’s fine. I mean, it’s not fine. But it’s not like... I’m not sharing for sympathy. I’m just saying. You can’t fix everything by being good.”
Silence settles over us. Heavy but not uncomfortable.
“I want to actually make art,” I blurt, because the quiet feels too raw. “Like, real art. Not just dicking around in notebooks.”
I keep my eyes on the stars.
“You should,” Caleb says immediately.
“Yeah, maybe.”
“No, seriously. I’ve seen your stuff. You’re good.”
My face heats. “I hide my real sketchbook under my mattress. Because if I show people and they think it sucks, then I don’t have anything left.”
“That’s...” Caleb trails off. “Actually, I get that.”
“What do you want?” I ask him. “For real. Not the Harvard engineer thing. What do you actually want?”
He’s quiet for so long, I think he won’t answer.
“I don’t know,” he admits. “Engineering makes good money. I’m good at math. I wanted to take care of Mom. But is that what I want? Or just what made sense?”
“You’ve got time to figure it out.”
“Do I?” His voice cracks. “What if she—”
“Don’t,” I interrupt. “One crisis at a time.”
“But what if I spend my whole life being what everyone needs and never figure out who I actually am?”
Nobody has an answer for that.
“Be whoever the fuck you want,” Z says eventually. “Start figuring it out now.”
“But I don’t know who that is. That’s the scary part.”
“I’m scared of everything,” Marie says quietly. “Like, genuinely. Everything terrifies me.”
“Same,” I admit.
“Same,” Z echoes.
We’re all quiet.
“So we’re all just faking it?” Caleb asks.
“Pretty much.”
“That’s weirdly comforting.”
“Right?” Marie laughs. “If everyone’s terrified, maybe I’m not actually broken.”
“You’re not broken,” I tell her. Then, because it feels too serious: “You’re just fucked up like the rest of us.”
“Thanks. I think.”
Z raises the whiskey bottle. “To being fucked up together.”
We pass it around again.
The rest of the night dissolves into stupid hypotheticals. Marie describes a book idea about time-traveling assassins. Z plays air guitar and sings off-key until Caleb throws pine needles at him. Caleb tries to explain quantum physics, gives up halfway through, and collapses into giggles.
Sometime later, we’re all huddled close to the dying fire, passing the last of the whiskey.
“What time is it?” Z asks.
I check. “12:47.”
“We missed midnight,” Caleb observes.
“No, we didn’t,” I argue. “We celebrated it right.”
“I’ll kiss all of you,” Z announces. “I’m down for a New Year’s orgy.”
“Shut up, Z!” Caleb and I say in unison.
“Your loss.”
And somewhere between the laughter and the cold and the smoke curling up toward the stars, it hits me—this is what it actually feels like.
Family.
Not the pretty TV version. Not even Helen’s well-meaning attempts.
This.
This messy, ridiculous, imperfect thing we’ve built.
These three idiots who somehow became mine.