Chapter 2
The night had a pulse. It always had. The mountain around her was teeming with life: She could hear it in the air above and the dirt below.
Lucy couldn’t understand why, in all her years slipping in and out of the dark, she had never noticed it before.
It was a wonder that anyone ever slept through this at all.
She laughed. Around her, the crickets sang. The grass bunched and scattered and whipped in the whispery breeze, and the stars whirled against the black above as if projected from Natalie’s cutout lanterns.
And beyond its disparate parts, the night itself watched her.
I can’t help but feel you’re relieved he’s gone.
Even then, in the giddy haze of that beautiful night, it burned to read.
He was her grandfather. She loved him. And of course she was relieved he was dead.
Who wouldn’t be relieved that someone they cared for was no longer in agony?
All the IVs and catheters and injections, all the nights tossing and turning in his hospice bed, all the mornings he shouted himself awake from the pain—he had been so ready for it to be over.
Everyone had seen it except his own daughter.
But death was never over in the Easting house, even after the dead themselves were gone.
“Why is it my responsibility to make her happy?” Lucy mumbled to the night. “Nothing makes her happy. Maybe if we’d crawled into his casket togeth—”
Shh, the night said.
“Okay,” Lucy whispered obediently. She understood. That kind of talk didn’t belong here.
Something within the trees shifted. And now that she was paying proper attention, she could see that the night had faces.
It had two faces, at least. One of them she couldn’t quite see. The other was a girl’s, peeking out from the edge of the tree line’s curtain. Her skin was yellowed gray, crinkled like faded paper. As indistinct as she was, Lucy could make out freckles across her cheeks.
The girl smiled. Closed-mouthed, at first. And then her lips widened, and split open.
And then it was daylight, and Lucy was gasping for air.
She scrambled upright, and immediately regretted it.
There was an ache in the base of her skull, sharp as a fireplace poker, and between the movement and the searing daylight, it surged.
After an overcast couple of days, the sun had unfortunately found its way back to the mountain.
It painted her dorm’s white walls an eye-watering gold.
“You talk in your sleep,” someone said.
Lucy rubbed at her temples. Whitney. For a dizzy second, she’d expected—Well. She wasn’t sure, now that she thought about it. In her dream, she’d been talking to someone else.
“Sorry,” she said automatically. She didn’t talk in her sleep. She never had. But she’d save any arguments for when her head wasn’t about to crack open. “How did I get home last night?”
When she chanced a look up, Whitney was looking at her from her desk chair, a crease between her eyebrows. “You got in around three. Loudly.”
Lucy looked down then. She was still fully dressed—she could feel her bra’s underwire. Her shoes were off, along with one sock. Otherwise, it looked like she’d walked in last night and collapsed.
Lucy had gotten to the party at nine. She’d greeted Natalie, then talked to Sequin Girl for maybe five, ten minutes. She walked into the kitchen, picked up a seltzer. Turned to the guy standing next to her. And—
And then what?
Whitney’s ever-present stoneface softened an inch. “Are you okay, or…?”
“Fine,” Lucy said. Though even as she spoke, she was feeling for her phone. She found it under her pillow, neatly plugged in.
Five texts from her mother, which—she would give herself the gift of looking at those later. She turned first to the volley of texts from an unknown number.
The first was time-stamped at 9:51pm:
Hey babe! It’s Natalie!! Hope you’re feeling a little better. Can you text me once you get back to your dorm? I know you’re in the capable hands of the campus shuttle, but you know.
The second, time-stamped at 1:15 a.m, read:
Okay, assuming you got back and crashed? Give me a call tomorrow morning when you read this? Just want to make sure you’re okay. Party was a success. . . got a couple hours of scrubbing ahead of me, tho
Lucy cupped the phone in her hands and took a deep, somewhat shaky breath. If she was reading these right, she left the party before ten. The party was over by 1:15.
But according to Whitney, she hadn’t made it home until three.
Her fingers trembled a little as she tapped out her reply.
Hey, sorry I didn’t see this until now.
Natalie’s response popped in almost instantly.
Morning sunshine!!
Are you okay? How are you feeling?
I’m okay, Lucy typed automatically. And then deleted it. Natalie was a good person. She seemed like one, anyway. Either way, this felt like the kind of thing she should tell someone.
A little confused, I don’t really remember last night.
Natalie’s response took a bit longer that time.
You were pretty out of it.
I followed you into the kitchen and found this guy picking you up off the floor. Apparently you passed out?
The words blurred a little as Lucy read them.
That’s what he told you?
Natalie replied.
Babe, that’s what YOU told me.
You said you were a little overheated, and it happens to you all the time. I asked if you wanted to sit down and have some water, but you said you’d be fine after some sleep. I walked you to the campus shuttle after that.
Lucy wondered how much more she should share. She didn’t want to scare this kind stranger who had already taken pity on her once this week. Not when this wasn’t her problem.
She tapped the next sentence out anyway.
That’s never happened to me before. I don’t know why I would say that.
There was a lengthy pause before Natalie started typing again.
Okay
Okay, well, don’t panic
Maybe the guy knows more than I do?
Did you end up getting his number?
Which guy? The guy who’d been standing at the sink?
What do you mean?
Natalie typed.
I mean, you were giving him these HUGE EYES the whole time we were bringing you around.
So I assumed whatever conversation you were having had been going well.
Lucy frowned down at her phone.
I’m a lesbian.
There was another lengthy pause.
Oh.
You’re like, 100% sure you’re not bi?
That startled a laugh out of Lucy. Though she wasn’t feeling like very much was funny right about now.
I seemed into him?
There was definitely a vibe.
But maybe I misread what it was.
Lucy had just enough time to start overthinking that before Natalie’s next message.
If it helps, though, he seemed chill enough? And I kept an eye on him to make sure he didn’t follow you or anything. He was there til the party ended. And he must have been alone with you for like, less than 2-3 minutes total.
And then, after one more pause,
Did you drink anything?
Lucy took another breath. She could tell that Natalie was trying to dance around saying the words.
Two to three minutes. Two to three minutes wasn’t a lot of time for someone to hurt her. And though the moments before she’d blacked out were still a bit muddy, she vaguely remembered the seltzer.
Just a sip of seltzer
She was about to add that it tasted fine, but—she was suddenly unsure whether she could trust that or not.
I opened it myself
…
There were a few more deliberative seconds of nothing before Natalie started typing again.
Okay, I’m sure nothing happened. But the guy said he came with my friend David. I can call Dave, ask what his deal is.
Lucy was already shaking her head down at her phone.
She didn’t know Natalie well, but she didn’t seem like the type to pull her punches when sizing someone up.
If the guy didn’t ring any alarm bells for her, he probably was just a normal person.
And as for the rest of it…well, Lucy had never passed out before.
Maybe it was normal to say strange things afterward.
No, that’s okay.
Thank you so much for checking on me.
Natalie replied.
That’s what I’m here for, baby!! Rest up today, and let me know if you need anything!
Eventually, Lucy made her cautious, squeaky way off the bed and onto the floor. Her headache was starting to recede, at least, but her legs felt wobbly under her. She needed to drink some water, probably. And maybe splash some on her face for good measure.
She felt a bit better by the time she reached the bathroom, but she still had to brace herself against the sink as she tied back her hair. She turned on the faucet and gingerly eased herself down to cup the water in her hands, exhaling through her open mouth as she brought it to her face.
She straightened. That was when she saw it.
There, just below her jaw on the right side of her neck, sat a deep, mottled bruise, a vibrant purple against the peach of her skin. Automatically, her hand rose to it. It wasn’t painful, exactly. It was more of a heat under her fingertips.
It wasn’t as if Lucy had never been afraid. But she spent much more time resenting fear than experiencing it herself. It was an all-encompassing, illogical force that had governed half her life. And almost none of that fear had been her own.
But in that moment, she wondered if it had been unfair of her to ever expect logic out of fear. There was nothing logical to be found in this feeling. The world shrank and sharpened to only the three most necessary points. The mirror. Her neck. And the bruise, glinting in the bathroom light.
Natalie.
It took her far too long just to type out her name.
I think we need to ask about that guy after all.
Lucy made a mental to-do list. She didn’t think it would really help. But it felt like it would help, which was almost as good.