A GIRAFFE-SHAPED BUSH looms over our heads as Keely and I walk the cobblestone path to the Hendricks' estate. I remember all of this—the lush green grass, the radiant shrubs covered in pastel flowers, and I'm pretty sure Edward Scissorhands is still their gardener. Thin, thorny vines intertwine on the reddish-brown brick walls of the mansion.
Keely knocks on a mahogany door that looks like it's built to accommodate seven-foot-tall giants. An iron hanger shaped like a snarling lion's head is mounted to the center of it, and when no one answers the door, Keely bangs that, too.
"Okey-dokey, no one's getting the door," she grumbles.
I hug myself and glance at the wide, gated, horror-movie-esque property.
"Maybe he's around back." Keely adjusts her lemon-yellow crop top. She always wears yellow—it looks good with her dark skin tone. "Wanna go check? I'll keep on knock, knock, knocking." She rolls her eyes.
Doubt fills my chest, but I agree. I'm creeping along the hedges around the side of the house when I hear voices. I stop and listen.
"Look, the money's not for me. It's for Amelia." That's West. My heart jumps—why is he here? I didn't even see his car, but their parking lot extends along the other side of their house.
"Well Amelia isn't here, is she?" That deep, baritone voice belongs to Brian Hendricks, West's father. I'd never forget it. "Weston, if you ever hope to become a part of this family again, you'd better clean your goddamn act up."
"Oh, fuck off. I work harder than Miles and Faye could ever fucking imagine. Forget it, I don't wanna be part of your fucked up, narcissistic family."
My feet are frozen in the grass, my back pressed to the wall with thorns pricking my skin through my blue t-shirt. I can't move. Why can't I move? If I get caught, West will think—
"Olivia?"
Shit.
West stands in front of me, his dark eyebrows pulled together, his blue-green eyes disdainful. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"I was just, I was—"
"Did you hear that?"
"No," I lie. Shit, why am I lying?
"Were you eavesdropping on me?"
"No, I wasn't, I—"
"Whatever." West takes off. I can't explain the bubbling anxiety that forces me to speak again.
"West, wait."
He turns, and when our eyes connect, something changes on his face, like a bolt of lightning striking through a black sky. His anger fades, a flicker of something I don't recognize taking over—shock, maybe. But why?
"What?" he asks.
"Are you okay?"
He stares at me long, hard, heavy, before his shoulders relax. West sighs and rubs his eye with his left hand, just like he used to when he was a little kid.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just frustrated with my dad." He walks toward me, but stops a good meter away. "Look, uh... sorry."
I bite my lip so hard that I think it might burst. "For what?"
"For yesterday. You were just trying to talk to me—I know I was a dick. But my boss really gets on my ass if I chill with friends during my shifts."
Relief washes through me, because part of me had hoped that somehow, he'd have a valid reason for being rude to me. I can't help but laugh a little. "You could've just said hey, sorry, I'm busy right now, my boss will get mad at me if I talk to you. That would've been less brutal."
"Sorry. I'll remember that." His half-smirk shows off his dimple, and there's that swelling feeling in my heart, boiling through me like hot water. I open my mouth to say something—anything—but then Miles appears at the side of the house, his eyes wide, his lips in a tight line.
"West." He almost growls. "What are you doing here?"
West meets my eyes, increasing the rapid fluttering in my chest, before he pushes past Miles. "Leaving," he says, and then he's gone.
***
Miles lied to Roger.
Yes, we're at the cabin, and yes, both Faye and Miles are here. But Miles had failed to mention—to everyone—that Sean Watters and Drake Bowman are joining us, too.
"I didn't want you guys to back out," Miles explains, the sunlight reflecting off his aviators and into my eyes.
I pull my backpack out of the backseat of his Cadillac. Caldwell is a small place, but it's still crazy for me to see so many kids my age with cars. Back in Toronto, none of my friends even drive. There's not much point when the subway can soar wherever we need to go without the burden of traffic.
"So you tricked us," I say.
"Hold on, Liv." Keely rounds the car and grabs my arm.
"He lied to us, Keely."
"What's with you? Who cares! Obviously we weren't gonna tell my parents that there'd be other guys here."
"Sorry, Liv." Miles ruffles his blond waves. "I wasn't trying to trick you."
Guilt sinks my heart. Suddenly I feel dramatic, and like a total bitch. "Sorry. It's okay."
I don't know why I'm so on edge—Miles must think I'm such a buzzkill. That's it, I'm done being sketchy. I can have fun, too, and I'm going to prove that. Besides, I'm in a bit of a better mood since West apologized. His dickish behavior the other day had been weighing on me.
There's a rusty yellow car parked outside, and laughter echoes from behind the log cabin. Must be Faye and the others. We circle around the house, and sure enough, Faye Hendricks stands around a daytime campfire. She passes through a cloud of smoke and walks toward us.
"You guys are late."
Platinum blonde curls reach the small of her back, freckles stipple her pale cheeks, and her legs are long and willowy. Miles and Faye are twins, but their faces look nothing alike—it's their palettes. It's their blondeness and paleness and susceptibility to sunburns. The skin beside Faye's pink spaghetti straps is rosy, and Miles' cheeks below his sunglasses are a matching red.
"Wow, Olivia. You look amazing," she says.
Her lips smile but her eyes drip with poison. Faye has always hated me. And I mean always. We're total opposites, and as kids, she'd despised how her brothers had liked spending time with me over her. I feel kind of bad about that, but what was I supposed to do? West and Miles had wanted to play pirates and mermaids in the water, and Faye had wanted to dance and play fairies in the forest.
"Thanks," is all I say. I'm not going to waste her time with a disingenuous plastic comment.
"Seriously, I didn't expect you to be so tall."
I'm not tall. I'm five-foot-six.
Drake comes up behind her and slings a limp arm around her shoulder, wearing the same SpongeBob shirt he'd been in at the boat party. I wonder if he's washed it since, or if he just gets drunk for days at a time and never changes. I'd assume the former if he didn't smell like soup, which... he does. Drake kisses the side of Faye's head, but his eyes are on me the whole time.
Gross.
Sean keeps his hands in the pockets of his black Nike hoodie, even though the sun is hot as hell as it pours through the leaves over our heads. Sean's smile is as bright as his teeth, and his tanned skin glows as he grins at Keely. She bites her knuckle and smiles back.
We all sit around the fire. It struggles to stay alive, so Miles adds kindling to it, breathing it back to life. Drake opens up a cooler filled with ice and beer.
"Where do you guys keep getting all this booze?" I ask, accepting a bottle from him.
"I got my brother to pick all this up," Drake says.
"And my mom sometimes buys me a mickey or something," Keely adds, though I already know that Sun and Roger didn't get her anything this weekend. Part of being allowed to come up here was that we wouldn't drink. Keely's parents put way too much faith in her—my mom and dad would never blindly trust me so much, and for good reason. I know Keely's responsible enough to not get in any trouble, but I feel guilty that we're lying to Sun and Roger about so many things.
"Your parents are so chill, Keely," Sean says. "Me and Drake had to lie to our parents and say we were crashing at each other's houses."
Faye crosses her legs beneath her white skirt. Pink and white, that's always been Faye. "Aren't you worried your parents will, I don't know, run into each other and find out you're lying?"
They both turn pale.
"Idiots," Faye mutters.
"What about your parents?" Keely tilts her beer bottle to her lips. "They're really okay with us all just hanging out here? They're not gonna show up, are they?"
"They don't care about anything that we do," Miles says. He pokes at the fire. Cinders float and evanesce into the air, orange sparks popping against the sunset. The effect is hypnotizing, and before I know it, the sun is gone and relaxation flows through me. I reposition my legs on the log, lean back and stare at the deep sea of stars through the leaves.
I feel comfortable with Miles and Keely, but Faye, Drake and Sean throw me off. I watch the five of them make inside jokes over the fire, laughing about their teachers, kids at school, people in town. All things I'm unfamiliar with. All things I don't know. But they're things I should know, aren't they?
If the multiverse theory is true, then some version of me never left Caldwell. Some version of me grew up here, with everyone in this circle. But this version of me is disjointed, disconnected, detached. I can't even call myself a Caldwell kid anymore. I'm someone else, and so is everyone else. I want to reconnect, but it's hard when Drake talks so much, and Miles is distracted, and Keely and Sean are lost in each other's eyes, and Faye still obviously hates my guts.
Suddenly, I feel like a fish out of water here, like I'm drowning on land. People are hard for me and relationships make me sad sometimes. Each is as unique as a fingerprint, but something so little can change everything. Or something big. Something like spending eight years apart.
How do I get rid of this wrenching, searing awkwardness in my gut? How do I speak? Have fun? Laugh so effortlessly like they do?
Faye's voice breaks my thoughts. "So, everyone, listen up. I think it's time we all decide who's crashing where."
Silence. The wind flutters through the leaves. A lump forms in my throat, but I swallow it. No one else speaks, so maybe now—for the first time in minutes—I can find my voice.
"What do you mean?" I ask.
Drake and Sean exchange knowing glances. Miles stokes the flame with a stick.
"There are only three bedrooms." Faye's voice is robotic, but her lips curl. "Drake and I are sharing one. So who's sleeping where?"
"You can crash with me, Keely," Sean says. Wow, jumping right on it.
"I'll think about it," Keely replies.
But I know her. There's a mischievous smirk on her lips and a glint in her brown eyes. But if she crashes with Sean, that would leave me with Miles.
I stand. "Hey, I'm going to grab another drink. Anyone want anything?"
"Just grab a round," Drake says.
I almost say, "I'm not your maid," but I hold it in. I'm trying to be fun, remember?
"Come with me, Keel." I nudge her. "I need an extra pair of hands to carry everything."
As soon as she follows me inside, I shut the sliding door behind us, engulfed by the smoky, musky scent of the cabin, and let out the breath I've been holding in for the past hour.
"You okay?" Keely asks.
I walk past her to the kitchen. "I'm okay, it's just... you're not going to ditch me for Sean, are you?"
Keely's silence sets me on edge. I reach into the fridge and take out five beers, one cooler for Faye. When I face Keely, she's nibbling her bottom lip.
"Keely," I say. "Come on."
"You don't wanna share a room with Miles?"
"No! Are you kidding?"
"I thought you liked him!"
"I do, but maybe not like that. I don't know. It's too soon."
"But I really, really like Sean."
"Keely, please don't make me share a room with Miles." I shove a few of the beers in her hands. "I'm not doing it. I'll sleep on the couch if I have to, but that'll make it so weird."
Keely averts her eyes. Am I being self-centered for wanting her to drop her plans to make me more comfortable?
"The thing is," she finally says, "Sean just told me that he brought condoms."
"Seriously? Keely, you're..."
She's a virgin, I'm about to say. I stop myself. Whether Keely wants to have sex or not is her decision, but why does it have to leave me in a room with Miles?
"Then I'll sleep on the couch," I say, unable to hide the irritation in my voice. I'm not trying to be a brat, but...
"Liv, wait."
"Yeah?"
Keely hesitates, then sighs. "Me and you will crash together tonight, okay? Besides, I shouldn't rush into it with Sean. I shouldn't do anything with him while I'm drunk."
My stiffness melts away. "Thanks, Keel."
We go back outside. Miles stands beside the fire, the orange and yellow flames contorting his face.
"I'm telling a spooky story," he says jokingly, "so get comfy, ladies."
Miles—though he looks more like a surf boarder—has always been a theater geek, so I know something real dramatic is about to happen. After passing out the drinks, Keely and I sit on a log and watch. Miles takes a deep breath.
"So, this is the tale of old Mr. Jenkins, and how he became... the Caldwell Slasher!"
"Jenkins?" I ask. "You mean the old man who owns the fisherman's supply shop?"
"That's the one," Miles says.
Obviously I haven't seen Jenkins in years, but I remember his dusty flannels, grizzled beard and icy blue eyes well. We were all scared of him. I feel a strange pang of sadness in my chest—he's probably a perfectly nice man, but kids always judged him for what he looked like and created myths and legends about him. Apparently, that hasn't changed.
"Oh, shut up, Miles." Keely laughs. "Mr. Jenkins is not a murderer!"
"Oh, but he is!" Miles points his finger in the air. "Legend has it, old Mr. Jenkins once had a pet squirrel. He was the best squirrel in the world, and they were best friends."
Keely rolls her eyes. Drake and Sean drink with smirks on their faces, while Faye checks her nails, totally bored. Miles' movements are animated and theatrical as he speaks.
"So, one day, Jenkins came home from fishing, only to discover that his best friend, the squirrel, had ran away. Jenkins was destroyed that his squirrel friend had left him behind."
"Come on, Hendricks," Sean says, annoyed. "Where the hell are you taking this?"
Miles holds his finger up again. "Jenkins searched all over Caldwell for his squirrel, but he never found him. As the years went on, Jenkins became so encumbered with grief, that he... stopped shaving his beard. The once handsome, bushy-tailed young man was becoming angrier, and bitterer, until one day... he snapped!"
Miles grabs my shoulders. When I scream, everyone laughs at me. Pissed and embarrassed, I hug myself and crumple up.
"Anyway," Miles sings, "Jenkins, now an angry old man, discovered that the only way to cure for his loneliness and resentment toward squirrels was to take their lives. So now, Jenkins roams forests—just like this one—in search of woodland creatures to tear apart limb-by-limb."
I shudder. Did he have to bring it to a real place?
"For real, though," Drake says. "If anyone's slashing those animals, it's gotta be Jenkins."
"For once, I agree with you losers." Faye pops the tab off her Mike's Hard Lemonade. "He has all that creepy taxidermy in his shop. I mean, there's even a stuffed squirrel behind his desk."
"There is?" Miles frowns. "I mean, of course there is! That's the body of his ex-best-squirrel-friend. He kept it as a trophy."
Keely lifts a brow. "I thought you said he never found that squirrel?"
"I'm changing it. He did find the squirrel, but punishing it wasn't enough. He now exacts revenge on all of squirrel-kind. I'd write a play on this for Drama, but it'd probably be too disrespectful since, you know..."
Poor Mr. Jenkins. But what if he really is the animal killer? Someone's been doing it—I did more research on the ride here, admittedly freaked out on the idea of sleeping in a forest where an apparent serial killer hunts, and the reports have been... grotesque, to say the least. But we're all safe together, so I'm not worried.
Once the weird vibe of Miles' story calms down, Keely moves over to Sean, and Miles sits next to me. A little too close, to be honest, but I'm slightly drunk, so I'm not worried about it. Still, it's weird for his tan shorts to brush my bare leg, and for me to smell the sandalwood on his cologne. What's even stranger is, being so close to Miles makes me think of West.
"Hey, Miles?" I take an uneasy sip of my Molson Canadian. Maybe it isn't my place to ask, but... "Who's Amelia?"
He frowns. "Where'd you hear that name?"
"I accidentally overheard West and your dad talking today."
"Oh. Amelia is..." He shakes his head. "Nah, she doesn't matter. Trust me."
"What do you mean?"
"She's just—"
"Evening, boys," an unknown voice says, and we all turn around. Someone stands at the side of the house overlooking us. "And girls," he adds.
His shadowed figure injects me with fear. He steps into the orange light of the fire, and my heart stops, because it's West—and he has a girl on his arm.