“Oh. Hey.” I don’t know Ana well, just that she’s part of Emilie Simpson’s crew. One of the tame ones, I think. She raises her hand in class a lot, and if you get put in her group for a class project, you’re pretty much guaranteed an A. “What’re you, ah, doing out here?”
“Emilie.” She shrugs. “She dragged me out, but now she’s wasted. Nothing’s that hilarious when all you’re drinking is Coke Zero.” She lifts her cup over her head and sloshes it from side to side, miming Drunk Girl. “Wooo!”
I laugh. The tiny spotlights show her in parts: jean shorts, long hair that looks wet, a neon-pink bra strap that I try to un-notice.
“I didn’t think you were much of a party guy, either,” she says.
“Not really.” Why a guy would want to spend his free time standing around with people he sits with Monday through Friday is a mystery to me. The only difference between high school and high-school parties is beer, and I don’t drink. “I’m here for Bridge.”
“Right.” Her lips turn down. “Sorry.”
My heart rate picks up. “For . . .”
“Oh. I don’t know.” Her plastic cup cracks like gunfire under her grip.
“Have you seen her? My girlfriend?” I don’t know why I said it like that.
“She was out back earlier, in the yard. You could text her.”
“I kind of want to surprise her.” My neck gets hot all of a sudden, as if I’ve just told Ana a secret I should have kept between Bridge and me. “It’s—”
“That’s really sweet.” She jerks her thumb at the door behind her. There’s a red wreath on the door knocker that looks like it’s made out of snow-covered cranberries, even though it’s been in the seventies all week. “Good luck in there, soldier.”
I give her a little salute and she angles her knees so I can pass. Behind the door is a pack of girls whose voices bounce off the elevated popcorn ceiling. I pass a game of beer pong on an expensive pool table and a guy I know from trig spilling Easy Mac powder all over the granite countertops in the kitchen. I make it to the other side of the house as fast as I can, and pump the handle on one of the doors leading to the water.
I find Leigh outside, curled up on a cushioned lounge chair next to Wesley Lilliford, Atlantic Beach High School’s most enthusiastic and purple-haired thespian. They’re both laughing at the sky. High, drunk, probably both, which is why I’m not a huge Leigh fan to begin with. With a house like this and parents like hers, she can probably afford to fuck around for a while without consequences. That’s not true for Bridge. Leigh should know that.
“Hey, Leigh.” I crouch next to the lounge chair.
“Wiiillllll! You caaaame!” She reaches for my hand and slips her fingers through mine.
“Yeah. Great party.” I pull away. “Have you seen Bridge?”
“On the dock, maybe? Sitting on the dock of the bay?” She bursts out laughing and starts singing the song, and Wesley Lilliford jumps right in with the harmony. Sweet Jesus.
“Great. Thanks.” Thick, dry grass hisses under my flip-flops as I cross the yard. I stop at the bulkhead, where the yard meets a long, winding dock, and find her sitting at the very end. She leans against one of the rails, her long, pale legs crossed one over the other. There are a few other shadows clustered along the length of the dock, but she’s alone, watching the shattered moon on the water.
Her head tilts to the side a little, the way it does when she’s had one too many. Her body looks loose and happy, exactly the way it did the night everything changed between us back in ninth grade.
I think about yelling, Hey! I fancy you, but that’s not exactly the kind of thing you yell when there are other guys around. I open my mouth to say something else, but I close it again when I realize she’s not alone. There’s a shadow next to Bridge lying on the dock. It’s a dude. Buck Travers, I think, because he’s wearing the same stupid trucker hat he’s worn since birth. He sits up and slides his hand around her waist, and I think I see her shrug him off but my brain is going to explode, so maybe I’m hallucinating.
He moves closer to her, murmurs something I can’t hear. The vibrations of his voice register somewhere deep, like shock waves. She starts to push away again (I could put this guy’s head through these planks in two seconds flat) but then she leans into him, just like she leaned into me two years ago, and their shadows merge.
Everything stops. My heart. My breath. The tides. After a while she ends the kiss. She pushes herself to standing and he reaches for her, but this time, she keeps walking. She stumbles down the length of the dock, winding toward me, and with every step, she is farther and farther away. There are only a few feet between us when she sees me standing there.
I hear the whoosh of Bridge’s breath, her soft, terrible “Oh my God.”
“Don’t,” I bleat. The yard is still. Everyone is watching.
“Wil,” she says. Her tongue is thick. She reaches for me.
“Fucking don’t.” I step back.
“Ohhhh,” some dude yells behind me.
A million different versions of me fight it out beneath my skin. Raging Me could fly down the dock to beat the shit out of Buck Travers. Devastated Me might puddle in front of Bridge, sob like a baby for days. Fourth-Grade Me doesn’t believe that the Girl from Alabama could ever.
“I’m drunk,” she says. Her eyes are bleary, like watercolor mistakes.
“That’s worse,” I whisper.
“How?” she moans.
“I don’t know.” I want to explode out of my skin.
“Just—can we talk?”
My chin drops. She’s barefoot, the black glitter polish flaking on her big toe. We laughed about that yesterday. Pretended her toe was an inkblot and took turns analyzing what the chipped part looked like. The top of a palm tree! Maine! Donald Trump’s toupee!
“Have you guys—are you . . .” My voice crumples like tinfoil.
Her lips are moving—No, no, oh my God, of course not—but the sight of her, her fire-red hair and drunk-girl mouth and blazing aqua eyes are too much. I turn and I walk and I’m moving fast, stumbling through the wall of whispers and laughs.
I run. Back through the yard, through Leigh’s cloud of weed, through the too-big house, out the front door, down the street, past the truck, and back again. I run all the way back to the fourth grade, to the trailer with the even rows of desks and the erasers that smelled like pineapple and the markers that made you dizzy if you sniffed them and the beautiful, burned new girl.
Don’t, I tell the boy in the second-to-last row. Don’t you dare turn around. That girl is going to end you.
BRIDGE
Spring, Senior Year