I loathe myself. This was never the way it was supposed to be.
It was never supposed to be a secret.
I was never supposed to be an obligation. Atonement. I look up at Chase, the sounds of Kennedy’s voice blending in with the birds. He’s smiling, but it’s his new smile. Thin. Elastic. Ready to snap. My head floats down and I look at Chelsea. She’s lost weight over the past year. After the note incident, she stopped eating lunch with the rest of us. She just disappears at lunchtime and reappears for English. Maybe she’s in guidance, or maybe she’s crying in the bathroom. I don’t really care. I blame her most of all. She could have stopped whateverhappened, whether he really did run away, or got himself into worse trouble. She always had some strange power over Ryan. I hated her for it, a little.
Just a little.
“Shall we?” Kennedy nods toward the door, and Chase takes my suitcases from her.
“Are your parents here?” I don’t see their fancy-ass BMW in the driveway.
“I came up with Chelsea.” Kennedy smiles over her shoulder. “We’re on our own. But I have our entire weekend planned. No need to worry about a thing. We stopped at the cutest farm stand.”
I tune her out as I step inside the house. The smell makes me shudder, dry and hot and wooden, like the inside of a coffin. Everything about this house is a rotten piece of history that should be buried. Kennedy and Chelsea head into the kitchen, and Chase begins to carry my bags upstairs, but I stop him.
“Leave the green one down here. I have some of my art things in it.”
He places it down carefully and leans against the wall. “How are you doing?” He darts an eye out the window and quickly looks away.
“Okay. I mean, I think it’ll be good to be here. For all of us. To get closure or something.” Answers. To get answers.
Chase nods, a stiff jerk of his head. “Right, but he’s out there somewhere. He’ll turn up when we least expect it. You know Ry.” He grins, a lightning flash that illuminates those irresistible eyes. Dark and beautiful and so naive. Every day is summer, Chase.
I lean toward him and he bends down and pulls me close, pressing his lips against mine. He tastes like sweat, sweetness, salt. I want to drink him down and drown in him. I want to erase every second of the past year except these moments where we’re together and the world is obliterated. But he pulls away the second Kennedy calls his name.
“I’m gonna get the rest of the bags, ’kay?” He runs his hand along my collarbone and I tug him toward me, but he drifts away.
“Later?”
“For sure.” He smiles and taps my nose with his forefinger. It leaves me feeling cold and hollow.
I gaze out the window at the lake, the grave formed by some shifting rocks or pounded out by a falling star millions of years ago, filled by endless years of rain. I pull the glass down and bolt it shut tightly, then fix my eyes on the placid water.
Ryan.
Can you hear me?
I hope so.
I’ve been so lonely this past year.
Kennedy makes tuna sandwiches for lunch, and we eat them out by the lake. I literally hate her for how good they are. The bread is crusty and she uses olive oil, freshly ground pepper, lemon juice, and some other shit I can’t identify instead of mayo and celery like any normal person. Who does she think she is? This isn’tTop Chef.It’s life. My brother’s body could be decomposing in the lake.
I feel like I’m desecrating him by continuing to eat, butit’s good and I’m starving. So I hate Kennedy for making me.
“So.” As if she can hear me thinking her name, Kennedy brushes her shining hair out of her eyes and smiles at me. A soft, tentative smile.Sorry Ryan’s gone, but let’s make the best of it.That’s the implication embedded in the slight downturn at the left corner of her lips. “What’s the plan after lunch?”
I chew on the crusty bread, even more annoyed. It’s delicious, but it takes forever to shred into pieces small enough to swallow. I take an enormous gulp of icy lemonade. “Whatever. You’re the hostess. Do your thing.”
Kennedy chews the side of her mouth. “I thought maybe you had something specific in mind when you wanted to come back up here.” She looks at Chelsea, but Chelsea is off in wonderland, gazing distractedly at the lake, one leg swung over the stone bench, as if being beckoned to it by sirens the rest of us can’t hear. Maybe that’s what happened to Ryan.
“You said you had the whole weekend planned out,” I say, putting my sandwich down.
“I meant food,” Kennedy says. “I thought that was implied.” She drums her fingers on the table rapidly. “We can just hang out. It’s fine. I didn’t know if there was some special spiritual thing you wanted to say or do to honor Ryan, or something?” She trails off, an eyebrow raised.
I can feel my face go from white to red in an instant. “I’m not my mom.” I grab my glass and head for the kitchen, heart pounding in my ears. My eyes burn and my body buzzes with adrenaline. I want to turn right around and smack the condescension off her face. Instead I slam the door behind me, drain half of my glass, and fill the rest with gin. My mother neverspoke to the Hartfords before Ryan went missing. It wasn’t the same as with my dad. It was a pride thing. She thought they looked down on her. Maybe they did. I don’t know. They were always nice to me. But they may have felt sorry for the poor kid whose mother was a mall psychic and whose father worked at the country club where they played their charity tennis matches and lounged by pristine infinity pools.
She spoke to them after Ryan disappeared, though. Constantly. She called them nonstop. First with questions. What did they know? Did they remember anything else? Did a detective thoroughly examine the property? Then with requests. Could she have a private investigator speak to Kennedy? Could she speak to Kennedy alone? And finally, the kicker—could she have a medium, a ghost whisperer, walk through the house with her?