One By One by Freida McFadden(31)

“You don’t know?” He raises his eyebrows. “How could you not know your blood type?”

I shrug helplessly. “I… I just don’t.”

“Mine is AB-positive,” Michelle volunteers. Thanks.

“It’s very dangerous not to know your blood type, Claire.” Warner’s blue eyes are boring into me. “What if you were to get into a terrible accident and lost a lot of blood?”

“I…” There’s a buzzing sound in my left ear. Another damn mosquito. “I don’t know…”

He shakes his head. “It could be a matter of life and death. For you not to know something like that…”

Before I can sputter out another excuse, Noah speaks up, “She’s O-positive.”

I blink at him in surprise. “Oh. How did you know that?”

He smiles crookedly. “I remember the doctor saying it when you were pregnant with Aiden.”

I feel a sudden, surprising rush of affection for my husband. Of all the things he’s forgotten over the years, including my birthday last year, I didn’t expect him to remember my blood type. I suppose if I got into a terrible accident, he would have my back.

“That’s why mosquitoes bite you so often,” Warner says. “Mosquitoes love type O blood.”

Well, lucky me.

Jack is rifling around again in his backpack. “So we’ve got about a quarter of a bottle left of water,” he announces. “If we finish it now, hopefully we’ll be able to find water in the morning.”

The thought of not being able to find water tomorrow is unthinkable. Part of me wonders if we should conserve some of our remaining water, but I’m so thirsty right now. And a quarter of a bottle split between five people isn’t very much.

Jack pulls out the bottle with the remainder of our precious water. He lets Michelle take a few sips first, then he drinks himself, then passes the bottle to Warner. There’s hardly any left by the time it gets to Noah.

He glances over at me, takes a quick swig, then hands me the remainder. It doesn’t look any emptier than it did when Warner finished with it.

“Did you get enough?” I ask Noah.

He nods. “I’m good.”

Well, I’m certainly not going to force him to drink more. I tilt the bottle back and drain the remainder down my throat. The water tastes a little chalky, but I could drink a gallon of it at this point. It’s almost painful to have to stop. I want to open it up and lick the inside.

I hand the empty bottle back to Jack. He tucks it away in his backpack. I hope to God we find water tomorrow morning. I don’t want to think about what will happen if we don’t.

I clear my throat. “Hey,” I say. “I was just thinking, maybe we could all say our favorite memory about Lindsay.”

The other four people around the fire could not possibly look less enthusiastic about this idea.

“Uh, sure,” Jack says. “That sounds like it would be… nice.”

I want to mouth the words “thank you” to him, but I don’t want to give any reason for Michelle to be more suspicious than she already is.

“Do you want to start, Claire?” Jack asks.

“Sure.” I shift on the ground, trying to get comfortable in the dirt. I never sit cross-legged on the ground anymore. Not since kindergarten. “I guess my favorite Lindsay memory is from college. I had just found out my jerk boyfriend was cheating on me…”

“Noah?” Michelle asks. She sounds like she’s teasing me, but there’s also an edge to her voice. I’m sure she has an inkling that my marriage is a mess. It doesn’t take a divorce lawyer to figure that one out.

“No. It was with some other guy.” I run a finger through the dirt next to me in the pattern of a star. “I dated him the year before Noah and I got together.” I glance at Noah, but his eyes are looking down at his muddy sneakers. “Anyway, when I got home, I was almost ready to start crying. So Lindsay suggested we break into the dorm kitchen, and we spent the night in there, baking and eating chocolate chip cookies.”

I don’t tell them all the details from that night. Like the way Lindsay stroked my hair to make me feel better. About how we made one cookie almost entirely out of chocolate chips. About how we got caught in our caper by the heads of the dorm, and Lindsay took all the blame.

I miss her so much already. I can’t believe she’s gone. I’ll never forgive myself for letting this happen to her.

“Okay, I’ve got one.” Jack pokes at the fire with a stick. “My favorite memory of Lindsay is the day I first met her. I was carrying this care package from my mom up to my room, and I saw this really beautiful girl on the stairs, and I got so flustered, I dropped the whole thing and the box opened up. There were brownies everywhere!” He grins. “But the best part is that Lindsay and I ate the brownies off the stairs.”

“Ew!” I laugh.

“That’s all right.” Jack pats his gut. “I’ve got a strong stomach.” He squeezes Michelle. “How about you?”

Michelle frowns. “What?”

“What’s your favorite Lindsay memory?” he says.

“Oh.” She shrugs. “I didn’t know Lindsay very well.”

“Yes, but you must remember something about her…”