The Names They Gave Us(69)

When I approach, legs shaky, I open my mouth to ask if Anna’s okay. But she beats me to it.

“What the hell, Lucy?” I almost look behind me, as if there is another Lucy she could possibly be mad at. “You know I hate confrontation. I tugged at you. I wanted to go.”

“I—I’m sorry. I thought that meant . . . I wanted to . . .”

“Well, you shouldn’t have. I don’t need a savior. You don’t get it!”

She bolts away, down the street and toward the woods and home, and Mohan goes off after her.

Protect you. I wanted to protect you. Those are the words bouncing around inside my throat. But maybe it wasn’t my battle. I should have gotten her out of there. I misread the whole thing.

“Did I . . . oh my gosh.” I turn to Keely, tears filling my eyes. “Did I mess up? It happened so fast—they were just so horrible!”

She turns to face me beneath the pale lamplight. “We do the best we can in the moment, yeah?”

“Yeah.” It’s not agreement. It’s helpless resignation.

“Greer . . .” She sighs, glancing up at the dark sky above us. I can’t tell if it’s filled with shifting clouds or clearing smoke from the fireworks. “Greer lives in town, but she was a camper with us a few years ago. Just one year. She and Anna have a history. You couldn’t have known.”

From Keely, it’s the closest thing to absolution I’ll ever get. I bob my head up and down, arms crossed tightly over my chest.

Keely tilts her head in the direction of camp. “C’mon. Let’s head back. Text Jones that we skipped out on the party. While we still have cell signal.”

We walk in silence, passing other parties here and there as we reach the edge of town. Kids flinging cherry poppers against the concrete, adults still in lawn chairs laughing between sips of beer. I want to ask Keely if she thinks this will ruin my friendship with Anna, but I honestly can’t bear to hear the answer.

Finally, when we run out of sidewalk, Keely glances over. “I would have done the same thing. For what it’s worth.”

I snort, brushing my palms over the tall grass on the side of the road. “No, you would have gotten us out of there gracefully. Which is what you did.”

“Uh-uh. I only did that because I could see, walking up, what was happening. If she’d surprised me? Oh no. No one gets near Anna with me. No way.”

The forest looms beside us. “Really?”

“Really.” I can feel her glance my way, surveying my disbelief. “You know we’ve all fought with each other over the years, right?”

“You have?”

“Of course. We’ve gotten into it, all of us. Mohan and I didn’t speak for over a week during eighth-grade summer.”

Camp is surprisingly quiet. It’s after lights-out, but I thought maybe they’d be riled up from the festivities. Maybe they wore themselves out. Mohan’s sitting on the lodge steps, elbows on his knees. “Hey. She’s in the Bunker. She’s fine—just needed to have a little cry.”

Keely turns to me. “You’re up.”

“But . . . she’ll want one of you. Right? I mean . . . ?”

They exchange glances, debating whether my question is even worth responding to.

“Go on,” Mohan says. “Chop-chop.”

I hurry inside, and everything sounds loud—my breathing, my feet on the wood floors. What will I even say? I guess “I’m sorry,” which I am. I just wish I knew what I did wrong. All I know is that I’ve never had a friendship so immediate and natural as Anna’s and mine. The horror of messing it up rolls through me like nausea. At the Bunker, I stop short. Push the door open only a tiny bit. Anna’s stretched out on the old plaid couch, facing me.

“Hi,” she says in a small voice.

It’s enough to know I’m okay to enter. I curl up on the floor in front of her, leaning against the couch. Even after a confusing fight, it would feel weird not to sit right beside her. “I’m so sorry, Anna. Are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” she says, sniffling into a tissue. “I’m not mad at you. I shouldn’t have yelled.”

“Not important,” I say. “At all.”

“Like, it’s not that I’m upset that you said something. I’m upset that anyone would be that awful to me in the first place. It’s like, I don’t know. Sometimes I’m ready and okay to fight the good fight, and sometimes I’m so exhausted and beat up and sad.”

I reach up to the couch and thread my fingers with hers. “That makes so much sense, Anna.”

“And, I just hate that she got to me like this. I wanted to be tougher.”

“Well, letting yourself process hurt is pretty tough, I think.”

At this, Anna almost smiles—a twitch of her cheeks. “Spoken like a true Daybreaker. Listen to you.”

“Well, that just tells me that I’m right.” Internally, though, I can’t help but feel a flash of pride, warm through my chest.

“Yeah, I know. But, ugh, Greer using parts of who I am like they’re bad, like they’re weapons against me,” she whispers. “It makes me sick.”

“That girl is awful. She chose to be awful. And you know what?” I look around as if my parents will materialize out of thin air to yell at me, simply because I thought the word. “Fuck that.”