99 Days(36)

“I—no, actually. I guess not.” I glance at Gabe, who’s pumping gas across the blacktop. He catches me looking and grins. I think of his goofy stories, the interested way he chats with every last person in town; I think of how he knows my ugly parts and likes me anyway, how he’s not perpetually disappointed by the person I turned out to be. I’m still nervous about this weekend—ugh, actually just thinking about meeting up with Patrick and Tess makes my stomach flip unpleasantly—but out here in the middle of nowhere with Gabe and Imogen, I’m really glad I said I’d come.

The gas pump shuts off with a noisy thunk. “I am happy,” I tell Imogen, tipping my face up toward the sunshine.





Day 34


Falling Star’s in full swing by the following afternoon, the whole campsite crowded with people. The air is thick with the smell of weed and sunscreen and grill smoke, girls in bikinis lounging on the rocks and the constant clang of a dreadlocked white boy strumming away on a guitar. Imogen and I made totally undrinkable coffee over the campfire this morning, then gave up, got in Gabe’s station wagon, and drove twenty minutes to the nearest town. I brought a cup back for him, waving it under his nose where he was still sleeping inside the tent we’re sharing. “You’re my f*cking hero,” he told me, and I laughed.

Now we’re clustered around a couple of the picnic tables eating chips and playing poker with handfuls of crumpled one-dollar bills—me and Gabe and Imogen, Kelsey and Steve, who wandered over from their campsite down the way, and Handsome Jay, who drove up after his breakfast shift at the Lodge this morning. Even Patrick and Tess are playing, Tess’s red hair braided into a heavy-looking skein hanging over one shoulder. She looks like something out of an Anthropologie catalog, rustic and effortless. I pick at my cuticles and sip at my water bottle, trying not to notice Patrick’s hand on her knee. They showed up last night, the two of them ambling over to the campfire. Tess hugged me hello while Patrick hung back in the shadows: “Hey,” I said to him, making a point of it. After all, we said we’d try and be friends, didn’t we?

Patrick just looked at me, even. “Hey, yourself,” he said, so quietly no one but me could hear.

Now Gabe lays down three tens, which is a winner, all of us grumbling good-naturedly as we toss our cards onto the rough wooden table. “Thank you, thank you,” he says grandly, reaching for the pot with silly, exaggerated movements.

“Oh, no, wait, hold up, though,” Imogen says, pointing, just before Jay reaches out to clear the deck. “Patrick’s got a full house, right?”

Patrick looks up at that, then down at the table, surprised—he’s been playing with half a mind, no question, lost in Patrickland while the rest of us hang out here on Earth. Then he smiles. “Oh, hey, no shit, yeah I do.” He reaches for the cash, but his brother stops him.

“Wait a second,” Gabe says, shaking his head a little. “Isn’t that how we play, though: You don’t notice, you don’t take the pot?”


Patrick makes a face like, nice try. “I don’t think so, dude.”

Gabe frowns. “I’m just saying, you’re hardly even playing, you needed somebody else to tell you that you even won—”

“Yeah, okay, but I did win,” Patrick says, the faintest hint of an edge creeping into his voice, the kind you wouldn’t even notice if you hadn’t known him pretty much forever. I’ve known him pretty much forever, though. I shift my weight, not liking the trajectory here.

So has Gabe: “Dude, it’s, like, twenty bucks we’re talking about,” he says now, shaking his head like Patrick’s being stupid.

“Dude, it’s, like, my twenty bucks.”

Shit. Patrick mimics his tone exactly, which I know from when we were kids is one of the fastest ways to get under Gabe’s skin. Sure enough: “Why are you being such a dick about this?” Gabe asks, eyes narrowing.

“Why am I being a dick?” he asks, sounding pissed about a whole lot more than twenty bucks in George Washingtons. I wince. “You didn’t win, bro. I know it contradicts your whole entire understanding of the universe, but—”

“It contradicts my understanding of the universe to be a little bitch about everything, yes,” Gabe interrupts.

“You wanna talk about who’s being a little b—”

“I left my sunglasses in the car,” I announce suddenly, standing up so fast I almost turn over the table. “I’m going to go get ’em.”

“Molly,” Gabe starts, sounding more irritated than I’m used to. “You don’t have to—”

“No, no, I’ll be right back.” It’s bailing, I know it is, just like I always do, but sitting there listening to them argue feels like trying to hold still while centipedes crawl all over my naked body. I can’t do it; I don’t have the stomach. I gotta, gotta go.

“You want company?” Imogen asks me.

“Nope, I’m good.”

I take off at a pretty quick clip, but the raised voices have already caught Julia’s attention; I pass by right as she’s getting up off the old Donnelly camp blanket, where she’s been reading magazines with Elizabeth Reese. “Did you just start another fight between my brothers?” she demands, shaking her head like she honestly can’t believe me. “Seriously?”