Chapter 5

We eat outside under ashroud of stars. Chase digs out a set of candles, bundled in shrink-wrap. I flinch as Mila ignites them with a metal Zippo and then lights a clove cigarette. She leans back in her chair, stretching her long legs out under the table. The fire doesn't seem to bother anyone else. But I can't take my eyes off it. I haven't really been around fire since the fire. It's a restricted item at the hospital. We have to make do with the other elements. Soft earth in the courtyard when it's time for outside exercise. Cold air in the exam room, lying on a hard metal table, waiting. Tepid showers and water that tastes faintly like blood.

"May I help you?" Mila looks at me expectantly, and I realize that I'm still staring at the lighter in her hand.

I blink to snap myself out of it. "Highway hypnosis."

She gives me a look like Why are you so weird? and the conversation drifts on without me. Chase launches into a story, and I take a sip of the wine Kennedy has selected for dinner. I never drink except at the lake house, and I especially don't like red wine. It tastes richer and thicker to me than white, and since I was just thinking about blood, it has extra strikes against it now. It also reminds me of church, and church reminds me of funerals, and funerals remind me that we're not here to have fun. "I'm sorry I missed the funeral," I say abruptly.

Everyone freezes and stares at me, Chase trailing off mid-sentence.

Kennedy always says I have a talent for silencing a room, like, I'll be half listening to a conversation in the cafeteria and suddenly blurt out my tangential contribution and everyone will just quit. It's not a compliment, because, well, when Kennedy talks, people agree. But I like it. It's okay being the weird one. It suits me. What would bother me would be contorting myself to try to guess the right things to say all the time so that when I spoke, people would nod and agree.

How do you even do that?

Now, though, is not one of the times when I speak and everyone laughs or nods philosophically, or just hmms politely. But I am sorry. I should have been at the funeral. I feel awful. There's a strange hollow ache in my stomach, and I cross my arms, dig them into my abdomen, and lean forward.

"Sorry," I say again more quietly, this time to Chase.

He was mid-anecdote when I interrupted him, and his hands are still spread wide in illustration. Shadows dance on his skin as he furrows his brow and tilts his head toward Ryan. "Go easy, Chels."

Ryan waves it off. "You didn't miss anything."

"But I am sorry." I take another awkward sip. "I think maybe we should just remember why we're here." I flick my eyes over to Ryan. "Not you."

"We're here to have fun," Mila says. She takes another drag and exhales slowly, watching me with glowing eyes. But that's not true. It couldn't possibly be true. Not anymore.

Kennedy takes a bite of her food, refusing to acknowledge the tension of the moment. "We're here for each other. And for Emily."

"Sure we are," Mila mutters.

"And because Ryan asked us to come," Kennedy adds.

"Hold on." Ryan coughs violently into his napkin, his face turning bright pink, and for a second I think we're going to have a second tragedy on our hands. But he grabs the wine bottle and takes a long swig. "Sorry." He coughs one more time and clears his throat, then turns to Kennedy. "I didn't ask you to come here. Did you think I invited myself over?"

She darts her eyes to me. "Chelsea?"

I raise an eyebrow. "Yes?"

"Back me up." She nudges me with her foot.

Ryan looks at me expectantly. The last thing I want is to get dragged into an argument. I don't blame Ryan for being emotionally raw, and Kennedy can spar with the best of them. If things got ugly, they could get ugly fast. But I can't say no to Ryan. Not today. I pull the card out of my pocket. "I assumed it was from you, Kennedy. Your house, your handwriting."

She grabs the postcard and scrutinizes it. "That is not my handwriting."

"It's Marilyn's," I say, feeling incredibly silly. It's true that she's obsessed with Marilyn—but it seems like a leap now to assume that she would make out invitations in a dead movie star's handwriting. It's a strange thing to do, and Kennedy is not a strange person.

She squints at it. "It's not." But she says it haltingly.

"Look, honest mistake," Chase adds apologetically. "I mean, who would make up invitations like this? It has you written all over it, Ken."

"Holy shit, who cares?" Mila says. "We all got one, and we all showed up. Anyone could have ordered them off the internet, and no amount of arguing is going to make someone admit it if they don't want to."

Kennedy frowns. "But I didn't make the postcards."

"So you just assumed I did?" Ryan reaches for the card, and Mila peers at it over his shoulder. I badly want to ask for it back at this point, before someone gets it all pesto-greasy and wine-stained. I meant to keep it. This weekend may have been an annual tradition, but it won't be anymore. Whether this was a reunion, a memorial, or just a farewell to childhood before we go our separate ways next year, to finish high school for me, and to college for everyone else, the postcard was a memento. I was going to ask everyone to sign it. Silly. But something to keep. To remember. People always say it's hard to say goodbye, but after last year, I think it's probably harder not getting to say goodbye.

"She was your sister." Kennedy winds a lock of hair around her finger. Tighter with each spiral, until her fingertip turns blood red. "And you're the photographer. I thought you might have taken this photo."

"I might have," he admits. "But I gave you all a scrapbook at the end of each summer."

"A collection of weekends." Chase grins. It fades.

"So anyone could have done it," Ryan finishes, crossing his arms over his chest stubbornly.

"Personally, I don't think it matters whose idea it was." I gently take the postcard back and slip it into my pocket. "I think it's a nice way to honor Emily."

Kennedy sets her jaw. This is going to eat at her like acid all weekend. It does matter to her who sent the invites. She hates being wrong. But she'll swallow it because she has a rule against fighting at the lake house. "Fine. Agree to disagree."

Ryan tosses his plate onto the table, and I can feel Kennedy cringe as the ceramic hits the stone. A chipped plate means an unmatched set, which will bother her more than a clean break. "Sorry, Ken," he says flatly as he pushes away from the table. Kennedy waves it off with a long sigh as Chase shakes his head at her and follows Ryan into the house.

Mila remains behind, smoking away. "I believe you about the postcards," she says. A lick of flame, a puff of smoke.

Kennedy smiles across the table at her like she's drowning and Mila's thrown her a life jacket. "Thank you." She shifts her weight almost imperceptibly away from me and toward Mila. "Can I have a drag?"

Mila lights her another clove instead and hands it to her. "I'm possessive," she says.

"That's hilarious." Kennedy dangles the cigarette near her lips. She doesn't actually smoke. She's flirting to punish me for not backing her up.

"I'm not being nice," Mila says. "Nice is a dangerous bluff." She takes another drag, tilts her head back, and watches the smoke spiral up toward the moon. "I just don't see what you would have to gain by lying."

"What would Ryan have to gain?" I sip the blood wine and stir the pesto around my plate. It's good. Too good. Kennedy is too good at everything.

"Well," she says. "He doesn't like you very much, does he?"

Kennedy's smile falters almost imperceptibly. She's not easily shaken.

"Of course he likes us," I say. "He's our friend."

"Not you." She laughs. "No. He wants to fuck you. He doesn't like Kennedy. He could be jealous." She wrinkles her forehead thoughtfully. "Or maybe it's more than that. Maybe he blames her for Emily's death. It was her house she died in. There's a lot he could blame her for, isn't there?"

"So what?" Kennedy's friendly veneer has rubbed off. "His grand revenge was inviting my best friends over to my house?"

Mila shrugs and bites her lip. "The invitation is never the revenge, Kennedy. The revenge is what you're invited to."

"So this house is the revenge?" She stares incredulously.

"Let's see how the weekend goes, shall we? I'll make up my mind then."