“What clinic?”
Evie’s mind narrowed in on the sign beside the door. She read it aloud: “The Cold Water Center for Mental Health.”
Sunny scoffed. “Oh, I see—you think I’m crazy because you saw me coming out of a mental health clinic. Stellar detection, Sherlock.”
Evie said nothing. It had made perfect sense before, two and two together, but now that Sunny was challenging her, she wasn’t so sure.
Sunny stepped closer. Evie shrunk into herself and squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for her to strike…
And Sunny hissed very quietly, “I have an eating disorder, you dumbass. I go there for counseling. You know—to stay alive?”
Evie wrapped her head around those words. Sunny was so skinny, she had nothing but bones in her clothes. Ribs and hips. She was like a wire hanger, just a collarbone with nothing underneath it. Evie had always been jealous of her—she made thin look so effortless. “Oh my god,” she said, blinking. “I thought it was ’cause you’re Asian.”
“What?” Sunny blurted.
“You being skinny,” Evie said. “I thought it was ’cause you’re Korean.”
“Jesus Christ, Evie,” Sunny said, rolling her eyes. “Am I, like, the only Asian person you know? Not all of us are skinny, okay? And anyway, it’s not even about my weight. It’s about my fucking parents never being happy. It’s about me not being a golden child like my stupid brother. So I go to a mental health clinic instead of bingeing on cheeseburgers and puking my fucking guts out till I’m dead.”
The girls looked at each other. Evie wasn’t sure they’d ever talked to each other like this. Honestly. How could they be the only girls in the group and not even really be friends, not even know each other? Evie almost said, I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry. But she didn’t speak.
After a moment Sunny said, “Are you really, for real pregnant?”
Evie couldn’t answer. All she saw was Shaun, that night, his grin—
“God, he is such a liar!” Sunny said, looking at the sky and almost laughing.
The picture of Shaun skewered. “Who?” Evie said, confused. Her eyes tried to catch Sunny’s shape, slippery in the dark. And then she understood. “Sunny—it’s not Réal’s baby.”
Sunny’s shape fell still again. She said nothing for a second, and then the pieces clicked together. “Oh my god. It’s Shaun’s?”
“Of course it’s Shaun’s!” Evie said. Guilt tapped at her chest. Shaun’s face by the fire, all that blood in his hair. Nausea crept up her throat.
“Oh…shit,” said Sunny.
“Ré was just trying to help is all,” Evie slurred, feeling so, so tired now. She wanted to just sit down for a minute, maybe take a little nap. She flapped a hand at Sunny. “If you want him so bad, just take him.”
Sunny laughed under her breath, and then she sighed. “Ev, I don’t want Ré,” she said quietly. “And I’m not using Alex. I just love them, okay? Both of them. They’re my best friends. I can’t help it.”
Evie nodded. She understood. She really did. But she was just so tired. “Okay,” she said. “That’s okay, Sunny.” She couldn’t really tell if she was saying things out loud anymore, or if they were making any sense. “My drink…” she managed, swirling her finger to draw the mouth of a cup.
Then she turned and stumbled farther down the hill.
“Ev?” Sunny called after her. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
Evie waved a rubbery arm at her. “Okay,” she repeated. “It’s okay.”
But it wasn’t okay. Sunny’s words were like razor blades in her chest. Of course she loved Ré. Of course she loved Alex. She’d probably loved Shaun too. And they all loved her, obviously. The four of them had known each other for a long time.
Evie was the outsider. The fake.
I’m nobody, she thought. I’m nothing. Just some dumb girl King Shaun had picked to keep from being alone. A poison apple.
Well, look where that got him.
She reached the edge of the tree line, lawn dissolving into mulch beneath her feet, and the dark limbs of the woods gathered her in.
30
E
Evie stepped between the trees, sliding her hand along their rough trunks, feeling her way by their skins. She felt like she was floating outside of her body, looking down from above. An outsider, even to herself. Whatever was in that drink was strong, and the farther she got from the party, the more detached she felt.
She was dreaming.
She dreamed.
She dreams…
“I wondered where you got to,” he says.
She smiles, turning. It’s Ré’s voice. Sweet.
No. Darker than that, lower.
Shaun’s.
A hand closes on her wrist. Pulls her into a cloud of alcohol, boy sweat, hot, damp breath. “How you feeling now?” he says. Laughter, deep and muddy and mean. Hair in her mouth as he tries to kiss her. She turns away, spitting.
“Come on, don’t be like that.” He pulls at her again. “We’re gonna have fun, I promise.”
She stumbles, falls against his chest, pictures, pictures, like a deck of cards, flipppppp, together then cut, sharp. Shaun, that night. Crashing over her. “No!” she says, shoving back.
He grabs her other wrist, twisting hard. “Come on,” he says. “Just be good. I’ll go easy.”
“Stop it!” she cries, drifting out of herself.
Shaun lunges, pushes her to the dirty ground. She kicks away, but he catches her, pulling her ankle hard toward him. “Shaun, stop!”
He kneels between her legs, one hand pushing her head into the dirt, the other hand sliding under her shorts. “Shaun…please…” Her plea muffled against his palm.
That night. He’d said, “It’s my baby, too, Ev.” And he wasn’t stopping. He’d come up those stairs, sweating and drunk and mad as hell, skateboard in one hand, a bottle in the other. He’d thrown the board down by that hole in the wall at the Grains and smacked her so hard her skull had bounced off the doorframe. “It’s mine too!” he’d shouted. “You can’t do this.”
He’d got her out of bed for this. Worked up his rage downstairs, skating and drinking, and then he’d heaved it all up here like
