“No, I’m stuck with Markos forever. Does this mean you’ll come?”
I glanced at my wall, where there was a picture of me and Win with our arms around each other. He was wearing a baseball uniform, and I had on the cap. She seemed happy—I mean I did. If I went to the bonfire, it would mean a whole night of pretending to be that girl, avoiding pointed questions or boozy reminiscences, hoping no one noticed my awkward walk or lack of memory. It wouldn’t bring me any closer to dancing again.
But it was that or another night of videos and self-recriminations and questions without answers. Another night of Diana changing. In my memory, we were the same as always. But in hers, we hadn’t had a movie night in a year. She didn’t feel the need to get my opinion on her hair. She’d brought in Kay to pick up my slack.
I only had a few more weeks left until I moved to New York—maybe I could go and pretend to be someone I wasn’t, just for her sake.
“All right,” I said.
Diana squealed and hugged me and dressed me and I left the safety of my room for a life I didn’t remember.
Diana picked me up for the bonfire. Ari was already in the front seat of Diana’s mother’s Impala. I’d seen them like clockwork the past couple months, just as the hekamist promised back in January. At least every three days, no matter what, I’d get a call or Diana would need a ride or I’d run into one of them at the grocery store. Sometimes I’d think there was no way the spell could come through, and this would be the day it fell apart, but always, without fail, it worked.
I helped it out as much as I could. I was available at all hours and on all days. I went by Ari’s work and Diana’s house and sent texts and emails, making it easy for them to respond, to invite me in. Without the spell, maybe they would’ve let my calls and emails linger. Maybe they wouldn’t call back at all.
This way, they always called back. Even if they didn’t always have something to say.
I’d been looking forward to the bonfire. I’d never been before. For years I didn’t even know it existed, and then when Mina left and I started paying attention, I was afraid to go by myself. Maybe showing up out of nowhere would be against the rules. It would be much better going with Ari and Diana, who were bonfire experts. Up until the day of the party I didn’t know if they would want to go, but I should’ve known better than to doubt the spell.
For a while I thought that Ari losing Win might help us. Not in a horrible way—I wasn’t glad that he died or anything like that. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. But I had thought that maybe his death would soften Ari, make her rethink her priorities and relationships, and make us closer friends. It would certainly give her more time for us.
That hadn’t happened. If anything, she’d gotten harder since Win’s death. Colder. Sometimes I felt like she wasn’t even there behind her eyes, and the Ari we saw was a placeholder.
“Thanks for the ride,” I said. They didn’t respond. “Ari, your shirt’s really cute.”
Ari shook herself, as if waking up from a nap. “Thanks.”
“So do you guys know where to go? Is it always in the same place? Where does everybody park?”
“You’ve really never been before?” Diana asked. “Were you living under a rock?”
I couldn’t tell from her tone if she was teasing in a nice way or a mean way. I turned to Ari to check, but she was staring out the window, gone again.
“I guess I was. Ha.” I fiddled with the seatbelt across my chest, which had twisted my shirt almost all the way around my body. Diana and Ari, as usual, looked gorgeous. “I like your hair, Di.”
Diana half turned in her seat—I thought to accept the compliment. “Diana,” she said.
“Sorry,” I said. “I like your hair, Diana.”
Diana kept driving and Ari looked out the window. This was the time when I would say something charming or thoughtful or witty and they would laugh, and we would be a trio. There had to be charmed words, somewhere, to make that happen. The spell had given me the opportunity to be in the car with these girls. Now all I had to do was take it and make it real.
When we pulled into the beach parking lot, Ari lingered in the car after Diana cut the engine.
“Sure about this?” she asked.
Diana nodded. “Go ahead. We’ll meet you down there.”
Ari took a deep breath and started to make her way carefully down the beach. Diana sighed, leaned back in her seat, and watched her.
“She seems . . . out of it,” I said.
“Yeah,” Diana said. “I thought this would be good for her but now I’m not so sure.”
“She’ll be all right. You’re doing everything you can.”
Diana ran a hand through her hair, recently dyed bright red. “I’m going to give her some space for a little while tonight. I don’t want to push too hard. Maybe you should, too.”
“Okay.”
“And maybe some space from me, too.”
“Oh . . . sure.”
“We don’t always have to do everything together.”