But she didn’t want to talk. Okay. I should be more like Ari. I should be able to handle this on my own.
“I think everyone misses Win,” Diana said. I pointed to the frolicking couples and she shook her head. “I think they do, inside. In their way.”
“I miss him,” I said.
“Of course you do.”
“Just because I’m not sobbing my guts out doesn’t mean I don’t miss him.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Wait,” I said.
I stopped walking, dug my heels into the sand. Diana stopped walking, too, and looked up into my face. I had the urge to be mean to her. Like, really mean. Her hopefulness and sensitivity were there, right in front of me, and if I wanted I could stomp her down until she understood what the rest of lobotomized horde didn’t: this was all pointless.
Maybe that was why I brought her out here after so many years of ignoring her. Maybe I could tell that it was within my power to make her feel as shitty as I felt all the time. It would be so fucking easy. As easy as kissing her would be. She had no defenses at all. I could be a bastard—laugh at her, as I’m pretty sure I’ve laughed at her before—or a dream come true, giving her a romantic memory to treasure forever. Well, not forever, since there’s no such thing. Till the end.
I sank onto the sand and Diana sat next to me. If she came any closer I would have had to choose—bastard or dreamboat—but she didn’t. She looked out at the dark ocean and waited.
I breathed in through my nose. My heart was beating like I’d run up the dune. I told myself to calm down, but the panic only got worse. The ground tilted like I was going to be thrown off the planet.
“We’ll be seniors soon,” I said. It was by far the stupidest thing I’d said all day, and if any of my brothers had heard it they would’ve laughed so hard they hurt themselves, but of course Diana didn’t make fun of me for it. She seemed to almost understand my need for stupid chatter, because she didn’t say Win’s name again.
We talked. About her hair and her cat and her babysitting job, things she cared about. About my brothers and the bonfire and the ocean, things I could see right in front of me. Every time she shifted in the sand my heart drilled again, but I never had to choose which person to be. I was not responsible for anything or anyone. I just was.
The bonfire roared in the middle of the crowd. It was a warm night, and the closer I got to the fire the hotter it got. Diana had put me in my jean jacket and I was sweating, but I didn’t take it off; I wrapped it tighter around my shoulders for protection. I may not have a memory of the day my parents died, but I still avoid fire.
Most people steered away from me. I tried to exude tortured brooding. I don’t know what I would’ve done if a big group had surrounded me, offering their reminiscences and sympathy, like they had at the funeral. I couldn’t take more lying. I wasn’t capable of it, and if I kept trying, someone would be bound to find out the truth.
She might’ve thought of this. Old Ari, that is. She knew there would be a bonfire. Yet another thing she didn’t bother taking into consideration.
I hated her.
I dug the toe of my sneaker into the sand and watched Diana make her way to the keg. I’d come to the party for her sake, but it didn’t look like she needed me at all. Maybe it would’ve been better if I’d stayed home and practiced dancing.
“Ari?” said a voice by my shoulder. I saw dark hair and a blinding smile and for a second I thought it was Markos, and my shoulders tensed, ready to start lying.
But it was Markos’s next-oldest brother, Cal, in front of me. “Hi, Cal,” I said, and tried to tell my shoulders to relax. They wouldn’t.
“It’s been forever,” he said. He had an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth and was playing with a metal zippo lighter with one hand, flipping it open and closed, lighting with a flick of his wrist. The other hand held a beer. “How are you?”
“I’m . . . fine.”
“Come on. Spill.”
I attempted to smile up at him. Cal was the nicest Waters brother. Brian was a know-it-all cop, Dev turned the family charm into sleaze, and Markos—well, he’s Markos. Cal was good-looking like the others, sure, but he was too uncoordinated to do well in sports, and his agreeable nature probably meant he’d have been bad at them anyway. He’d gone through a wild couple of years after his dad died, but that seemed to have gotten the rebellion out of his system.
But just because he was the least of four evils didn’t mean he was someone I wanted to get confessional with. “Dead boyfriend exemption. I’m allowed to submit half-truths to invasive questions.”
He laughed, and the cigarette fell out of his mouth. “That’s funny. I forgot you were funny.”
“Well . . . thanks.”
“And if you ever need anyone, let me know.”