“Go ahead. Take a guess. When did we meet?”
Nothing. There was nothing to remember. You couldn’t focus in and piece things together when there was nothing there to piece. “We were on the beach,” I hazarded. “We were hanging out near here.”
“Lucky guess. Doing what?”
“Hanging out. Just . . . hanging out.”
Her hand rose to touch her mouth; she swallowed. “Nice try.”
“You must not have made a big impression.”
“I need that money, Ari.”
“You can’t prove—”
“I’m not the one who has to prove anything.” She gestured at the bonfire. “Want me to call over some people, see if your memory works then?”
Wood snapped in the bonfire. One of Markos’s brothers tossed on fresh fuel. If I had seen Diana out there maybe I would’ve thought of a way out of this. Figured a way to convince Echo I was whole, normal, unblackmailable. Maybe if Diana had been with me I wouldn’t have given up so easily.
Only Echo was right, of course. I didn’t remember Win.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“You’re—what?”
“I don’t have any more money. It all went to the spell.”
She seemed shaken for a moment, hands grasping together. “No.”
“I’m sorry I can’t—”
“Stop saying that!” Her uncertainty vanished, replaced by the now-familiar glower. “You can get the money. Put some effort into it. If Win came up with the money, you can too.” She nodded, as if this made perfect practical sense. “I’ll give you two weeks, Ari. Five thousand dollars.”
I nodded back, because there was nothing else I could do, and Echo stepped away. As she got farther away, the party noises seemed to get louder around me, people having fun, going on with their ordinary lives.
Mine had just gotten complicated. More than I could pretend away.
I needed to get out of here. Out of this bonfire. Off of this island. Whatever I was feeling—guilt and fear and confusion and worry, plus the ever-present regret of getting the stupid spell in the first place—it was bigger than this bonfire, bigger than Cape Cod.
Diana could help. I’d tell her the truth and we’d figure out a way through it together. I couldn’t be blackmailed if I told people the truth myself.
I tried not to trip in the sand as I ran in search of my best friend.
I would’ve stayed with Diana, talking, avoiding my brothers, but Ari came and found us—found Diana, that is. She wasn’t looking for me. She said hello and pulled Diana away, and I knew I had no right to complain, so I stayed sitting in the sand.
“Let’s get out of here,” Ari said, linking her arm with Diana’s. “Let’s drive to Boston and get tattoos.”
“Really?” Diana said.
“No, tattoos are too expensive. Let’s go to New York and dance in the Lincoln Center fountain.”
Diana laughed as if something heavy had been lifted from her shoulders. She glanced at me for a second—with regret, maybe, or disappointment—but she was already following Ari up the dune.
I didn’t watch her go.
What was there to regret? All we’d done was talk.
I watched the crowd as if it were alive, expanding and contracting like a heart. Then I heard a scream. Before I knew I was doing it, I was standing and running to her.
Diana had tripped and fallen and bashed one side of her face on a cooler so badly it formed an immediate bruise, visible even in the dim light of the bonfire.
She started crying. Ari stood next to her, just looking, stricken.
Somehow my arm wrapped around Diana’s shoulder, all tangled up in her long hair, as I kneeled next to her in the sand. I comforted her.
“It’ll be okay. Shhh, it’s not so bad. That dumbass needs to move his shit, I’m going to kill him. Shhh, shhh. It’s okay.”
I kneeled next to her, touching her but only to comfort and not because I wanted something, and maybe that meant I was the fakest faker out of all the fakers at this party, in this town, in the world: I was pretending to be someone who gave a shit.
I never thought I’d need to go to a hekamist. I’d heard of people getting spells for looks or luck or brains, but if you ask for those things, you must believe you don’t have any to begin with. I wasn’t ugly or dumb or unlucky at all. I was Win Tillman. Varsity shortstop. Boyfriend of the prettiest girl in school. Good grades. Good skin. Good all around. Other people went to hekamists. Not me.
I mean, Ari had her spell, of course, but she didn’t choose to get it, and she was so young and it was such a long time ago that it wasn’t the same. (For the record I would’ve gotten a spell to erase the sight of my house burning down with my parents inside, too. It’s not something anyone needs in their brain.)
On one side, there were the spelltakers: kind of silly, kind of sad. On the other side, there was me.