She had convinced me it was safe, that we were safe. That we always would be.
“Do you think he saw us?” I whispered. There was something so intimate about that space: that little bubble of shared air and the wet wood smell and the way the algae-flecked water seemed to tint our skin, too, turning our faces a glowing emerald green. We were covered from all sides, the floating buoys that held up the dock encompassing us completely. Unless you were standing directly above us and happened to look down, you’d never even know we were there.
“I don’t know,” she said at last, water dripping off the tip of her nose. “I don’t think so.”
We listened in silence as his squeaking footsteps ambled closer until, eventually, the sound of wood turned to metal and we knew he was retreating down the ramp that led to the floating dock itself. The platform bobbed above us as his bare feet made contact and we both held our breath, watching. Waiting. The presence of him on top of us suffocating and strong. We felt him move to the edge of the dock next and that’s when I caught a glimpse of him from between the gaps: one hand pushed into his bathing suit pocket and the other holding a cigarette, the bare skin of his back a burnt-almond brown. He could clearly see our stuff up there—our damp towels and flip-flops and matching burlap beach bags; our phones folded into our jean shorts, an attempt to keep them cool and dry—but still, he didn’t seem to sense us. He didn’t look down.
Instead, he just stood there, staring straight into nothing. Claiming that spot like he would soon claim everything. Welcoming himself right into my life.
CHAPTER 11
“Margot?”
I watch as Levi’s once-familiar eyes dissect me from the top down, like my presence here must be some kind of mistake. He looks as surprised as I feel and I can’t help but dissect him right back, noticing how much he’s changed in the year since I’ve seen him. Those lanky legs that once carried him down the dock are muscular and toned now; his arms are wider, thicker, juicy blue veins bulging out of biceps that didn’t used to exist. His right hand is gripping a can of Natural Light so hard I can hear the aluminum crack and a newly ripened Adam’s apple juts out of this throat, bobbing when he swallows, pulling a spray of patchy stubble tight across his neck.
“So, you two are already acquainted,” Trevor says, nudging Levi with his shoulder. The insinuation makes me nauseous and I swallow it down, wincing at the taste.
“Why are you here?” I ask, even though it’s obvious. He’s here because he’s going here. He wouldn’t be at a fraternity, spending the weekend getting coaxed and courted, if he wasn’t planning on returning come fall.
“Why are you?” he counters.
“I live here.”
“So do I.”
“Is that a commitment?” Trevor whoops, but we both ignore him. I suppose we should have known this was inevitable, running into each other like this, but maybe I thought he would come to his senses and change his mind. Stay in the Outer Banks or go somewhere else entirely, far away from both me and the memory of her.
I look around, unable to escape her. Eliza is everywhere now, her absence between us so pronounced it’s impossible to see anything else. It’s like Levi brought the ghost of her into this very room with him: sitting on the couch with the bong in her lap, fingers around the mouthpiece and her eyes cast down. Blond hair hanging, obscuring her face, naturally comfortable the way I’m naturally not. She turns her head slowly and she’s staring at me now, a violent kink in her neck like a sharp right angle and a glare beneath those spider-leg lashes, the whites of her eyes a deep, bloodred.
She smiles at me, a curl to her lips as they hover above the glass, and I know she’s waiting to see how I’ll react, what I’ll say, like this is one big test she orchestrated herself. Plopping two rivals in a ring and watching as we fight to the death—for her.
“Listen, Margot—”
If it had all been different, I wonder if we still would have found ourselves here, together, like this. All three of us: Eliza, Levi, and me. I wonder if she would have befriended Lucy first, tucked me under her wing and let me tag along the way she always did.
I wonder if she would have been the fourth roommate, leaving me behind the way I left Maggie.
No. I shake my head. No, she wouldn’t.
I realize too late that everyone is looking at me now, a sea of craned necks, watching. Waiting for my rebuttal to whatever Levi just said. I had tuned it out, a hissing static ringing in my ears, and the room is tilting harder now, though I can’t tell if it’s from the beer or Levi or everything all at once, so I force myself to smile and turn toward Sloane.
“I should probably finish unpacking,” I say, facing Trevor next. “Thanks for the beer.”
“Margot, wait—” Levi says, but I turn around and walk out the door before he can finish. I vaguely wonder if he’ll run outside, too, chase me down and force me to talk—but, deep down, I know he won’t. Levi never really cared about me. I was nothing more than a gnat to him that hovered around Eliza: a pesky annoyance, something to be tolerated. A price to be paid in exchange for proximity to her. He never let me spoil his fun and I know this time will be no different. He’ll continue to do what he wants to do, take what he wants to take, batting me away or just ignoring me completely. Meanwhile, this was supposed to be my fresh start, a place to redefine myself, but now, with Levi here, I don’t see how that can happen. His presence alone is a reminder of the person I used to be, the person I lost when I lost Eliza—not only that, but I lost her because of him.
She wouldn’t have been where she was that night if he hadn’t brought her there. She wouldn’t have said what she said, did what she did, if he didn’t drive her to it.
If Levi Butler never came into our lives that day, invading our space as the two of us huddled beneath the dock, legs cramped and fingers pruned, Eliza would still be here, safe, with me.
Eliza would still be alive.
CHAPTER 12
I slam into my bedroom after making my way across the Kappa Nu backyard, through the shed and into the house, stalking past Nicole on the couch without uttering a single word. I’m hanging my head and massaging my temples—trying to think, to organize my thoughts—when I realize there’s someone already in here, a body hovering next to my bed.
“Jesus.” I jump, my hand shooting to my chest once I register her there. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“Hi,” Lucy says, smiling like that day in the dorm. Like there’s nothing unusual about her being here, in my bedroom, without my permission.
“What are you doing?” I ask, though I regret it the second I say it. This is her house, after all. My room for just a few hours and my boxes barely unpacked.
“I left something in here,” she says, even though her hands are empty. “Who’s this?”
She points to the picture of Eliza and me on the mantel, the only decoration I’ve managed to put up, and I walk over to it, our tanned bodies tangled together on the dock mere feet from the spot Levi Butler once stood. Even now, after all this time, I can still feel the claustrophobic weight of him as we held our breath below; I can still register the hammering of my heart, the nervous energy generated from his presence alone.
“That’s my best friend,” I say at last. “Eliza.”
“If she’s your best friend, how come she’s never visited?”
I look at Lucy, eyebrows bunched, wondering what she could possibly mean by that. I haven’t even lived here a day. How could she have already visited?
“I would have noticed her in the dorm,” she clarifies. “She’s pretty.”