“I’m grabbing another blanket,” she says, standing up to make her way to the tent.
I know she’s embarrassed, seeing him like this. Maybe a little resentful that Trevor’s allowed to let loose and act like an idiot when she, apparently, isn’t. I look back just as Trevor finally gets to his feet and lifts the handle in the air, saluting us all. The bottle is alarmingly empty, only a few fingers of liquid left sloshing at the bottom, and he tries to take another swig but his aim is off, a rush of clear liquid missing his mouth and gushing down the front of his shirt.
“Fuck!” he yells, stumbling a bit as he pulls at the fabric, the sweet smell of coconut drifting toward us in the wind. A snort of laughter erupts somewhere to my right and I twist around, looking for the source.
It came from Levi, unmistakably, a look of pure amusement on his face watching Trevor embarrass himself in front of everyone like this.
“Is something funny?” Trevor asks, taking a step toward him. His face has morphed in a matter of seconds and I recognize the same look from Halloween that made my skin crawl: dangerous, predatory. His eyes wild and unrestrained.
“Butler,” he repeats when Levi doesn’t answer. “I said, is something funny?”
“No,” Levi says, shaking his head, downing the rest of his beer before reaching into a cooler and grabbing another. Everyone else seems to have stopped what they’re doing now, bodies still like statues. Afraid to move, afraid to breathe.
“Give me yours,” Trevor says suddenly, a challenge in his voice. We watch as he drops the bottle onto the sand and rips his shirt off before flinging it at Levi, his bare chest rippling in the shadows from the fire. The shirt lands in Levi’s lap with a wet flop and he takes a deep breath as he stares down at it, still unmoving. The glow from the flames illuminating his face, eyes stretching down into two long shadows.
“Butler, I said switch.”
“God, he’s an asshole,” Sloane mutters, and I look back at her now, the way she’s staring at Trevor with such disgust.
After a long stretch of silence, Levi places his beer on the ground with measured control and pulls his shirt off, throwing it over to Trevor. Even from here, I can see the trail of goose bumps erupt down his arms, his bare skin exposed to the cool night air. Or maybe it’s the humiliation, this public act of shame, his anger festering like an infection, trying to push its way to the surface. He just sits like that for a second, half naked, jaw clenched tight and eyes on the flames as Trevor pulls the clean shirt over his head and continues to glare.
Finally, Levi gives in, taking the wet wad of fabric off his lap and fanning it out before putting it on, that dribble of liquor still stained down the front.
“That’s what I thought,” Trevor murmurs, stalking off, and I can’t help but wonder why Levi let him do that. Why he let Trevor chew him out on the boat earlier, too. Maybe he’s conditioned after an entire semester of letting the other brothers walk all over him, older boys treating him like their own personal punching bag. Maybe he still feels like a pledge, only a few hours into the party that was supposed to set him free. Maybe he knew it wasn’t worth the fight, that Trevor’s wrath would be worse later if he turned him down.
Or maybe he’s trying to keep the peace for some reason, every interaction between them like Levi is walking on glass, never knowing when he might get cut.
The party reignites slowly, cautiously, people forcing themselves back to their conversations and their drinks, though everyone’s eyes are still darting furtively over to Levi as he sulks off to the side. There’s something dangerous about the way he grabs his beer from the sand and downs the rest of it before crushing the can in his grip, tossing it into the water. Reaching for another and cracking it open before downing that, too.
“I’ll be right back,” Lucy says, standing up and walking toward him. I watch as she plops down by his side, her hand on his leg like she’s trying to comfort him, and I start to look away, still uneasy watching the two of them together like that, when a flash of movement jerks my head back in their direction: Levi grabbing Lucy’s arm, hard, and flinging it away with a force that feels violent. Lucy hissing something under her breath before Levi snaps back, standing up with a look of revulsion on his face.
I watch as he stumbles off, bare feet clumsy as he makes his way toward the trees. Those brittle branches like a skeletal hand reaching out, curling its fingers; the silhouette of a single bird perched on the edge like an omen. Then Lucy stands up, too, brushes the sand from her legs as she turns to look at me.
A smile forming on her lips as she follows him into the dark.
CHAPTER 52
My head is pounding as I open my eyes, the brightness of the tent borderline blinding.
I blink a few times, my surroundings materializing slowly around me before I smack my lips, try to swallow. My throat feeling like sandpaper and my spit as thick as glue. It’s freezing in here, the early morning air still unthawed, and I reach my arm out to the side, instinctively looking for the familiar warmth of another person beside me only to find the second sleeping bag cold and empty and zipped up tight.
No one’s there.
I sit up fast, a pang of panic flaring in my chest. Memories of Eliza, my phantom limb, all those mornings I had woken up to that blissful, bleary second when my subconscious still believed she was alive. I remember now, with a startling clarity, that Lucy should be in here with me. We were supposed to be sharing a tent last night and I close my eyes again as quick bursts of memory explode in my mind like a strobe light, sharp and blinding: the fire, the dancing, the mounds of warm bodies passed out around the giant open flame. The moon in the sky like a large, open eye and the bottles of liquor being drained faster than what should have been possible. Danny and me on the driftwood, whispering those stories: Lucy and her boyfriend, that accident. Some big argument just before he died. Trevor stumbling around, screaming out orders.
Lucy and Levi and that strange confrontation, a simmering anger as he flung her arm off.
I don’t remember putting myself to bed and I fling the covers off now, looking down, realizing I’m still in my clothes from last night. Smears of dried mud caked to my pants; the cuffs of my jeans stiff with salt water. Sand and cold sweat flaking off my chest like a molting second skin.
I remember Levi leaving, Lucy following, that worm of rage writhing around in my stomach. Trying to drown it, kill it, by picking up the bottle and taking another drink.
A sense of claustrophobia comes washing over me and I suddenly, desperately, need to get off this island. It feels like those early memories with Eliza again—the two of us beneath that dock, surrounded on all sides; that bubble of damp air that got caught in my lungs and made it feel like we were sinking, drowning—and I stand up too fast in my tent, fighting the overwhelming sense of vertigo that rushes to my head before unzipping the opening and stepping outside. The island is buzzing with the kind of hungover energy that makes everything feel like it’s moving in slow motion: lethargic stretches and girls sipping instant coffee out of rustic enamel mugs. Splashing their faces with palmfuls of water, mascara smearing like a bruise beneath their eyes. The boys are lolling around in sweatshirts and basketball shorts, thick heads of hair sticking up at odd angles. A few of them attempting to scramble eggs above barely there flames.
I finally catch sight of Sloane and Nicole in the water, calf-deep and moving slow, and I amble over to them, my heart hammering in my chest.
“There she is,” Sloane says without turning to face me. Already, I don’t like the sound of that. “And how are we feeling this morning?”
“Like shit,” I say, rubbing my eyes. “I think I blacked out.”