Tell him again! HURT him if you have to—better now than later!
Zoe put her phone down before it became obvious to everybody that she and Val were texting each other. Within a few minutes, she had kicked everyone out of the room as politely as she could. She asked Dallas to hang out a second so they could talk.
Once everyone had drifted away—Val had hugged Dallas good-bye, and not even ironically—Zoe sat up on the couch and fished around for words. The sun was dropping behind the mountains. The room was more shadow than light. Dallas stared at her glumly, knowing that he’d done something wrong, but not knowing what it was.
“I need to know the name of The Girl Who’s Gonna Say Yes,” said Zoe. “And I need to know when you’re gonna ask her out.”
“Why?” said Dallas nervously.
“Because I need to know it’s not me,” said Zoe.
“It’s not you,” said Dallas. “Stop it.”
“I hope not, dawg, because I swear to god I will not say yes,” said Zoe. “I am The Girl Who’s Never Gonna Say Yes. I mean, I think you’re awesome. You’ve totally grown on me—as a friend. However…”
Dallas was in misery. He would not look at her.
“Stop, stop, stop,” he said. “I don’t want the Friend Speech. It’s Mingyu, okay? I’m going to ask out Mingyu.”
Zoe was shocked.
“Mingyu from Spanish?” she said. “Mingyu the Satanist?”
“She’s not an actual Satanist,” said Dallas. “She’s just … complicated. And complicated’s good, right?” He looked up at Zoe. “I finally figured that out.”
Zoe beamed.
“Happy to help,” she said.
That night, after her friends had all gone, Zoe finally departed the couch, her muscles still aching. She was trudging around the kitchen like a wounded Civil War soldier when her mom offered to drop her off at the hot springs for a soak. They tried to coax Jonah into coming along for the ride. He refused and threatened to lock himself in his room if they asked again.
Jonah watched from the window as Zoe and her mom left. He’d never been alone in the house before.
The hot springs were so still and dark that the mountains seemed to have gobbled them up. After her mom dropped her off, Zoe let herself in, singing loudly and switching on every light she could find, including the strings of white Christmas lights that had yet to be taken down from the windows. The empty locker room spooked her slightly, thanks to a hundred high school horror movies. She changed quickly—her bathing suit was a black retro one-piece with a halter top that she’d spent too much money on and literally never worn—and then grabbed a towel and darted back into the hall. She had forgotten flip-flops. She tiptoed down the cold concrete corridor, avoiding the puddles that covered the floor like a chain of lakes.
Outdoors, the air was frigid. Zoe had forgotten how the cold took your breath away—how it electrified your skin even as you walked to the pool. Within seconds, her shoulders were shaking and her hands were in fists.
The water was shiny and dark. She stepped into it and crouched down low so it could spill over her shoulders. Her muscles relaxed, but her brain just wouldn’t. She didn’t like the way the mountains loomed over her in the dark. She felt stupid for having come alone.
Zoe turned onto her back, and paddled to the center of the pool. Her dad had taught her the names of all the constellations, but she’d forgotten most of them. So she gazed up, and—trying to distract herself—invented new ones. She named one cluster of stars the Candy of Banger and another, X’s Arms. After that, she closed her eyes and floated around peacefully, her legs and arms flung wide like the spokes of a wheel.
Then she began to feel that maybe she wasn’t alone.
She heard a hum that did not sound like the wind. She became weirdly conscious of the rustling of the trees. She thought about how she was miles from anywhere, how she was surrounded by black mountains, how she’d left her phone in the locker, how she didn’t even have a car. She kept her eyes closed, but couldn’t shake off the nervousness. It felt like someone dragging their fingernails up the side of her body.
When she finally opened her eyes, she was so surprised by what she saw that her heart began hammering. The water that she floated on—the water that held her up and splashed in tiny waves over her legs and arms—had turned orange and red.
It had begun to glow.
She pivoted toward the stream that fed the pool. It looked like a river of fire—and someone was rising out of it.
A man was coming toward Zoe. The water was streaming off him. She waited, barely breathing. She told herself that it had to be Banger.
It was X.
“You are such a show-off!” she shouted. “You scared the crap out of me!”
X didn’t answer until he reached her. It seemed to take forever. Finally, he knelt by the pool, his beautiful face emitting its usual pale light.
“I was so desperate for you I could not think clearly,” he said. “Might that serve as an apology?”