“Right. Go. Barn. We have vodka in the barn. We’re out of champagne, though. We drank it all that night. Didn’t mean to.”
I am swaying from the memories. Dewey hitting me Janie sobbing fire burning. Drink, drink to forget.
“No, not the barn, we’re fucking going home—”
But I’m stumbling toward the barn already, Old Eell’s where there are ghosts. Ghosts. Janie’s ghost? Maybe.
Maybe we drank here too much. We had a stash in the winter to keep warm. And in the summer, to stay hot. That’s what she said, anyway.
“Micah, will you just hold on—”
I push the barn doors open and almost fall over. I see the blurry shape of the boat and remember the treasure hunt, remember how easy that was. How she was waiting. How I always expected her to be waiting. Needed her to be waiting.
“Micah, please—”
“Back here,” I say, stumbling in the dark to the rusty tractor. It’s dark; I lose my balance and then my footing. It doesn’t hurt. Something is poking into my elbow. Dewey stops next to me and uses his phone screen to shed a bit of light on us and I see I see
Matches and Skarpies and rocks. Rocks, but only a few.
“What the hell is this?” Dewey asks. He crouches down and starts sifting through the papers, squinting. “What the fuck? Hey, Micah, look. Plane tickets.”
“What?”
He opens a brochure. “Cool. Look at this. You want to go to Nepal?”
He understands faster than I do. He snaps it closed and shoves it out of sight, and glances at me with his mouth tight. I sway on my feet.
Tickets to Nepal.
Janie is in Nepal.
But
but if the plane tickets are here
then
she’s not.
And if she’s not in Nepal, then
then
I scramble for the rocks. I yell for Dewey to turn on his fucking flashlight app, and the light is sudden and burning but when the stinging stops and I blink the water away, I see it.
Black against the other ones, smeared by her fingers.
Fear no more.
I can’t claim to know Janie Vivian. I don’t know if our souls are connected. But I do know this: she would never go anywhere without this rock in her pocket.
“Micah.” Dewey’s voice finally reaches me, frantic. “Micah, man, can you hear me? Oh, shit. Oh, goddamn, shit goddamn—okay, it’s fine. I’m taking you home.”
I reach up and clutch his collar, and try to say his name. My lips are slow. “Fuck,” I say. “Oh god. Wait. Dewey, wait. I remember. I think I remember.”
He doesn’t listen, or he doesn’t understand. I can feel his body heat and his breath. No one has been this close to me since Janie, that night.
Janie in my arms, hot breath and fingers clutching, lips on mine.
“Oh, Micah.” Her voice is everywhere, that night, tonight, every night. Forget. Forget. “Forget everything. Burn it all.”
“Shit, you weigh a ton. Okay. Fuck you, fuck this. Fuck this. Stay here.”
I don’t know how long it takes me to realize that I’m alone.
before
OCTOBER 10
“No, we always play Never Have I Ever,” I whine. My head is in Ander’s lap and they’re all here on the floor in the basement of the house I fucking hate but that’s finally good for something, Piper and Wes and Jasper (who they all call Big Jizz because he spilled milk on his lap in, like, middle school) and Gonzalo and Jude. Happy happy happy birthday to me. “I’m out of Never Have I Evers.”
Ander’s hands are wrist deep in my hair, and his fingers play with it like it’s water. “What, then?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I say. “Something fun.”
“Never Have I Ever,” Piper insists, and we all ignore her.
“We could play beer pong again,” says Big Jizz.
“We’re not playing beer pong again,” I say, and my tongue feels fuzzy. I am spectacularly bad at beer pong. “Oh, Flubber! Let’s play Flubber! Wes, get the cards.”
“What the hell kind of a game is called Flubber?” asks Gonzalo.
“FUBAR,” Ander explains. “Janie doesn’t like that, so she calls it Flubber.”
“Flubber is such a cute word,” I say, and giggle, and can’t stop giggling. Flubber, flubber.
“It’s a good thing you’re pretty,” Wes says, coming back with another bottle of vodka and the deck of cards, which he rains down on my face. He drops down by Piper and takes a swig of Keystone Light, and I roll out of Ander’s lap and pull the cards across the carpet to me as he explains: one shot for an ace, two for two. Pick three people to drink for three. Answer a question for four. Five for five. Six, everyone drinks. Seven, a round of Never Have I Ever. Eight, everyone drinks. Nine, rhyme, loser drinks. Ten, everyone drinks. Jack, guys drink; queen, girls drink. And king, what do we do for king?
“Waterfall,” I say. Trip, stumble, bubble, burp. “Dealer drinks and then the next person drinks and the next person drinks and you drink until you can’t drink anymore. Like chicken but more fun.”
“It’s a stupid game,” Jude says, but he takes the deck from me to deal. “All right, let’s go. Jizz and I gotta head out after this. My parents are getting back from Des Moines tonight.”