“It doesn’t,” I say.
“You’re my best friend, Mike. The best friend I’ve ever had. You’ve never judged me, you’ve taken every weird thing I’ve thrown your way completely in stride, you never ask for much in return even when I’m dying to give it. You didn’t even let your mom and my dad get in the way of us being friends.”
“I wouldn’t have let this get in the way. I wouldn’t have been hurt. I’d have been happy for you.”
“You hate Nathan.”
“Because of Henna’s stomach feeling for him–” I stop. “She knows, doesn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“Does everyone?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
“Mike–”
“No. No, I, um…”
I don’t know what to say. Because this is what hurts me.
Henna’s on the couch when we make our way back to the cabin. I walk ahead of Jared, not looking back. He and Nathan will share the other bedroom, I guess, though I doubt anything will happen.
Jared’s never going to be the guy who takes advantage of a drunk person.
“Night,” he says when we get back inside.
“Night,” I say. After a beat, he goes into one of the bedrooms.
“Hey,” Henna says from the couch. When I don’t answer, she sits up. “You okay?”
“I don’t think I am.”
She opens her arms. I lay down next to her, and she holds me. It’s the closest we’ve ever been, but all I want her to do is just hold me.
CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH, in which Satchel escapes the ceremony in the nick of time, aided by the sudden appearance of second indie kid Finn, who she realizes is the only one who truly cares about her; they run, but the process of the Immortals taking over the world has begun; then Satchel, through only her own cleverness, figures out how to close a fissure using the amulet; but there are so many, all over town, will she be able to close them all before the Immortals take over completely?; as they rush to close a fissure in Satchel’s own house, Dylan the Messenger steps through; Satchel and second indie kid Finn are forced to kill him; she weeps, Finn holds her.
Back when I first went to the hospital on the night of the accident, Steve gave me this oil to put on my scar to keep it from stretching and getting bigger. I often get caught in a loop with it, rubbing it in, wiping it off, rubbing it in, wiping it off, until I’m sure I’m doing far more stretching damage to the scar than would have ever happened by just normally using my face.
But this time I actually stop myself. I rub it in and leave it. I wait to see how that feels. But no, I’m not trapped. I can see the trap. I can see it waiting for me to step into, if I want, see the spiral just there, ahead of me, waiting. But I can also wash my hands and dry them and leave the little bathroom at the cabin.
The medication must be working, because that’s what I do, after taking one last long look at my scar.
“I’m sorry,” Mel says.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say.
“I wanted him to tell you. He kept saying he would–”
“It’s fine. There’s nothing to talk about.”
I go to the dock, strip to my underpants and jump in the lake again. The sun’s up. It’s morning. The water ’s still ridiculously cold. I go down deep and just hover there. Rays of sun stab down at me through the surface. They don’t make me any warmer.
Henna filled me in on some of the details. Nathan hung around outside Grillers to meet Jared on his breaks. Nathan was in the Field that night because he met Jared there after a fight with his mother.