Saving June (10 page)

I watch them as they run and dance and sing in the same way that little kids do, carefree and not at all self-conscious. Like you do before you’re old enough to worry about how dumb you’ll look to anyone else. I wish I could be like them. Able to let go that way. But instead I’m the girl who sits on the sidelines, unable to feel anything but anger, my heart all hollowed out, my insides closed off, iced over.

Listening to Jake, though…I’m thawing. A little. Not enough to get me to dance—seriously, that’ll never happen—but enough to enjoy it. The dancing, the fire, the moon. His song.

Even though everyone else is singing, too, Jake’s voice carries the loudest. I catch his eye across the circle, and his grin spreads wider across his face. I smile back, ignoring the stink-eye I know Gwen is giving me without even looking her way. My attention turns to the loop of crazy teenagers romping around the fire pit, wild and untamed in the flickering firelight, like gypsies.

They all burst into spontaneous applause as soon as Jake strums the last chord. I clap my hands, too, as Jake just smiles and slips off the guitar. This is the first time I’ve ever seen him look downright sheepish.

“That was great,” gushes Anna, after they’ve all calmed down enough to take their places around the fire again. “Seriously, Jake, you should—”

“A road trip, huh?” Gwen cuts in, raising her eyebrows at Jake. “Why California?”

So she doesn’t know. Who did Jake tell? Anyone? I don’t think he’d be that stupid, but then, I don’t really know him, do I?

Before Jake can whip up an answer, Danny says, “You should go to L.A. Track down Paris Hilton. Throw a can of paint on her or something.”

“You know, we’re driving down to Chicago tomorrow to meet Devon. There’s this huge antiwar demonstration at Union Park.” Seth tucks his chin over Laney’s shoulder, and she leans back into him. It’s so weird to me how comfortable she can be with someone she’s known for less than three hours. “Why don’t you guys drive down with us?”

“Jay doesn’t
do
protests,” Gwen cuts in. Her tone is so icy I’m pretty sure the air temperature actually drops a few degrees when she opens her mouth. “Not anymore.”

What is that supposed to mean? Jake’s face reveals nothing. As usual.

Laney clasps her hands together. “We should totally go!” She looks over at me and does her best pout, the one she reserves for conning people into getting whatever she wants. It usually works, too. “Can we, Harper?”

“Um, I guess.” I glance at Jake to see his mouth turned down. “I mean, Jake’s the one driving, so—”

He shrugs. “I’m okay with it. It’s just—you should know
this isn’t a let’s-hold-hands-and-sing-kumbaya kind of deal. It can get…intense.”

I can’t believe it. Here’s another person treating me like a little kid, like I’m too fragile to deal with anything. I’m not a child.

“I can handle myself.” I stand up and snatch the bottle out of Gwen’s hands. “Give me that.”

I unscrew the top, take a long swig and promptly gag. Whatever is in the bottle is vile. I choke as I swallow it down, trying desperately not to spew, despite the fact that my throat is basically on fire.

“What is this?” I cough and squint at the bottle’s label.

“Uh, tequila?” Gwen says, like it should be obvious.

“It tastes like lighter fluid.” I grimace, but that doesn’t stop me from taking another long pull, and then another. Still disgusting, but by the fourth drink, it goes down a little easier. What the hell. You only live once.

As I’m working on my fifth, Laney steals the bottle from my hands, laughing, and says, “Didn’t you ever learn how to share?”

“We should go swimming,” Anna says, out of the blue, and then hiccups. She slaps a hand over her mouth, smothering a giggle.

Danny looks at her like she just suggested knocking over the closest liquor store. Which wouldn’t be such a bad idea, on second thought, considering how fast Laney, Seth and
Anna are working through the tequila bottle. “Uh, sure, if catching pneumonia’s your idea of a fun time. I don’t want to freeze my balls off. I’m rather attached to them. Literally
and
figuratively.”

Laney springs to her feet. “I’m game!” Of course she is.

“You don’t have a suit,” I remind her. Why do my words sound funny? Oh, okay. Maybe I
am
a little tipsy. I can’t feel my toes.

“So?” She directs a coy grin at Seth. “I don’t need one.”

“A bunch of drunk kids skinny-dipping in the middle of the night. That’ll end well,” Jake comments with an eye roll, but Laney, Anna and Seth don’t hear, or don’t care, as they’re already racing to the beach, peeling off their clothes as they run.

“They can be so juvenile.” Gwen scowls. “I’m going to go inside and work on my project.”

“Is this the one with the high heels?” Danny asks. He looks over at us from underneath his artfully arranged fringe. “She created this papier-mâché Jesus—except it’s Jesus as a woman—and there are high heels instead of nails through the hands. And there’s a tampon stuffed in Jesus’s mouth.” He shakes his head. “That is some fucked-up shit right there.”

“It’s supposed to represent the oppression women face due to traditionally gendered beauty standards driven into
us by the patriarchy,” Gwen says defensively. “I don’t know why I bother trying to explain these things to you. Are you coming in or not?”

“Like I’d go swimming?” Danny scoffs. “Lake water is killer on my hair.”

As the two of them trudge back to the house, Jake pats the pockets of his leather jacket. “I’m going for a smoke,” he says.

“Like I care,” I shoot back, but by the time the words come out, he’s already out of earshot. My reaction time? Not so stellar at the moment.

I hear the sound of splashing and shrieking as Anna, Seth and Laney plunge into the water. I’m not
that
wasted, seeing as I have no desire to follow—it’s either that, or else no amount of alcohol can lure me into unleashing my inner exhibitionist, apparently. I slip off my flip-flops and walk down the beach by myself, padding barefoot over soft and cool sand.

A ways down, I stop, roll up my jeans over my knees and wade into the water. It’s cold—cold enough to make my feet go numb after only a few minutes. I don’t care, though, because the alcohol makes me feel warm and loose and heavy, and I’m too absorbed in looking over the lake to focus on the cold. The light from the pinprick stars glimmers off of the glassy water, the moon a bright sliver in the black sky. I’m far enough down shore that the laughter of the swimmers is just a faded echo.

I push out farther, the waves lapping up and breaking over my waist, soaking my jeans. I skim my fingertips over the water’s surface, trail them lightly back and forth. Everything out here is still and silent. Nothing, it seems, could break the veil of peacefulness.

“Harper? Harper!”

Except that.

Slowly I turn around, the wet sandy mud squishing between my toes as I do. Jake is up on the dry sand, out of breath, his expression a cross between anger and confusion.

“You’ve been out here half an hour! I thought you pulled a Jeff Buckley on me. Which—while I would appreciate the extra room in the van—is not something I want to explain to your mother.” He stops to catch his breath, his brow furrowed with confusion. “What are you even doing?”

I try to think of how to explain. “The lake—it’s…it’s
big.”

Jake looks like he’s leaning more toward annoyed now. “Uh…so?”

“I mean…” It’s difficult to articulate when my tongue feels too thick for my mouth. But I’m desperate to explain, how insignificant I feel in comparison to the lake, to the sky, to the world. “Look at it. I’m
nothing.
It’s so much bigger, bigger than me, bigger than my thoughts and my…my…

Pain, is the word I’m going for, but the line of connection from my brain to my mouth appears to have short-circuited. That’s probably for the best. Regardless, Jake seems to get it, because he laughs a little and runs a hand through his hair, making it stick up messily.

“Well, aren’t you Mommy’s Little Existentialist,” he says wryly. The tension releases from his shoulders as he blows out a long breath, like he’s been holding it for a long time. “Come on, let’s go before you start quoting Sartre. If that happens, I can’t be held responsible for my actions.”

As I come out of the water, I step on a sharp-edged rock that sends me staggering dangerously to my left. Jake rushes forward and catches an arm around my waist before I lose my balance.

“Easy, tiger,” he says, slinging my arm over his shoulder.

I lean into him, and my face momentarily rolls against his neck. He smells woodsy, like smoke and leather. Probably the jacket, I figure. “Do you believe in God?”

His arm around my waist stiffens. “That’s…random.”

“No, it’s just—what do you have against Sartre? You think the world has
meaning?
That everything happens for a
reason?
“ I’m yelling without really intending to. “Because, news flash, Tolan,
it doesn’t.”

“Okay,
now
you’re just being a nihilist.”

I’m not a nihilist. I’m not really anything, I don’t think. I don’t know what I believe anymore. If God does exist,
then He’s just an asshole, creating this world full of human suffering and letting all these terrible things happen to good people, and sitting there and doing nothing about it. At June’s memorial service, a few people came up to me and said some really stupid things, like how everything happens for a reason, and God never gives us more than we can handle. All I could think was, does that mean if I was a weaker person, this never would’ve happened? Am I seriously supposed to buy that June’s death was part of some stupid divine plan? I don’t believe that. I can’t. It just doesn’t make sense.

We keep walking, and I look at Jake for so long that I almost trip before realizing we’ve reached the stairs. When we get to the top, I drag my feet, forcing him to slow down, and say, “Seriously, do you? Believe in God, I mean.”

A long pause. “You really wanna know?”

“Don’t say that. I hate when people say that. Of course I want to know. That’s why I asked.”

Jake pauses for a bit, considering, and then says, “Sometimes people think they want to know things, but then they hear the answer and realize they’d prefer to be in the dark.”

Vagueness is such an annoying trait. I’m adding it to the ever-expanding list of things that annoy me about him.

He shrugs. “Anyway. No. I don’t. I don’t think the world is meaningless, but if there was ever a God, He’s dead now. More dead than hip-hop.”

I think of Laney’s music tastes, all of the rap she’s made me listen to, like the Roots and Mos Def and that Sri Lankan chick who likes to freestyle about third world countries shooting up rich people.

“Hip-hop is not dead!” I protest. “Don’t speak of that which you do not know.”

“Whatever,” Jake says, and I roll my eyes. He looks at me again. “And what about you?”

“You really wanna know?” I mimic his earlier tone, trying not to stumble again. Balance is a really difficult concept to master at the moment. “I don’t know. Maybe. Probably not. Lately all signs seem to point to no.”

I hold out my hands in front of me in two L shapes, like I’m framing an actual sign. The sign that says God Is Dead.

“I have this rule—” he pauses, fumbling with the knob to the house and pushing the door open, all the while holding me up with his other arm “—of not getting into philosophical debates when one party is sober and the other isn’t.”

“Well, then you should’ve gotten drunk. Tequila is good. I mean, it’s revolting, but it’s good. Sort of. Does that make sense?”

“Absolutely none,” he says. “And I don’t drink. Not anymore.”

Not anymore? Interesting. So far I’ve learned that Jake has recently given up a lot of things. Pot smoking, political
activism and now alcohol. I’m about to ask him why when I notice Laney on the couch—not alone. Very much not alone. She’s on top of Seth, the two of them rolling around as they make out eagerly, practically eating each other’s faces off in the process.

“Fuck me.” Jake kicks the door shut behind him and sighs. “I do not need to be privy to this.”

Laney and Seth stop devouring each other long enough to flip us off simultaneously before resuming their face-eating activities. I’m scandalized just watching them go at it, all ravenous mouths and roaming hands.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” I say.

“Tell me about it,” Jake replies sympathetically.

My stomach turns. “No. I mean,
I think I’m going to be sick.”

Jake’s face pales, and he rushes me into the bathroom with impressive speed. The next thing I know, I’m on my knees, bent over the toilet with him holding my hair back as I empty out the contents of my stomach. Which aren’t much to begin with: tequila, tequila and more tequila. Lovely.

I retch into the toilet one last time and, exhausted, slump against the seat. From there I slide bonelessly to the linoleum, my cheek flat against cool, soothing tile. My throat burns. I want to push myself back up, but my hand refuses to move.

Stupid hand. Stupid world.

“Yes, the world
is
stupid,” Jake agrees with a soft laugh.

I don’t even realize I’ve said anything out loud. That means despite my current drunken, post-heaving state, I’m still able to formulate syllables into recognizable words—go, Team Me! On the other hand, I’m doing that thing again, thinking something and saying it out loud without realizing it. Where is my filter?

Suddenly the walls move, the cool, comforting floor sliding away from me. Wait. That isn’t right. Jake has grabbed me by the back of my shirt and hauled me into a sitting position, the sudden movement causing the whole room to spin in a nauseating blur of beige and white. When my gaze focuses again, I see Jake at the sink, wetting down a washcloth under the faucet.

The world
is
stupid, stupid and unfair. I can’t help but think that June would never have ended up with her head stuck in the toilet after a stupid bender. Or if she had, she would’ve been much more graceful about the whole thing than I am. That’s just the way she always was. She was always better.