The Cost of All Things (8 page)

Win died and everyone around me got simultaneous lobotomies. No, that wasn’t right. What happened was this: Win died and I became the only person in this entire town whose congenital lobotomy spontaneously reversed itself. I could see everything they couldn’t. Win dying opened my eyes.

Or maybe that’s not exactly it, either. It sounds like some hippie shit. Here’s what probably happened: Win died and I was the only person who cared enough to know what the hell that meant.

Win was dead. See, I could say it right out loud. Dead. I no longer had a best friend and never would again. You couldn’t be best friends except with someone who knew you forever, since before you could remember.

My mother talked loudly and fed me. My brothers punched my arm and stared into the middle distance. Even Ari—we didn’t avoid each other, but we didn’t hang out or talk, either, not since the funeral when she made it clear she wasn’t interested in
commiseration. Fine. Good. She had the right idea. It hurt to look at her, anyway.

Here was what it meant, Win’s death: It meant that the world was unfair. The wrong guys came out on top. Nothing anyone did mattered because eventually we all came to the same end. What was the point of loving or being loved or any of that shit when death was so absolutely permanent?

I hung out by the keg at the bonfire and watched them all laughing, everyone I knew, everyone Win and I used to call friends. If you’d asked them, they would’ve said they were sad about Win. But it sure didn’t seem that way from where I was standing.

My brothers kept the party going, Brian turning a blind eye to the underage drinking, Dev starting games of tackle football in the dark, Cal smiling and glad-handing from group to group. They had a crowd of people around them at all times. They made everyone laugh. For them it seemed effortless to be a Waters, to be the guys who threw the party, who knew everyone, who had no worries.

Brian came up to me first, stepping away from a trio of girls. If he saw the look I was giving him—a very special get-the-fuck-away-from-me glare—he pretended like he didn’t. “Little bro,” he said, swinging a heavy arm around my neck. “In my professional opinion, it does not look like you’re having the time of your life.”

“Maybe I’m not.”

He went on as if he didn’t hear me. “In my professional opinion,” he repeated, “you’re sulking.”

“What profession are you talking about? Law enforcement?”

“Being an older brother is my profession.”

I ducked out of his arm. “Can I talk to your manager, then?”

He frowned, which clearly pained him—Waters boys didn’t frown at parties. “I know you’re upset. But you’ll be fine if you just relax, okay? And if you’re not up for it, you can always go home. Skip the party this year. I’ll drive you, just let me know.”

Kicked out of my own party by my brothers. No way.

I turned my back on Brian and saw Diana North, Ari’s best friend, staring into the fire. She had dyed her hair a blinding red and was wearing an open shirt over a neon green bikini top. She’d always been vaguely off-limits because of Ari. And she used to be mousy and quiet, shy in a boring way, doing whatever Ari told her to do; it had never seemed worth pissing off Ari to flirt with her. Now I looked at Diana’s red hair and bikini and thought about Win and how pointless and impossible everything was and I thought: fuck it. There was no point in spending time with someone I actually liked. They would only disappoint me. I could talk to Diana North and not care if it ended or began.

That was probably awful. Ari would’ve told me I was being a pig and dragged Diana away. But Ari wasn’t around. Besides, why did I have to listen to Ari? Win was dead. She was no longer my annoying conscience.

I left Brian talking to a group of girls that had materialized around him and walked over to Diana. She pretended not to notice. “You look different,” I said. That’s one of those things
that is true but noncommittal. I didn’t like to have my words thrown back at me—“you’re beautiful” could be turned into some nuclear-level shit.

Diana ran a hand through her newly red hair, worrying the ends of it. She smelled good—shampoo and suntan lotion, even though it was dark out.

“I dyed it,” she said. “I’ve wanted to for ages but I never did—afraid, I guess, though it sounds dumb to be afraid of a hair color. I thought if I dyed my hair I wouldn’t know who I was anymore, but the exact opposite happened. I feel . . .” She looked up at me, as if she’d forgotten who she was talking to, or as if she’d heard her words coming out of someone else’s mouth. “Um. Well. You look exactly the same.”

That was blatantly not true, I mean not only on a physical level, because I had lost ten pounds in the last month, but on a deeper level, too. My insides were a mess, like the wrapped present you shake so hard it breaks the toy inside, so there’s nothing but shards of plastic rolling around. Even this July third beach bonfire, which I had been going to since I was seven, when Brian threw the first one, felt different.

“Let’s take a walk,” I said, which in bonfire-speak means make out, at a minimum. Diana froze.

“Come on,” I said, grabbing her hand.

We walked down the beach, not talking, passing couples making out lying in the sand or standing ankle-deep in the waves. The ones in the waves were always the ones deeply in love. Soulmates splashing each other and carrying their shoes.

I spotted Ari talking to my brother Cal. She didn’t see me and Diana. Something seemed off about her, and I realized she wasn’t standing up straight. She slouched. I don’t think I’d ever seen her like that. Some automatic gut response made me wonder what was wrong with her, until I remembered what was wrong with us both.

But she didn’t want to talk. Okay. I should be more like Ari. I should be able to handle this on my own.

“I think everyone misses Win,” Diana said. I pointed to the frolicking couples and she shook her head. “I think they do, inside. In their way.”

“I miss him,” I said.

“Of course you do.”

“Just because I’m not sobbing my guts out doesn’t mean I don’t miss him.”

“You don’t have to—”

“Wait,” I said.

I stopped walking, dug my heels into the sand. Diana stopped walking, too, and looked up into my face. I had the urge to be mean to her. Like, really mean. Her hopefulness and sensitivity were there, right in front of me, and if I wanted I could stomp her down until she understood what the rest of the lobotomized horde didn’t: this was all pointless.

Maybe that was why I brought her out here after so many years of ignoring her. Maybe I could tell that it was within my power to make her feel as shitty as I felt all the time. It would be so fucking easy. As easy as kissing her would be. She had no
defenses at all. I could be a bastard—laugh at her, as I’m pretty sure I’ve laughed at her before—or a dream come true, giving her a romantic memory to treasure forever. Well, not forever, since there’s no such thing. Till the end.

I sank onto the sand and Diana sat next to me. If she came any closer I would have had to choose—bastard or dreamboat—but she didn’t. She looked out at the dark ocean and waited.

I breathed in through my nose. My heart was beating like I’d run up the dune. I told myself to calm down, but the panic only got worse. The ground tilted like I was going to be thrown off the planet.

“We’ll be seniors soon,” I said. It was by far the stupidest thing I’d said all day, and if any of my brothers had heard it they would’ve laughed so hard they hurt themselves, but of course Diana didn’t make fun of me for it. She seemed to almost understand my need for stupid chatter, because she didn’t say Win’s name again.

We talked. About her hair and her cat and her babysitting job, things she cared about. About my brothers and the bonfire and the ocean, things I could see right in front of me. Every time she shifted in the sand my heart drilled again, but I never had to choose which person to be. I was not responsible for anything or anyone. I just was.

The bonfire roared in the middle of the crowd. It was a warm night, and the closer I came to the fire the hotter it got. Diana had put me in my jean jacket and I was sweating, but I didn’t take it off; I wrapped it tighter around my shoulders for protection. I may not have a memory of the day my parents died, but I still avoid fire.

Most people steered away from me. I tried to exude tortured brooding. I don’t know what I would’ve done if a big group had surrounded me, offering their reminiscences and sympathy, like they had at the funeral. I couldn’t take more lying. I wasn’t capable of it, and if I kept trying, someone was bound to find out the truth.

She might’ve thought of this. Old Ari, that is. She knew there would be a bonfire. Yet another thing she didn’t bother taking into consideration.

I hated her.

I dug the toe of my sneaker into the sand and watched Diana
make her way to the keg. I’d come to the party for her sake, but it didn’t look like she needed me at all. Maybe it would’ve been better if I’d stayed home and practiced dancing after all.

“Ari?” said a voice by my shoulder. I saw dark hair and a blinding smile and for a second I thought it was Markos, and my shoulders tensed, ready to start lying.

But it was Markos’s next-oldest brother, Cal, in front of me. “Hi, Cal,” I said, and tried to tell my shoulders to relax. They wouldn’t.

“It’s been forever,” he said. He had an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth and was playing with a metal Zippo lighter with one hand, flipping it open and closed, lighting it with a flick of his wrist. The other hand held a beer. “How are you?”

“I’m . . . fine.”

“Come on. Spill.”

I attempted to smile up at him. Cal was the nicest Waters brother. Brian was a know-it-all cop, Dev turned the family charm into sleaze, and Markos—well, he’s Markos. Cal was good-looking like the others, sure, but he was too uncoordinated to do well in sports, and his agreeable nature probably meant he’d have been bad at them anyway. He’d gone through a wild couple of years after his dad died, but that seemed to have gotten the rebellion out of his system.

But just because he was the least of four evils didn’t mean he was someone I wanted to get confessional with. “Dead boyfriend exemption. I’m allowed to submit half-truths to invasive questions.”

He laughed, and the cigarette fell out of his mouth. “That’s funny. I forgot you were funny.”

“Well . . . thanks.”

“And if you ever need anyone, let me know.”

I swallowed down a lump in my throat despite myself. “Thanks.”

He reached out the hand holding the closed lighter, hesitated, and then rested it on my own, which was clenched around the opposite elbow. My bad wrist throbbed, but I couldn’t move to stretch it out. I didn’t know what to do.

I was not a hugger. But since having my memory ripped from me, I’d been hugged, kissed, squeezed, petted, pinched, smothered, and any number of other space invasions.

This was what people did when they wanted to express comfort. They touched. I couldn’t twist away. I couldn’t snap and tell them to leave me alone. Their gestures were supposed to make me—the sufferer—feel better. But since I wasn’t suffering—or, at least, not suffering the way they thought I was—I endured their pokes and prods because it made
them
feel better.

I held my breath, tried to ignore the pain in my wrist, and waited for Cal to remove his hand. His skin was warm but the lighter was cold metal. I was on three-Mississippi when a girl stood next to him and stared at him until he dropped his hand. I didn’t recognize her.

“Bye,” she said to him, shooing him away.

Cal looked like he might say something, then seemed to change his mind. He waved at me with his plastic cup, but he
waved too hard and dropped it, then lunged for it and missed. He shrugged and went off in search of another one.

The girl turned to me. She had short black hair and was wearing a long, elaborately buckled coat and lace-up boots despite the warm night. “Ari Madrigal,” she said. Her face twisted into a scowl. I hoped her scowl was default and not specific to me.

“That was a little rude,” I said.

She shrugged. “I need to talk to you. He doesn’t.”

“Sounds . . . dramatic.”

I looked around for Diana. I didn’t see her by the keg, and the light of the bonfire only extended so far. Maybe she’d gone down to the water. Or maybe she would arrive any second and rescue me. Cal Waters had found Kay. He lit a cigarette for her and leaned in like they shared a secret. Kay and Cal—that would be an unexpected pairing. I tried to remember if Kay had ever had a boyfriend before, but the girl in front of me snapped her fingers in my face.

“I will never understand what Win saw in you,” she said.

So the scowl wasn’t a default. “Excuse me. Do I know you?”

“Probably not, but I know you.”

I looked at her more closely. I didn’t recognize her—at least, not her face. Something about her seemed familiar, though. Her expression was fierce, but I remembered . . . lightness. Buoyancy.

Weird.

“You owe me five thousand dollars,” she said, unblinking.

I stared at her right back. “What?”

“Win’s mother never found it—I’ve been watching. She
would’ve spent it by now, but she’s got nothing. He had to have left it with you. But he owed it to me. So pay up.”

My hands had started to shake. Five thousand dollars. That’s how much my spell to erase Win had cost. I remembered finding an envelope thick with bills at the very back of my closet in a shoebox, and I remembered laying it on the hekamist’s kitchen table. Close-up details, snippets of a movie I’d seen and mostly forgotten. I’d told myself it was my money, my windfall—left by my parents, maybe, like guardian angels. Meant for me.

But maybe it had been Win’s money. I had no way of knowing.

“Listen, uh . . .”

“My name is Echo,” she snapped. “We’ve met. But of course you wouldn’t remember.”

“Echo,” I said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have any money of Win’s.”

“You do, though. Or at least you did before you spent it. I didn’t make the connection until I was sure it wasn’t with Win’s mom, but it’s so obvious now. You’re going to pay me what I’m owed or I’m going to tell everyone that you erased Win with a spell.”

I stopped breathing.

How did she know?

When my lungs filled with air again, I managed a feeble protest. “I didn’t erase Win.”

She breathed out through her nose, frustrated. “Don’t even try to play that game because you’ll lose. Pay me my money or everyone finds out.”

If this girl really knew what I’d done, she could tell everyone. And they’d all know I’d lied to them. They’d find out I couldn’t dance, and that I’d wasted everything for this boy they all still loved.

“I told you,” I said, trying to sound sure of myself. “I don’t have any money, and I didn’t do that. Didn’t erase him.”

She took a step back. Licked her chapped lips. “All right then. Prove it. When I met you the first time, what were we doing?”

“I don’t have to answer—”

“It’s a simple question, not a trick. Answer me.”

I tried to turn away but couldn’t pivot in the sand. In a flash, Echo was there, blocking me.

“Go ahead. Take a guess. When did we meet?”

Nothing. There was nothing to remember. You couldn’t focus in and piece things together when there was nothing there to piece. “We were on the beach,” I hazarded. “We were hanging out near here.”

“Lucky guess. Doing what?”

“Hanging out. Just . . . hanging out.”

Her hand rose to touch her mouth; she swallowed. “Nice try.”

“You must not have made a big impression.”

“I need that money, Ari.”

“You can’t prove—”

“I’m not the one who has to prove anything.” She gestured at the bonfire. “Want me to call over some people, see if your memory works then?”

Wood snapped in the bonfire. One of Markos’s brothers tossed on fresh fuel. If I had seen Diana out there maybe I would’ve thought of a way out of this. Figured a way to convince Echo I was whole, normal, unblackmailable. Maybe if Diana had been with me I wouldn’t have given up so easily.

Only Echo was right, of course. I didn’t remember Win.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“You’re—what?”

“I don’t have any more money. It all went to the spell.”

She seemed shaken for a moment, hands grasping together. “No.”

“I’m sorry I can’t—”

“Stop saying that!” Her uncertainty vanished, replaced by the now-familiar glower. “You can get the money. Put some effort into it. If Win came up with the money, you can too.” She nodded, as if this made perfect practical sense. “I’ll give you two weeks, Ari. Five thousand dollars.”

I nodded back, because there was nothing else I could do, and Echo stepped away. As she got farther away, the party noises seemed to get louder around me, people having fun, going on with their ordinary lives.

Mine had just gotten complicated. More than I could pretend away.

I needed to get out of here. Out of this bonfire. Off of this island. Whatever I was feeling—guilt and fear and confusion and worry, plus the ever-present regret of getting the stupid spell in the first place—it was bigger than this bonfire, bigger than Cape Cod.

Diana could help. I’d tell her the truth and we’d figure out a way through it together. I couldn’t be blackmailed if I told people the truth myself.

I tried not to trip in the sand as I ran in search of my best friend.