Only If You’re Lucky
: Chapter 51

I feel my fingers trailing their way across Eliza’s clothes, folded tight and undisturbed. That worn envelope stuffed in the back and my hands sensing the bulk of it, notably out of place.

Pulling it out, opening the flap. All that money stuffed inside and an address on the back I didn’t recognize. The picture of it on my phone I had forgotten all about ever since Lucy showed up, commandeering my attention.

“Where have you been?” she asks me now, plopping down in the sand beside us. Sloane, Nicole, and I are sitting cross-legged, side by side, observing everyone else’s slow descent into madness. The party is still going, still raging like the fire around which we’re gathered, though the crowd is beginning to dwindle now, people starting to stagger into their tents. Exploring the island, maybe. Couples sneaking off and into the trees.

“I had to pee,” I say, turning to face her. Her cheeks are flushed and pink from the fire and I see that envelope again, so clear in my mind.

Fairfield, North Carolina.

I watch as she turns in the direction of the foliage behind us, a cluster of untamed shrubs and long, sharp grass. Swaying cattails and barren trunks with branches like brittle bones stripped of their skin. I wonder if she really did see Danny and me walk off in the opposite direction together. I wonder if she knows, on some subconscious level, how close her secrets are to suddenly slipping away. If she knows that I’m lying.

“I got lost,” I add, grabbing the bottle of wine beside me and tipping it back, swallowing too much. For the heat, the courage. The numbness I know it’ll soon provide. I can already feel the whiskey from before filling my limbs up slowly, pushing down on my eyes so they feel heavy and hard. “It’s dark out there, away from everything.”

I look at Sloane, nursing her beer, a tension in her jaw that calcified the second Lucy showed up. Nicole right next to her, cheekbones angular and harsh in the shadow of the flames. She looks sunken-in, hollow, like someone jabbed her with a needle and she’s been deflating slowly, losing her shape, and there’s something so desolate about it. About all of us, really. Sitting here, side by side, trying to pretend that everything is fine.

Trying to convince ourselves that nothing has changed when really, everything has.

“Huh.”

She says it in a tone that’s painfully unconvincing and the entire thing reminds me of Eliza and me in those final few days. Of graduation, bumping into each other outside the auditorium, our parents pushing us together without even registering the stiffness in our arms or the lies in our smiles. That picture still tacked to the wall in my bedroom, framed on my mantel, the saddest thing I’ve ever seen. In that moment, we knew something big had fractured between us, something possibly even permanent. We knew, after that argument, that we would never be whole again—but still, we tried. We tried to look happy, normal, Eliza’s fingers hovering behind my back like she couldn’t stand the thought of touching me. Her mom counting down, camera in hand, and the sigh of relief that escaped from her lips as soon as the flash went off and we could peel ourselves apart. We hadn’t spoken a word since that fight in my bedroom. It was the longest we had ever gone without talking, an entire decade of friendship whittled down to nothing but stone-cold silence, but neither of us wanted to be the first to crack so instead we let it grow between us like a tumor, getting bigger, denser. As if ignoring it completely would make it go away on its own.

“Oh shit,” Sloane mutters and I look up now, tracking her gaze, watching as Trevor trips in the sand. He goes down hard, dangerously close to the fire, limbs like rubber as his legs splay out in two opposite directions.

“I’m fine,” he slurs, waving off Lucas as he tries to pull him up. He’s still clutching that stupid bottle, fingers wound tight around the plastic neck, refusing to let go even to break his fall. Everyone glances over as he struggles to find his footing and I look over to Nicole next, wondering if she’s going to help him. Silently hoping she won’t.

“I’m grabbing another blanket,” she says, standing up to make her way to the tent.

I know she’s embarrassed, seeing him like this. Maybe a little resentful that Trevor’s allowed to let loose and act like an idiot when she, apparently, isn’t. I look back just as Trevor finally gets to his feet and lifts the handle in the air, saluting us all. The bottle is alarmingly empty, only a few fingers of liquid left sloshing at the bottom, and he tries to take another swig but his aim is off, a rush of clear liquid missing his mouth and gushing down the front of his shirt.

“Fuck!” he yells, stumbling a bit as he pulls at the fabric, the sweet smell of coconut drifting toward us in the wind. A snort of laughter erupts somewhere to my right and I twist around, looking for the source.

It came from Levi, unmistakably, a look of pure amusement on his face watching Trevor embarrass himself in front of everyone like this.

“Is something funny?” Trevor asks, taking a step toward him. His face has morphed in a matter of seconds and I recognize the same look from Halloween that made my skin crawl: dangerous, predatory. His eyes wild and unrestrained.

“Butler,” he repeats when Levi doesn’t answer. “I said, is something funny?”

“No,” Levi says, shaking his head, downing the rest of his beer before reaching into a cooler and grabbing another. Everyone else seems to have stopped what they’re doing now, bodies still like statues. Afraid to move, afraid to breathe.

“Give me yours,” Trevor says suddenly, a challenge in his voice. We watch as he drops the bottle onto the sand and rips his shirt off before flinging it at Levi, his bare chest rippling in the shadows from the fire. The shirt lands in Levi’s lap with a wet flop and he takes a deep breath as he stares down at it, still unmoving. The glow from the flames illuminating his face, eyes stretching down into two long shadows.

“Butler, I said switch.”

“God, he’s an asshole,” Sloane mutters, and I look back at her now, the way she’s staring at Trevor with such disgust.

After a long stretch of silence, Levi places his beer on the ground with measured control and pulls his shirt off, throwing it over to Trevor. Even from here, I can see the trail of goose bumps erupt down his arms, his bare skin exposed to the cool night air. Or maybe it’s the humiliation, this public act of shame, his anger festering like an infection, trying to push its way to the surface. He just sits like that for a second, half naked, jaw clenched tight and eyes on the flames as Trevor pulls the clean shirt over his head and continues to glare.

Finally, Levi gives in, taking the wet wad of fabric off his lap and fanning it out before putting it on, that dribble of liquor still stained down the front.

“That’s what I thought,” Trevor murmurs, stalking off, and I can’t help but wonder why Levi let him do that. Why he let Trevor chew him out on the boat earlier, too. Maybe he’s conditioned after an entire semester of letting the other brothers walk all over him, older boys treating him like their own personal punching bag. Maybe he still feels like a pledge, only a few hours into the party that was supposed to set him free. Maybe he knew it wasn’t worth the fight, that Trevor’s wrath would be worse later if he turned him down.

Or maybe he’s trying to keep the peace for some reason, every interaction between them like Levi is walking on glass, never knowing when he might get cut.

The party reignites slowly, cautiously, people forcing themselves back to their conversations and their drinks, though everyone’s eyes are still darting furtively over to Levi as he sulks off to the side. There’s something dangerous about the way he grabs his beer from the sand and downs the rest of it before crushing the can in his grip, tossing it into the water. Reaching for another and cracking it open before downing that, too.

“I’ll be right back,” Lucy says, standing up and walking toward him. I watch as she plops down by his side, her hand on his leg like she’s trying to comfort him, and I start to look away, still uneasy watching the two of them together like that, when a flash of movement jerks my head back in their direction: Levi grabbing Lucy’s arm, hard, and flinging it away with a force that feels violent. Lucy hissing something under her breath before Levi snaps back, standing up with a look of revulsion on his face.

I watch as he stumbles off, bare feet clumsy as he makes his way toward the trees. Those brittle branches like a skeletal hand reaching out, curling its fingers; the silhouette of a single bird perched on the edge like an omen. Then Lucy stands up, too, brushes the sand from her legs as she turns to look at me.

A smile forming on her lips as she follows him into the dark.

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