This Is How It Ends
Page 8“Classic sign of abuse,” Sarah piped in.
“Yeah, I know,” he said. “Believe me, I’ve been wondering for years.”
We all nodded. If you didn’t spend a lot of time with Natalie, maybe you wouldn’t notice—a scrape here, bruise there. Competitive skiing is rough, and when you fall, you fall hard. But not in summer. The five of us really started hanging out last year, when Trip and Sarah got together, and after a few months I realized that for an athlete at Nat’s level, she was awfully clumsy.
God forbid you mentioned it to her, though.
“Did she say what went on at her house this weekend?” Tannis asked.
Sarah snorted. “What? And make us all accessories?”
“I just meant, you know, whether her dad was around. Or if anyone else came over . . .” Tannis trailed off at Sarah’s pointed look. “Yeah, okay. I guess that would make us accessories.”
“She’s not about to rat out the town’s junkies,” Sarah said. “It’d put Daddy out of business.”
“What a f**king mess,” Trip said.
Tannis wolfed down the last of her sandwich and stood. “No wonder she’s thinking of him dead.”
“You mean the thing at the cave?” Trip asked.
Tannis nodded, walking to the grass a few feet away and motioning for Trip to toss her the Nerf football he’d brought out. “If he was my dad, I’m pretty sure I’d daydream about that.”
“I don’t think those were daydreams,” I said.
“You don’t?” Sarah asked.
I shrugged, suddenly uncomfortable. As if she knew how I’d pictured her, in my bed.
“What do you think they were?” Sarah pressed.
“C’mon, Ri,” Tannis butted in. “Sounds like you have some ideas. Let’s hear ’em.”
I knew these girls, and they weren’t going to back down. “Hallucinations?” I offered.
“What do you mean?” Trip said. “Like from acid?”
I nodded.
Trip tossed the ball thoughtfully, but Tannis said, “I don’t know, Ri. I’m no expert, but it wasn’t like any trip I’ve ever had. You?”
I’d tried drugs exactly once, the summer before junior year, when Trip had dragged me to a football party. “I don’t know, Trip,” I’d hedged. “Some of those guys seem kind of . . .”
“Kind of what?” he’d said impatiently. “Older? Fun? Cool?”
I’d shrugged, thinking of the way they’d jammed Chuck Lee’s locker shut one day. “Like trouble,” I’d finished.
Trip had snorted. “Don’t be a loser, Ri. It’ll be fine.”
It hadn’t been, of course. The acid had come out around midnight, and like fools, we’d put the tabs on our tongues when the other guys did. I made some crack about how it was like second grade, when Trip ate the corners off all his worksheets. It was the last thing I said all night, because my head got really cold and divided into three compartments, the tongue not connected to the brain. Definitely not my thing.
“No,” I told Tannis now. “It wasn’t like that at all. But lots of things can make you hallucinate,” I said. “Maybe different stuff gives you different reactions?”
“But we didn’t take anything,” Sarah said.
“Not that we know of,” I said. “But ’shrooms and peyote both occur naturally.”
“And you think there’s some up at the cave?” Trip asked.
Sarah shot him a look. “Don’t get any ideas, Trip.”
“Maybe we touched something in the cave or on those binoculars,” I said.
“So how come I didn’t see anything?” Trip asked.
“Maybe you’re immune to it,” I said.
“Just my luck.”
“It is your luck,” Tannis said. “Trust me. It was freaky.”
“So you don’t think it was a daydream either, do you?” I asked her.
“Guess not,” she said. “I don’t daydream about kids. What’d you see, anyway, Ri?” Tannis asked. “You never told.”
No, of course I hadn’t. “Nothing much.” Blood rushed to my face, and I felt all of them watching me. I didn’t dare look at Sarah. “Just me in a room with some books . . .” And Trip’s girlfriend. In my bed. My heart was pounding. “And some, you know, papers and a little fridge and a bed,” I finished quickly.
“Like a dorm room?” Sarah asked.
My eyes locked with hers, and it was like a jolt of electricity. “Huh?”
“A dorm room,” Sarah repeated. “It sounds like a college dorm.”
I nodded slowly, the words finally sinking in. “Might have been.”
“What were you doing?” Tannis asked.
“Sleeping.”
Trip laughed. “Always the party animal, dude.”
“Why do you think you guys saw that stuff?” Sarah asked.
Tannis shrugged, but I was struck by how Sarah had asked the question. “You guys.” Not “we.” I was pretty sure she’d seen something that night. She’d stared into the binoculars for too long and had come away from the cave unusually somber, but hadn’t said a word about it. Even when I’d asked if everything was okay before we started down. She didn’t want to tell, and what’s more, I realized now, she didn’t know anyone had seen her look.
I could have called her on it, but for some reason I didn’t.
“Maybe it was, like, our hidden thoughts,” I said, watching her reaction. “Our deepest wishes or worst fears or something.”
Sarah held my eyes, her expression unreadable.
“It’s definitely not our wishes,” Tannis said vehemently. “I saw kids in mine.”
“So?” I said.
“Dude. I do not want kids.” She chucked me the ball, and missed by a mile.
I jogged to where it’d landed. “Not now, Tannis—”
“Or later,” she interrupted.
I threw the ball to Trip. “Don’t all girls want kids?” I asked Tannis, only half-teasing. “Isn’t it like a biological imperative?”
“No, dumbass, not all girls want kids. And if it’s a biological whatever, it would be for guys, too, wouldn’t it? Last time I checked, it takes two. Do all guys want kids?”