Only If You’re Lucky

“Happy Thanksgiving,” Lucas says. “It’s better than turkey, I promise.”

I look down at the plate in front of me, a small circle of steak with a puddle of gore leaking out around it. The scoop of mashed potatoes layered beneath has already turned soggy and pink, the brassy aroma of it all tingling my tongue. I made the mistake of walking into the kitchen earlier just as James was slamming a wooden mallet onto the meat, microscopic specks of red spraying the cabinets.

“Tenderizing it,” he’d said, oblivious to the little drip making its way down his cheek.

There’s blood on the ceiling now, pinpricks of plasma misting the stucco. I take a sip of my water, shrugging off the thought.

“Thank you, boys,” Lucy croons, lifting up a glass of wine. We set the table earlier for the first time since I’ve lived here, a mismatched collection of plates and silverware gathered from secondhand stores and left behind by previous tenants. Wildflowers from the backyard soaking in juice glasses and the overhead lights dulled down low. There’s a handful of flickering wicks between us, skinny candelabras making the dining room look gothic and dim. “What would we do without you?”

“Starve to death,” Trevor responds, pulling out the chair beside me. Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and while the locals are going home for a formal dinner with their families in the morning, they’ve agreed to do a Friendsgiving-style one with us tonight. Lucy had begged them, really, making them feel guilty about the two of us being here by ourselves, even though we chose it.

“That’s not fair,” I say. “We made the sides.”

I try not to look at Levi as he takes his seat across from me, our table of seven feeling a little too intimate in the subdued light. As much as I hate to admit it, though, Lucy was right. Despite the fact that Levi is here, this past week has been wonderful, the way we’ve all slipped back into our summer selves. Lucas is still as much fun without Sloane as the object of his affection and I’ve gotten to know Will and James from the night at Penny Lanes better, too. Trevor is just as obnoxious without Nicole, but he’s paid me more attention these last few days than he ever has before.

“Which one did you make?” Trevor asks, turning toward me now. I feel a flush of something in my chest under his eyes, a crawling heat that makes me uncomfortable.

“The mac and cheese,” I say.

“How did you know mac and cheese was my favorite?”

Lucy clears her throat, shooting me a look from across the table that I don’t like. It’s suggestive, eyebrows raising, and I try to signal back a bulge-eyed innocence, communicating that I’m just as confused about his attention as she is.

“Which one of you do we have to thank for shooting our dinner?” I ask, picking up my silverware, attempting to divert the conversation from me.

“James,” Lucas says, slapping him on the shoulder. “Never seen such a clean kill in my life.”

I look up, stunned at the image of James, of all people, being the one to pull the trigger. The shyest of them all, so kind and quiet.

“Beginner’s luck,” he says, sawing into his steak.

Lucy lets out a laugh and I glance over to find her palm cupped tight over her mouth, the corners of a smile peeking out like she’s fighting to contain it.

“I’m sorry,” she says, removing her hand before wiping a drip of wine from her lip. “It’s just ironic.”

“What is?” James asks, lowering his knife.

“You. Mister Moral Compass killing something because you can.”

I think back to that night at Penny Lanes, James chiming in after Lucy asked us that question. Fighting her on it, the Jekyll to her Hyde. The only one brave enough to push back.

“It’s for food,” he says slowly. “It serves a purpose.”

“Risk and reward,” Lucy argues. “It’s still a living thing. It was alive, now it’s dead, and it’s all because of you.”

“You can’t be serious,” he says, his hands still holding the silverware, hovering in the air. I glance down at my plate, little threads of meat torn apart by the serrated blade, and force myself to look away. “Humans and animals are two completely different things.”

“Sure,” Lucy says, taking another sip from her glass before twisting the skinny stem between her fingers. “Although, morally, I’d consider that subjective, don’t you think?”

We’re all quiet, the soft glint of the candles the only movement between us. Lucy smiles again, the glass lip hovering just beneath her mouth, warm breath fogging up the reflection.

“Not so straightforward, is it?”

We gather in the living room after dinner is over, candles reduced to nubs of wax and bottles of wine lying empty on the floor. Lucy keeps trying to talk us into playing Spin the Pin with one of them, but they’re half-hearted attempts, more in jest than anything. For the first time in a long time, she actually seems drunk like the rest of us, maybe too drunk, her body slumped over the couch and her bare legs draped across Levi’s lap.

“Truth or dare,” she says, twirling around a puddle of wine in her glass. There’s a crescent of lipstick stuck to the rim and I wonder if she snuck into her room to apply it after dinner. She wasn’t wearing any earlier. I’m almost positive she wasn’t.

“Lucy, enough,” Lucas says, flipping through a pile of old records in the corner. “We’re not doing that shit right now.”

“Levi’s a pledge, so he has to,” she taunts, leaning up so her flushed chest is facing him, practically sitting in his lap.

I watch as Levi glances at Trevor like a child looking for an escape, but Trevor only shrugs, his eyes red and worn.

“She’s not wrong.”

The entire room is silent again, bated breath as we stare at Lucy, wondering what she has in mind. A single sentence from her has the power to change an entire night’s dynamic, alter the very air between us, and I try not to overanalyze how she’s clearly singled Levi out again, almost all of her attention directed at him like that night at Penny Lanes.

I wonder what she’s doing, what this new game is, the way she plopped down right beside him on the couch, her legs kicked up on his lap and her fingernails trailing their way down his arm. If she really doesn’t find anything wrong with the way she’s acting or if there’s something more to it. Something I can’t yet see.

“Fine, truth,” Levi says, downing his drink. Lucy reaches for the open bottle on the floor but he holds his hand over his glass and shakes his head. I hear a faint scratch from the corner of the room, Lucas setting a record on the turntable and lowering the needle down.

“What are you afraid of more than anything?” she asks, resting her head in her hand. “Anything in the whole world?”

A long, dense silence packs the room—the kind that makes it feel like there’s cotton in my ears, drowning the sound—before the hazy hum of Janis Joplin trickles into all of us.

“Heights,” Levi says at last, looking into his drink like he’s studying something hidden in the bottom. “I’m afraid of heights.”

I stare at him, trying to decide if this is some kind of sick joke, and without warning, his words summon her again: Eliza, materializing out of nowhere. Sitting beside Levi with her hand on his thigh, her eyes on mine.

A single trickle of blood, skinny and serpentine, snaking its way out of her mouth.

“And small spaces,” he adds, making me blink. “I’m kind of claustrophobic.”

Trevor clears his throat, like he’s trying to mask a laugh, and I look over at him smiling into his cup. I can see it in Lucas, too, and James and Will and even Lucy: some unsaid thing bouncing around the room, pinging off all of them.

“Heights and small spaces,” she echoes as she finishes her drink. “Good to know.”