Only If You’re Lucky

It gets dark fast, the little bubble of sun in the distance melting into the water as the boys work quickly, quietly, trying to pitch the tents and get the fire going before we’re swallowed by the sky. Already, I can hear the noises of the night: the quick thrash of something feeding in the distance, the buzz of bugs as they skim across our skin.

“Whiskey?” Nicole asks, walking up behind me. I turn around, registering a bottle in her hand that’s already half gone.

“Sure,” I say, grabbing it from her and taking a sip. It’s sweet, honey flavored, and the syrupy liquid goes down slow, like drinking sap. “Have you eaten anything today?”

I try to smile when I ask it, try to make it sound like a joke. A subtle reference to her request the morning after Halloween, reminding her to eat dinner, but she doesn’t smile back when she sits down next to me.

“If not, this will go straight to your head.”

“I’m fine,” she says, wrapping her arms tight around her legs. They’re so fragile, so thin, and I can’t stop thinking about the way she looked earlier, stumbling around on the boat. No cushion on her bones to break her fall.

“Are you really?” I ask quietly. “Fine?”

She doesn’t answer, both of us silent as we sit in the sand, on the edge of everyone, watching the freshmen pile driftwood and palmetto fronds into a giant pile for the fire. The rest of the boys are setting up tents in a circle around the pit; the girls by the coolers, guzzling liquor to stay warm. Suddenly, there’s a shriek in the distance and we turn toward the sound, our eyes landing on Lucy in the water. It’s practically freezing, but she’s still up to her knees, jeans rolled up and damp at the edges. Splashing Levi as he tries to carry the rest of the supplies from the boat.

“Does that bother you?” Nicole asks, ignoring my question and nodding toward them.

“So, you’ve noticed,” I say, shooting her a smirk.

“She’s not exactly subtle, is she?”

“I guess it’s just hard to understand what she sees in him,” I respond, a watery truth. “After everything I’ve told her.”

Nicole nods, her bare toes digging into the sand, and I turn to face her, knowing this is my opening. I’ve been so distracted lately—by Lucy, by Levi, by the two of them together and the memories they provoke; trying to understand how it all ties together, what it all means—that I know I’ve been neglecting Nicole, whatever she’s going through. Pushing it off until later, never. Hoping it’ll simply resolve on its own.

“Does it bother you?” I ask slowly, trying to gauge her reaction.

“Why would it?” she asks, stone-faced as she grabs the whiskey from my hand and takes a long pull, jaw clenching as she swallows.

“I just thought that after whatever happened on Halloween—”

“I said I’m fine, Margot.”

“I don’t believe you,” I push, my fingers digging into the sand. “Whatever happened … you can tell me.”

“Nothing happened on Halloween.”

“Nicole,” I whisper, my voice dipped low. I hadn’t planned on doing this tonight, confronting her so deliberately, but there’s something about us all being marooned here with nowhere to run that makes me want to keep digging. “Come on. Please.”

“Levi didn’t do anything,” she says at last, a sudden glint of tears in her eyes. It’s the closest she’s ever come to a confession and I watch as she wipes them angrily, little wet streaks darkening her shirtsleeves. “I promise.”

“Are you sure?” I ask, looking back at the fire. My eyes on him crouching next to it, blowing gently on a collection of sticks glowing red. Thinking about the bruises on her wrists; the ones they found on Eliza. Levi and Lucy and the thought of him helping himself to everything I love making my jaw squeeze.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Nicole says, grabbing the whiskey again and draining it completely. “He didn’t do a thing.”

The night descends into chaos quickly, like the sinking sun took our inhibitions with it. The fire is roaring, finally, the orange glow of it sparking in our eyes; ash and embers flying into the sky before drifting into the distance, getting swept away by the breeze. Someone has music playing through a portable speaker and a group of girls are holding hands, running in circles around the fire as they sing.

I wonder what it is about the cloak of night, a sky full of stars, that makes everyone act a little strange, a little savage. “The very error of the moon,” Shakespeare said, a line from Othello that stuck with me when we read it last semester. “It makes men mad.”

I look up at the sky again, that single spotlight shining down, and try to push out the memories of the last time I was acutely aware of a full moon above, another party taking place in the dark. A collection of kids left on their own with too much freedom and not enough sense.

It’s animal, I guess, our attraction to it. The way it empowers us to think and feel and do as we please.

I glance around, taking in the others. Lucy and Levi are standing by the flames, his arm flung around her shoulder in a way that makes me think of him and Eliza on that very last night: stumbling, laughing, fingers intertwined. Sloane and Nicole are sitting together by the tents, their eyes on Trevor as he lurches around in the sand. There’s a bottle of rum clutched in his hand that hasn’t left his grip since we got here, but that hasn’t stopped him from barking out orders. Still bossing around the freshmen, playing God, even though their duties are over and his power is gone. After a few more seconds, I find who I’m looking for and stand up quick, brushing the sand from my jeans as I make my way toward him. I glance back at Lucy every few seconds, relieved to see her still swept up in Levi, paying no attention to my slow slink into the dark.

I approach him furtively, standing by the water with a couple other brothers, noticing he looks different than the last time I saw him: no more blood slathered across his skin, his cheeks. Long blond hair now buzzed short against his scalp.

No more costume, that stupid blue dress.

“Excuse me, Danny?” I ask, watching as he turns around at the sound of his name. He doesn’t recognize me at first, but slowly, I see it: the memory of Halloween, of me, of the three of us sitting around that fire out back. Lucy pretending not to know him and the way he scurried away with his tail between his legs. “Do you have a second?”

Danny DeMarcus, Lucy’s old classmate.

The only person here who might know her at all.