Boys, Bears, and a Serious Pair of Hiking Boots(55)
Author: Abby McDonald

Luckily, Fiona isn’t as conflicted as me.

“Will you just shut up?” she finally exclaims as we emerge from the trees and reach the shoreline. Turning to me, she adds, “I’ve tried to make nice because she’s your friend and all, but God! I can’t take this!”

“Thanks,” I tell her, genuinely touched that she’s made the effort. The old Fiona would have shut Olivia down right away, but the new, improved version lasted all of five minutes.

Olivia turns to me with a betrayed look. “Didn’t you hear what she —?”

“See, the lake!” I announce brightly, putting both hands on her shoulders and swiveling her around to face the beautiful scene. The wind is up, kicking up peaks and foam on the water, while the fluffy clouds sprint across a blue sky. Olivia looks around, and finally, the dissatisfied expression makes way for a smile.

“This is awesome.” There, nature will heal all. Or, not quite, because she adds, “At the collective, we meditated by the water every day. You should try that, you know. It totally bonds you to the earth, gets rid of all the capitalist false impulses.”

“Uh-huh,” I murmur, stripping off my shorts and T-shirt. My navy bikini is fading from all the use, a thread unraveling in one of the straps. “Why don’t you relax and, umm, meditate here? I’m going for a swim.”

“Me too,” Fiona says, and my mouth drops open with shock. I’ve never seen her do more than dip a reluctant toe in the water all summer. She pulls off her cargo pants and tank top — showing a surprisingly revealing black bikini underneath — and takes off toward the water. I guess Olivia is a surprising motivator.

I pause by our patch of towels and totes, rummaging in my bag. “Have you seen my sunscreen?”

“I tossed it out.” Instead of relaxing, Olivia is pulling her feet into a complicated cross-legged position.

“What? Why?”

She shrugs, tying her mat of dreadlocks back with a stretch of colored ribbon. “Those things will kill you. Have you seen the toxins they put in? Cash says —”

“It’s OK.” I cut her off before I’m treated to another joyful lesson from the Book of Cash. “Just . . . don’t go through my stuff, OK?”

She looks at me, hurt. “I was only trying to help. Do you want to pump chemicals into your body?”

“No, but I kind of don’t want to get skin cancer, either.” I sigh. “Just forget it.”

A couple of hours later, things seem to have reached a calm. The guys show up to mess around with inner tubes, Fiona loans me her sunscreen, and Olivia takes a much-appreciated break from her lecture series to bury herself in a dog-eared copy of No Logo. With a cool breeze cutting through the midday heat, and my friends lounged around me, I can almost relax.

Almost.

“Hey, Jenna, can you pass those chips?” Reeve rolls over and reaches his hand out, impatient. He’s shirtless on our patchwork array of towels and blankets, hair dripping wet from his swim, and even though I haven’t been obsessing over him the way I used to, I’m immediately distracted.

“Hmmm?”

“Hello? The chips?” He snaps his fingers at me. I blink at his tone. A few days ago, we were lazing, intertwined by that water-lily lake while he counted every freckle on my back. Now he can’t even be polite in public?

“What’s the magic word?” I challenge him.

“Uh, now?”

I throw them at him, hard. Discreet is one thing; rude is quite another.

“Jeez, what’s gotten into you?”

Olivia looks up from her book. “Aww, trouble in paradise?” she asks with an innocent look.

I glance around, panicked, but nobody else seems to have noticed her comment. Except Reeve. When I check, his face is tense.

“Don’t stress — it’s just PMS!” Grady says, lying out with his baseball cap covering his eyes. “It’s always freaking PMS with these chicks — argh!” He cries out as Fiona upends her soda over his bare chest. He scrambles to his feet, soaked with the sticky liquid. “What the hell?”

“Whoops,” she answers, deadpan. “Must be that darn time of the month.”

While they bicker, I try to catch Olivia’s eye. How could she almost give me away like that? But she stares, fixed, at her book, as if she doesn’t realize what a close call that just was. And maybe she doesn’t.

Finally, I lie back down. But instead of dozing idly in the sun, I feel anxiety begin to take hold. Things were fine when home was home and Stillwater was Stillwater, but now everything’s tumbling together, and I can’t keep it apart. The old Olivia would never spill my secrets — I could trust her with anything. But this new girl, the one who’s rude to her hostess, confiscates my things, and won’t stop ranting about the impending end of the world? I don’t know about her. I feel like I don’t know her at all.

After a while, Ethan nudges my leg with his bare foot. “I’m heading up to the river tomorrow. Want to come fishing?”

“With my record?”

“Aw, c’mon. We can find a mate to send along to poor Derek in fish heaven.”

I relax, laughing as I remember my unwanted success with the fishing rod. “Knowing my luck, I’ll find him a whole gang of friends.”

“Exactly.” Ethan grins at me warmly. “You’ll be my accidental good-luck charm.”

“Derek?” Olivia interrupts, turning to me with a questioning look. She’s moved into the shade from one of the looming pines, separating herself out from the group.

“He’s the fish Jenna caught,” Ethan answers for me. “A big one, too!”

“Was not,” I protest.

“Sure he was.” Ethan gives me a grin. “Took me ages to kill him, smashing away with that rock.”

“Eww!” I thump him playfully, and he shoves me back.

“You weren’t complaining when you started eating the poor thing.”

Olivia gasps, eyes wide. “You started eating meat?”

I brace myself for a protest about vegetarianism, but instead, it’s Reeve who speaks up, drawling in a sarcastic voice. “I wouldn’t take her near water, dude. She’ll just fall in again.”

I pretend not to notice the dig, but it still stings. “Are you ever going to let me forget that?”

“No,” comes the immediate response from all three boys. Again, a questioning look from Olivia.