Heather half laughed. “You’re my best friend, Nat,” she said. “You aren’t supposed to lie to me.”
Nat shook her head. “I’m sure he’ll be here soon. The game’s about to start.”
Heather checked her phone again, for the millionth time. Nothing. She’d powered it down several times and rebooted it, just to make sure it was working.
Diggin’s voice boomed out again: “The rules of Panic are simple. Anyone can enter. But only one person will win.”
Diggin made the announcement of the pot.
$67,000.
Heather felt as though she’d been punched in the stomach. $67,000. That had to be the biggest pot ever. The crowd began to buzz—the number ran through them like an electric current, jumping from lip to lip. Shit, man, you’d have to be crazy not to play. Nat looked as though she’d just taken a large spoonful of ice cream.
Diggin plunged on, ignoring the noise. He made the announcement of the rules—a half-dozen events, spaced throughout the summer, conducted under conditions of strictest privacy; eliminations after every round; individual challenges for each contestant who made it past the halfway mark—but nobody was listening. It was the same speech as always. Heather had been watching Panic since she was in eighth grade. She could have made the speech herself.
That number—67,000—wrapped itself around her heart and squeezed. Without meaning to, she thought of all she could do with the money; she thought of how far she could go, what she could buy, how long she could live. How many miles away from Carp she could get.
But no. She couldn’t leave Matt. Matt had said he loved her. He was her plan. The grip on her heart eased a little, and she found she could breathe again.
Next to Heather, Natalie shimmied out of her jean shorts and kicked off her shoes. “Can you believe it?” she said. She took off her shirt, shivering in the wind. Heather couldn’t believe she’d insisted on that ridiculous bikini, which would fly off as soon as she hit the water. Natalie had only laughed. Maybe, she’d joked, that would earn her extra points.
That was Natalie: stubborn. Vain, too. Heather still couldn’t understand why she’d even chosen to play. Nat was afraid of everything.
Someone—probably Billy Wallace—whistled. “Nice ass, Velez.”
Nat ignored him, but Heather could tell she had heard and was pretending not to be pleased. Heather wondered what Billy Wallace would say if she tried to wear a scrap of fabric like that on her butt. Whoa. Look at the size of that thing! Do you need a permit to carry that thing around, Heather?
But Matt loved her. Matt thought she was pretty.
The noise on the beach swelled, grew to a roar: hoots and screams, people waving homemade banners and flags, firecrackers exploding like a smattering of gunfire, and she knew it was time. The whistle would blow.
Panic was about to begin.
Just then Heather saw him. The crowd parted temporarily; she could see him, smiling, talking to someone; then the crowd shifted again and she lost sight of him. “He’s here. Nat, he’s here.”
“What?” Nat wasn’t paying attention anymore.
Heather’s voice dried up in her throat. Because the crowd had opened again, just as she’d started moving toward him, as though directed by gravity—relief welling in her chest, a chance to make things right, a chance to do things right, for once—and in that second she had seen that he was speaking to Delaney O’Brien.
Not just speaking. Whispering.
And then: kissing.
The whistle blew—sharp and thin in the sudden silence, like the cry of an alien bird.
Heather reached the top of the ridge just as Derek Klieg got a running start and hurled himself into the air, body contorted, shouting. A few seconds later, a cheer went up as he hit.
Natalie was crouching a few feet away from the edge, her face pale; for a second, Heather thought she heard her counting. Then Nat turned and blinked repeatedly, as though trying to bring Heather’s face into focus. She opened her mouth and closed it again.
Heather’s heart was beating hard and high. “Hey, Nat,” she said, just as Natalie straightened up.
“What the hell are you doing?” Natalie spat out.
Now Heather registered everything, all at once: the ache in her hands and thighs, the pain in her fingers, the sharp bite of the wind. Natalie looked furious. She was shaking, although that might have been the cold.
“I’m going to jump,” Heather said, realizing, as she said it, how stupid it sounded—how stupid it was. All of a sudden, she thought she might puke.
I’ll be cheering for you, Heather had said to Natalie. The guilt was there, throbbing alongside the nausea. But Matt’s voice was bigger than everything. Matt’s voice, and underneath it a vision of the water stains above her bed; the dull thud of music from the park; the smell of weed and cigarettes; the sounds of laughing, and later, someone screaming, You dumb piece of . . .
“You can’t jump,” Nat said, still staring. “I’m jumping.”
“We’ll jump together,” Heather said.
Natalie took two steps forward. Heather noticed she was balling her fists almost rhythmically. Squeeze, relax. Squeeze, relax. Three times.
“Why are you doing this?” The question was almost a whisper.
Heather couldn’t answer. She didn’t even know, not exactly. All she knew—all she could feel—was that this was her last chance.
So she just said, “I’m going to jump now. Before I chicken out.”
When she turned toward the water, Natalie reached for Heather, as if to pull her back. But she didn’t.
Heather felt as though the rock underneath her had begun to move, bucking like a horse. She had a sudden terror that she was going to lose her balance and go tumbling down the rocky slope, cracking her head in the shallows.
Panic.
She took small, halting steps forward, and still reached the edge far too quickly.
“Announce yourself!” Diggin boomed out.
Below Heather, the water, black as oil, was still churning with bodies. She wanted to shout down—move, move, I’m going to hit you—but she couldn’t speak. She could hardly breathe. Her lungs felt like they were being pressed between two stones.
And suddenly she couldn’t think of anything but Chris Heinz, who five years ago drank a fifth of vodka before doing the jump, and lost his footing. The sound his head made as it cracked against the rock was delicate, almost like an egg breaking. She remembered the way everyone ran through the woods; the image of his body, broken and limp, lying half-submerged in the water.
“Say your name!” Diggin prompted again, and the crowd picked up the chant: Name, name, name.
She opened her mouth. “Heather,” she croaked out. “Heather Nill.” Her voice broke, got whipped back by the wind.
The chant was still going: Name, name, name, name. Then: Jump, jump, jump, jump.
Her insides were white; filled with snow. Her mouth tasted a little like puke. She took a deep breath. She closed her eyes.
She jumped.
SATURDAY, JUNE 25
heather
HEATHER HAD ONCE READ AN ARTICLE ONLINE ABOUT how time was relative, and moved faster or slower depending on where you were and what you were doing. But she had never understood why it moved slower during the really awful stuff—math class, dentist appointments—and speeded up whenever you tried to make time go slow. Like when you were taking a test, or at your birthday party.