Now that I was there, though, the present suddenly seemed stupid, and I didn’t want Frank to feel like he had to open it in front of people—which was actually the last thing that I wanted. I carefully placed it behind my seat and got out, straightening my skirt as I went.
As I walked, I couldn’t help but remember the last time I’d been to the Orchard. When I’d been all alone, miserable, looking down at my phone and trying to pretend that I was meeting someone, that there were people there waiting for me. And now, I realized with a shock, both of those things were true. And unless things went really wrong, there was no way I could picture myself spending tonight hiding behind a tree. It hit me just how much could happen in two months, how, since the last time I’d been at the Orchard, everything had changed.
Maybe not everything. I slowed as I realized Gideon was sitting on top of one of the picnic tables, at the very edge of the clearing, his head turned away from me. I immediately looked around for Sam, but didn’t see him, which I was glad about. I knew I could have just taken the long way to the center of the clearing, where I was pretty sure I could see Collins—I couldn’t imagine who else would be wearing a plum-colored polo shirt, at any rate. But I somehow found I didn’t want to skulk around and hide from Gideon, or have things be awkward all evening. And so, before I could talk myself out of it, I was walking up to Gideon and touching him on the shoulder.
He turned around to look at me, almost losing his beer bottle in the process. “Hey,” I said, giving him a smile. “How’s it going?”
He just blinked at me for a moment, like he was trying to make sense of the fact that I was standing in front of him—or that I was going up to him to say hi, and not the other way around. “Hi,” he finally said.
“I just wanted to say hello,” I said, after a slightly strained pause. I’d kind of forgotten just how painful conversations with Gideon could sometimes be, and I was beginning to regret starting this one.
He nodded and rolled the bottle between his palms, and when nothing followed, I finally got the hint that he really didn’t want to talk to me. I took a breath to tell him that it was great to see him, and that my friends were waiting—one of which was true—when he looked up at me. “Have you had a good summer?”
“Oh,” I said, gathering my thoughts, and not just replying with a standard “Great!” Gideon didn’t ask these questions just to be polite, and never wanted to hear that everything was fine when it wasn’t. “It’s not what I expected,” I said. As I did, I realized we’d all had summers we hadn’t been expecting—Frank, Dawn, me, Collins, even Beckett and my parents. “But it’s been good. I’ve been having fun.”
He looked at me for a moment, then nodded. “I’m glad,” he said, in that slow, careful way of his. “Have you been . . .”
“Well, hello there.” There was suddenly someone next to me, sliding his arm around my shoulders. I turned, expecting to see Collins or a Stanwich College freshman pushing his luck, but took a tiny, startled step back when I realized that it was Benji.
“Oh,” I said. I took another step away, extricating myself from his arm. “Um, hi there.”
Gideon had stood up and was frowning down at Benji—no small feat, since Benji was pretty tall himself. “Emily, you know this guy?”
“Oh yeah, she does,” Benji said, with a wink at me—maybe it was a Collins family trait—clearly not reading the room very well and taking another step toward me. “How’ve you been?”
“Oh, fine,” I said, a little too brightly.
“Em,” Gideon said, and I could hear the hurt in his voice, though he was clearly trying to cover it up. “Are you two—”
“What am I thinking?” I babbled, mostly so Gideon wouldn’t ask his question and I wouldn’t have to answer it. “This is Gideon,” I said, making the introductions. “And that’s Benji.”
“Ben,” Benji said, his smile fading.
“Right, of course,” I said quickly. “Well, this was fun, but I should probably—”
“So what have you been up to?” Benji asked, smiling at me again. “I haven’t seen you around.”
“Well, no,” I said, wondering what he was getting at, since the only place I’d ever seen him before had been in Frank’s pantry.
“So you guys . . . ,” Gideon said, looking from me to Benji, his expression hard.
“No,” I said quickly, just as Benji replied, “Well, this onetime . . .”
“Emily,” Gideon said, now just looking confused.
“There you are.” I turned and saw Frank, a bottle of water in his hand, walking up to me.
“Hi,” I said, smiling at him, happy to see him even though I’d just seen him that morning. Now that he was in front of me, I couldn’t believe I’d ever thought about not coming here.
“What’s going on?” Frank asked, looking slightly confused as he glanced from Gideon, to Benji, to me.
“Nothing,” I said quickly, realizing this might be my opportunity to make an exit and leave unscathed. “We should go, right? To celebrate your birthday? Now?” I widened my eyes at him, hoping that he would get the hint.
He seemed to, because he gave me a smile that was clearly concealing a laugh and said, “Yes. My birthday. Absolutely.”
“Bye,” I said to Gideon as Benji wandered away toward the keg guy. Gideon was now looking from Frank to me, his expression crestfallen. “I’ll see you around?” I asked him. But Gideon had never made things like this easier when he didn’t have to, and he didn’t say anything, just steadily looked back at me for a long moment.
“Okay,” Frank said brightly after a moment, morphing into the student body president, capable of organizing large groups of people and doing it smoothly. “Have a great night. Emily, if you want to follow me, we’re set up over this way . . .” He steered me toward the far picnic table, where there was what looked like a supermarket cake, Collins talking to a girl entirely out of his league, and Doug standing awkwardly next to some of Frank’s school friends.
I could sense the question that Frank wanted to ask, but I didn’t want to answer it, and just looked straight ahead, not meeting his eye as we walked toward the party.
MAY
Two months earlier
“You have to let me see it,” Gideon said, trying to twist around to see his arm and the Sharpie tattoo I was currently working on.
“No,” I said, turning his head away. “Not until I’m finished. You know how bad I am at this.”
He reached over and brushed one of his big hands over my hair, smoothing a piece of it behind my ear. “You’re not bad at it,” he said.
“Ha,” I said. “It’ll be worse if you don’t hold still.”
“Holding,” Gideon said, shooting me one of his small, rare smiles. In the two months that the four of us had been hanging out, Sharpie tattoos had become a thing we did. While we started the evenings together, Sloane and Sam would inevitably break off on their own, and then it would be me and Gideon and a Sharpie, passing the time. It had started that first night we’d gone to the Orchard, and had just become a tradition, though it had taken me a while to build up the courage to draw one on him. I had less than no artistic talent, and Gideon was a natural and gifted artist, though he denied this and insisted it was just something stupid he did for fun. I’d started to really look forward to mine, even though I knew as it was being drawn on that it was temporary. The tattoos faded over time and with every shower until there was just a faint suggestion of whatever it was that had been adorning my hand or arm or ankle.