Page 15 of Resilience

She was angry and her mouth was moving fast, but Athena understood the words she made. She looked down at herself to see what Lark had seen, but it was just her puny body and its random assortment of ancient surgery scars, most of which were showing because she had on her old yellow two-piece. Her hair was back in a ponytail and probably looked like a rat’s nest after being in the lake.

On the other hand, Lark wore an adorable pink plaid romper with tied spaghetti straps and a sweetheart neckline that put her impressive cleavage right out in front. Her hair was done in a fluffy ponytail full of beachy waves, and her curtain bangs were styled to perfectly frame her prettily made-up face. She was also wearing pink ankle-strap espadrilles with about a three-inch wedge, which was silly. Girlfriend was going to sprain an ankle walking around here in those shoes.

Leaving the love-hate birds to their argument, Athena waved at Lark (who knew maybe two ASL signs, the ones everybody knew) and directed herself toward the picnic table. She’d take the cake and the grocery bags inside and give them their privacy. Though she couldn’t hear their fight and wasn’t looking at them, she knew that her presence itself would be a drain on them both.

When she saw the cake through the cellophane window in the box, she laughed with real amusement and only a hint of irritation. In blue icing across the whole of the basic sheet cake for their joint birthday was written: Happy Birthday Sam!

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~oOo~

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She set the cake on the table and put away the groceries Lark had brought—more Solo cups, napkins, and Chinet plates (which they probably didn’t need), a six-pack of grapefruit White Claw, a party-size bag of tortilla chips, and what looked like the makings of some fancy take on salsa. She’d just turned to head back for a shower when the Sam and Lark came in. They looked like they’d talked things out enough to be good again.

Athena was trying to get Sam’s attention to tell him she was claiming firsts on the shower when he looked down at the cake on the table, and she saw his face do the thing it did when he was angry and trying not to let it get the best of him.

When he spoke, he didn’t sign as well, and he didn’t make an effort to be sure Athena could see his mouth, but she saw enough to understand the gist. He was dressing Lark down for not including Athena on the cake.

That boy was very dumb about women sometimes.

Athena clapped to get his attention before he could get too far into the quicksand. When he looked her way she told him, “It’s not a big deal. It’s just cake.”

“No, it’s not just cake,” he said and signed. “It’s our birthday cake. For our birthday party. Which Lark obviously knows.”

Lark glared at Athena and said something, but her lips barely moved, so Athena only maybe caught the word keep. However, whatever she’d said made Sam’s face practically collapse in on itself. His fist even clenched.

Obviously, Lark hadn’t been thanking Athena for coming to her defense.

As they started fighting again, Athena ducked out, and she and Blanche went back to the bedroom to collect clean clothes and get a shower.

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~oOo~

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When she was done with her shower, the cabin was empty and there was a note on the table beside the controversial cake. Sam’s abysmal handwriting informed her that he and Lark had gone into town for another one.

That was probably going to be a really fun trip. Not.

Athena slathered sunscreen on, got a water bottle from the fridge, grabbed her tablet, and went with Blanche to sit in the yard under the trees and read.

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~oOo~

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Before she’d been able to finish a single chapter, Blanche alerted that somebody was here. Athena checked the time; it hadn’t been even half an hour. Town was more than half an hour from the cabin, so if they were back already, things had gotten even worse. Happy birthday, Samwise, she thought as she turned to look around the back of her chair.

Hunter had just climbed out of his Accord.

Athena smiled. He was such a dork, trying to look all cool in navy Bermuda shorts and an untucked, pale-yellow Oxford shirt, Ray-Bans on his face and preppy boat shoes on his feet. Like he was headed to brunch at a country club and not a lakeside party where half the guests were Bulls or Bulls-adjacent and the other half usually saw him in his gym-teacher uniform, consisting of royal-blue knit shorts and a teal polo with the school logo on the chest.

She stood and headed toward him, waving to draw his attention from the cabin. When he saw her, he grinned. If he’d really been annoyed yesterday, he seemed to have gotten over it.

“Hi.”

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