Page 30 of The Staircase in the Woods

Lauren was a little drunk—just fuzzy enough to feel that numb benzocaine tingle in her lips and gums, and she didn’t want to be near the fight in case one of those two assholes accidentally fell into the bonfire and barbecued themselves, or got someone else barbecued by jostling into them. So she wandered off to the edge of the property, near the post-and-rail horse fence.

That’s where she found Matty. He, too, wanted to get away from the fight. And he was a little drunk, just like her. They made each other laugh for a while and then, next thing they knew…

They kissed. Hard. They made out likebandits.

It was the first time, but it would not be the last.

They told each other it wasn’t serious. Just a fling, a stupid physical attraction. And so they found each other once every few months—often outside, because it turned out that the wide open nowhere was a very good way to get away from everyone else—and it always went the same way. Got a little drunk, made each other laugh, and then messed around. But then it was late April this past year when she andMatty got together at the playground outside Minsi Trail Elementary to get busy, but then he said, “You ever notice the pattern?”

Lauren didn’t know what he was talking about. “I notice patterns,” she said. “I’m good with patterns, okay?”

So he said, “You missed this one,” and pointed out that before they got it on, theyalwaysmade each other laugh first. “I have a good time with you, and you have a good time with me,” he explained to her. “We actuallylikeeach other, Laur.”

“Yeah, we’re friends,” she told him, as if to say,Duh.

But she wasn’t getting it. “Yeah,and then some, which is why we should make this…a thing. A real thing.”

“But we’refriends,” she said, more dour this time, because to her, that was the most important thing. Their friendship. This hooking up thing was just a side business. As the saying went, friends with benefits.

“Laur, I dig you,” he said.

“I dig you, too.”

“No, Idigyou.” Said like someone drunk, or high, except he wasn’t either when he said it. (Mattydidget drunk but didnotget high. His parents expected a certain level of performance out of him and demanded a particular future, which he was happy to supply. Failing a drug test, he said, would ruin all that. When she asked him if his parents drug-tested him, he laughed it off. But she wasn’t so sure.)

“Matty—”

“I want to do this for real.”

“It hasn’t been real this whole time?” she asked, smirking, and reaching behind and sliding the flats of her hands into the tight rear pockets of his jeans.

“You know what I mean. I want to dousfor real. A relationship.”

And that word struck fear and excitement through her like she’d never before experienced. A lightning bolt through her heart—enough voltage to both kill her ass deadandbring her back to life again, reborn.A relationship.Zap.

“I—Matty—we’ll go away to college year after next and—”

“I’m not looking to get married. I just want to make it official with us. No more of this running around behind our friends’ backs. Boyfriend, girlfriend. Holding hands and going to movies and all that cheesy shit.”

“Ugh,” she said, still smiling. She squeezed his ass. “I don’t like cheese.” Lauren tried to be funny and cute because it was easier than thinking about the friends they weren’t telling—which, translation, meant Owen. Owen, who was truly her best friend in the whole world—and the one from whom she was keeping this secret. She knew he liked her. It was obvious. It radiated from him like sunlight off a switchblade—it was so bright it nearly blinded her, even if he thought he was playing it cool. But Lauren thought they were too close. Too similar. They could never. Theyshouldnever. But Matty…she was close with him but notclose-close. Not best friends. Just friendsenoughto fuck it all up.

“So how about it?” he asked.

“I’ll…think about it.”

“Oh.” It was impossible not to hear the disappointment in his voice. It rang like the peal of a sad, long bell. “All right.” He mumbled something about having to go home, and she spun him around and pressed herself up against him.

“I said I’ll think about it, Pouty Pete,” she said, not knowing what that corny shit even meant. Didn’t matter. She pressed her mouth against his, and they both breathed in sharply through their nostrils and then it wason.

—

Today, out here in the woods, she was going to tell him yes.

Yes, she’d be his girlfriend. Yes, they could be together and tell the whole fucking world about it. She’d never quite tell him she needed him, because Lauren would tell him and tell everyone that she didn’tneedanybody. Not today, not ever.

But she wanted him, and that would be enough.

Though sometimes she wondered whether or not she wantedhim, or simply didn’t want to be alone. Maybe it didn’t matter. She promised him she’d think about it, and she thought about it, and she wanted to be with Matty.

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