Page 71 of I Hope This Doesn't Find
“They were rather attached to the woods, so they rebuilt their house in the exact same place,” Julius says. “But every time it rained again, they could hear . . . crying. It sounded like a child. Like Scarlett. They tried to follow it, but it seemed to be coming fromwithinthe house, within the very walls. A year later, there came another storm. Much tamer than the first. Almost everyone survived it; the water levels didn’t even rise above the knee. Except Scarlett’s family was found drowned in the living room the next morning, all of them lying facedown.”
“And then?” someone whispers.
“That’s it,” he says smoothly. “They all died.”
Heavy silence follows in the wake of his words.
Then, somewhere in the distance a door slams, and Ray lets out such a high-pitched shriek I briefly wonder if a chicken has broken loose.
But the spell is broken. Everyone’s too busy laughing at Ray to linger on the details.
As the campfire burns on, people split off into private conversations, friends huddling together on the log. I’m cleaning my plate when I feel a weight lower itself next to me.
Rosie.
I instantly stiffen.
“Chill, Sadie, I’m not here to bite your head off,” she says, seeing my reaction. She’s smiling, which is very alarming. “I just wanted to chat.”
“About what?” I ask.
“I’ve been thinking about the email you sent me, and you know what? I was really,reallypissed off.” She brushes her hair over her shoulder. “Honestly, when I first read it, I was ready to slap someone.”
I shift back, out of slapping distance.
“But I kind of deserved it. Ididcopy your science project.” She exhales. “I didn’t plan to. I don’t know what I was thinking. Or, well, I guess . . . Everyone knows I’m gorgeous, right? Sometimes when I’m walking past a mirror, I have to stop for a few seconds because I can’t believe how stunning I am. Like, damn.”
I officially have no idea where this conversation is going.
“I’m proud of it,” she adds. “It takes a lot of work to look this good all the time. But I was just . . . curious. What it’s like to get great grades and have people compliment you for your intelligence. To be you.”
This is perhaps the most bizarre statement I’ve ever heard. Even more shocking than Abigail’s prediction about Rosie devoting the rest of her life to being a nun.
“I was planning to apologize,” she goes on, crossing her legs. “Except I feel like we’d only be going in circles with our apologies. I’m sorry I copied your project; you’re sorry you wrote that email. I’m sorry I proceeded to snap at you in front of the year level. So I guess what I’m really trying to say is—thank you. For being understanding, and for all your help in general.” She lets out a little laugh. “Funnily enough, it wasn’t until I made it a point to ignore you that I realized how often I turned to you for notes and stuff. You didn’t have to do that, but you did.”
It takes me a minute to remember how to speak. “Um. You’re—welcome?”
She laughs again. “So we’re good?”
“Yeah. Yes. Very good,” I say, still stunned.
“I’ll miss you when we graduate, you know,” she adds. “I can’t believe this will all be over soon.”
“Yeah,” I repeat softly, gazing around the campfire, at all the familiar, laughing faces. “I can’t believe it either.”
•••
“She actually said that?”
“I know,” I tell Abigail that evening, plopping down on the bed. We’re lucky enough to have been assigned one of the smaller cabin rooms, made for only two people. Some of the girls have to share with three or four others. “I was so certain that she would never forgive me for the emails, that she’d spend the rest of her life hating me. That the damage would be irreversible. I’ve literally been sick to my stomach for weeks,months, thinking about it, and now . . . Thank god.” I release a laugh, shaking my head.
She turns back to me from the dresser, a strange little smile on her lips. “Were the emails . . . that bad? I mean, did it . . . affect you so much?”
“That bad?”I snort. “They were catastrophic.”
“Right.” Her smile wobbles. “I didn’t realize— I knew you were embarrassed, obviously, but you never talked that much about it.”
It’s true, I guess. I haven’treallytalked about it with anyone. Not my mom, because I don’t want her to worry. Not Max, because I don’t think he’d understand. And not Abigail, because I don’t want her pity. But maybe it’s also habit by this point. The summer when I was eleven, we had flown to China for a large family gathering, and as everyone was trading stories and laughing and clinking drinks in the crimson glow of the restaurant, a fish bone had gotten lodged in my throat. Instead of making a big deal out of it and trying to cough it out in front of thirty-six people I was directly or indirectly related to, I’d chosen to swallow it inward, to quietly absorb the pain as the bone scraped its way down while I sat there and smiled. Nobody could have guessed that something was wrong.
