“It’s fine. I had one in high school, but it didn’t work out.”
I heard Maggie’s voice in my ear then, that hiss on the lawn as we watched Lucy lie out there. “I heard she blinded her boyfriend in high school.” It felt like just another rumor at the time, one of the countless wild tales some student made up about her to feel relevant, but still. I felt myself leaning forward, not wanting to miss a word.
“His loss,” my mom said, spearing a piece of broccoli.
“Yeah,” Lucy said, averting her eyes, her voice suddenly sounding too clipped. Too strained.
“He didn’t … he didn’t hurt you or anything, did he?”
“Mom, seriously.”
“Margot, honey, we’re just having a conversation.”
“It’s fine,” Lucy said again, cutting into a chicken thigh. “No, nothing like that. At least, not physically.” She smiled.
“Truth or dare,” Lucy says to me now, and I feel myself blink. I brush off the memory along with a streak of sand on my cheek before rubbing both arms with my hands to warm them.
“Truth,” I say at last, another pop going off somewhere in the distance. A flash of light, a faraway cheer.
“That’s new for you.”
“Yeah, well, if I said dare you’d dare me to go skinny-dipping and I’m not trying to die of hypothermia.”
Lucy laughs, an open-mouthed snort that’s cut short by another slug from the bottle. She shakes her head, wipes her lips on her hand, and plops it down in the sand between us.
“You’re not wrong about that.”
I’m quiet as she thinks, fingers tickling at her chin until she flips to the side and rests her head on her arm.
“What’s your New Year’s resolution?”
“I don’t really have one,” I say, and that’s the honest truth. I’ve never been that kind of person. There have always been things I’ve wanted to change about myself, things I’ve disliked, but until I met Lucy, I could never imagine waking up one morning and just actively choosing to be somebody else. Shedding my insecurities like a too-small skin, leaving them behind. Outgrowing my old self and simply morphing into someone new.
“You have to have one. Just pick something.”
I take a minute to think about the past year, such a drastic detour from my life thus far. I can’t even believe that, 365 days ago, I was still living in the dorms with Maggie, cocooned in a cradle of junk food and mediocre movies to keep myself from having to think too hard about everything I had lost. So maybe that’s my resolution: to never go back to that place again. To never lose anything else so completely. And I don’t just mean Eliza; I mean myself, too. I had no idea how fragile I was back then, how my very being was held together by such a perilously thin thread. Because before I was with Maggie, I was with Eliza. I hadn’t lost her yet. We were still best friends, still doing everything together. We were still counting down the days until Rutledge when we could both finally be free … but was I happy back then? Was I, really? I don’t actually know. I never tried to change the things I didn’t like about myself, fix the things that needed to be fixed. Instead, I just latched on to Eliza, zeroing in on all the places she was full where I was hollow and hoped that if I lapped them up for long enough, they’d pool their way in and fill me up, too.
“I want to be different,” I say at last, the only way I know how to put it.
“Different how?”
“I don’t know,” I say, rolling over now, too. “I’m sick of being weak, I guess. Of being … malleable.”
“I don’t think you’re weak.”
“Lucy, come on.” We’re both quiet, nothing but the roar of waves between us. I want her to say something, to crack some kind of joke to break the tension, but instead, she stays silent. “You saw how I was last year.”
I’m grateful for the dark right now, the cover of night, so she can’t see the warm flush creeping into my cheeks. We’ve never really talked about this before: her choosing me, the anomaly of it. How it just doesn’t make sense, no matter which way you twist it.
I grab the bottle from the sand, surprisingly light in my grip, and take another drink.
“You were going through something.”
“I was always like that,” I say, shaking my head. “Even before Eliza. I was always too cautious. Always letting people walk all over me.”
“Well, I like you the way you are, but I know you have it in you to be different. I’ve seen it.”