Only If You're Lucky by Stacy Willingham

Author:Stacy Willingham
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

CHAPTER 37

“What did you guys do when we were gone?”

I’m sitting on Sloane’s bed, watching as she folds clean clothes on the floor, though I don’t know why she’s bothering to unpack. She got back in town this morning and there are only two weeks of classes left until winter break. Pretty soon, she’ll just be packing again.

We’ll all be packing, preparing ourselves for an entire month apart.

“Just hung out,” I say, watching as she pulls a pair of jeans from her duffel. “It was nice.”

“Nice,” she repeats. “Sounds cryptic.”

I think back to that night, Lucy and me, the two of us eventually climbing down the lattice in silence. The way we had crept quietly into the hallway, said our good nights. The silent click of our bedroom doors behind us before we crawled into our respective beds and pulled the covers close.

I think about how I had lain there, reminiscing about our conversation, wondering if she was doing the same. The way I had longed to be alone with her, but at the same time, feared it more than anything.

Maybe it’s because Lucy has a way of talking that makes me uncomfortable, her voice burrowing into my skin like an insect, digging in deep and living there quietly. Maybe it’s the way she makes people admit things so readily, those eerie eyes that feel borderline hypnotic powerful enough to make your lips part without your permission; to force your arms to stretch out and hand her anything she wants.

Or maybe it’s because I’ve been starting to listen to her, really starting to believe the things she says. Over the summer, the way she spoke of murder at Penny Lanes with such indifference had sent a sharp chill down my spine. It had scared me, that murky moral logic—but in the months since, talking about life and the way I wished things were, the harshness of it all has started to dull like she’s been kneading the idea in my mind slowly, gently, until the jagged edges are no longer there.

“It was pretty low-key,” I say at last. “We didn’t leave the house much.”

I wonder now if anyone else knows what I do. If Lucy has told the others about the crawl space, her parents. Held their hands in the dark as she drew pictures in the sky.

“Have you seen Nicole?” Sloane asks, jolting me from my daydream. She says it bored, almost like an afterthought, but I can tell by the way she avoids my eyes that she’s curious about my answer.

“Not yet,” I say. “I heard her come in earlier, but then she left again.”

“She’s lost, like, ten pounds.”

“In a week?”

“Margot, I can see her spine.”

I chew on my lip. Nicole has always been skinny, a trait she attributes to genetics and a fast metabolism, but now that I think about it, ever since I found her that night cheek-down on the tile, she’s been picking at her food more than eating it.

I think of her holding that mug of coffee in her hands, eyes empty as she pushed it away.

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