I’m thinking about Wildboy. If that woman couldn’t stop a bear with a rifle, how could he defend himself with a bow and arrow?
“Magda?” Rob touches my arm. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” I shake myself at how maudlin I’m acting. I don’t know Wildboy. I’m not invested. “It’s just sad.”
“Hunting is sad,” Aura-Blue insists. “Murdering animals with guns is sad.”
Liam leans in conspiratorially. “She’s vegan, if you hadn’t guessed.”
We talk about hunting and then slide into a lively debate about gun laws. Taylor is adamant about his Second Amendment rights.
“No one’s going to take my guns,” he says. That’s when I know he has never read the Second Amendment.
Aura-Blue rolls her eyes. “It takes months of classes and two separate tests to get a driver’s license because cars can kill. Don’t you think we should at least have the same setup for something that is specifically designed to kill?”
“I don’t kill people with my guns,” Taylor grumbles without answering Aura-Blue’s question.
“I think the one thing we can all agree on is that people who have a mental illness shouldn’t be allowed to have guns, right?” Rob says. Even Taylor agrees with that. I stay quiet, but I can feel Rob’s eyes on me.
“Will you teach me to shoot?” I ask Taylor.
He looks stunned. “Yeah. Sure. Rifle or handgun?”
I shrug. “Both, I guess.” He laughs, and I take the golf club out of his hand and step up to the tee. “What is it?” I ask, off his look.
“You just don’t seem the type.”
I line up my shot. “Well, you know.” I tap my ball directly into the pirate ship, down the ramps, and into the hole. My father spent lots of money on my swing. It’s impressive. “Bears.”
We get pizza and beer after. Everyone has fake IDs except for me.
“You can put your glass down here,” Mila says, pointing under the table to the space between us on the bench. Her Van Cleef & Arpels bracelet flashes on her wrist. “I’ll watch out for the waiter while you drink.”
“Thanks, but I can’t have alcohol,” I say. I grimace mournfully. “Unfortunately.”
Mila smiles. “Antibiotics?” she asks. I laugh and look down, letting her think whatever she wants.
They kill a pitcher of beer before the pizza even arrives. Rob is the only one who has barely even tasted his first glass.
“Do you ever drink?” he asks me.
“I used to,” I admit. “But not anymore.”
He hands his beer to Taylor. “Here, man. I’m done.”
“You don’t have to…” I begin, but Rob leans forward suddenly and brushes my long hair behind my shoulder. “If you don’t drink, neither do I,” he says. The pizza arrives before I can tell him the gesture, although sweet, is not necessary.
It’s not New York pizza, but nothing is. I wonder if I’ll ever have another real New York slice, standing on a corner, midtown traffic lapping like waves around me, the sky humming with the urgency of the city. I doubt it.
“How’s your pizza?” Aura-Blue asks as she bites into her salad.
“Great,” I say, shoving the greasy cardboard between my teeth. I chew for a bit.
She watches my expression skeptically.
“Not so great,” I admit. “I should have gotten one of those.” I point to her salad, and she smiles.
“I think there might be another vegan among us,” she sings teasingly. Everyone else groans.
“First alcohol, now I’ve got to give up meat, too?” Rob says.
And we’re all laughing and enjoying this and tucking our performances away so we can rethink them and wonder if we could have been a little more charming in this moment or a little less ostentatious in that one.
At the end of the night, I let Rob kiss me for a while in his car, but that’s it. I stop him and tell him I’m not ready for anything else—we’re just getting to know each other. He understands. He doesn’t push. He walks me to the door and tells me to call him tomorrow. Or at least turn on my phone so he can call me.
I’m waiting to feel something. It’s the meds, I tell myself.
July 19
The next two days, I dodge Rob and go there.
I need alone time, I tell him. I’m not lying, either. Toward the end of the second day—and that makes it a full three afternoons I’ve spent waiting by the waterfall—Wildboy still hasn’t shown. So technically I’ve been alone this whole time. Although I wish I wasn’t.
My notebook sits next to me. I touch the cover, but before I can pick it up, I hear a snap behind me. I jump to my feet and look up the sheer wall. The first thing I think is—Bear! Mostly because my grandmother has been a nervous wreck about that woman who was mauled, but also because I’ve seen Animal Planet. Bear attacks are horrifying. Do I run? No. They eat you if you run because you look like prey—thank you, Animal Planet. I’m supposed to yell. But how can I yell when the fear in my throat is as thick as sand?
“Who’s there?” I call out. I hear movement and back away from the wall so I can see over the crest of it. “Come out!”
“Okay,” I hear behind me.
I whirl around, a scream halfway up my throat, and there he is.
Wildboy.
No mud this time, so I can see his face. He’s fair with closely cropped blond hair. He’s not magazine beautiful, but he has nice features and a strong chin. His teeth are a little crooked. He’s muscular and tall, but he’s not puffed up and sculpted like Taylor, Liam, and Rob. He doesn’t have a gym-rat body. He has a functional body—limber and lean. If I were to pass him on the street in New York, I’d think he was definitely above average, but not light-your-panties-on-fire sexy. At least, my former friends wouldn’t think he was. So why am I hot all over?
“Were you watching me?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says, looking down. He’s blushing. “You came back.”
“I’ve been coming back,” I admit.
“I know.”
“Wait. How long have you been watching me?”
He smiles but doesn’t answer. “What’s your name?” “Lena.” It just pops out. But that’s what I want him to call me. “What’s yours?”
“Bo.”