In the shade of bloodred leaves that stubbornly refuse to fall, Danica treats the wilderness like she does everything else in her life: she holds her head high and tramples it beneath her feet. She somehow marches easily over branches and bramble and grass that seem to come to life just to coil around our legs, while I hop and skip and trip behind her, cursing under my breath like a pint-sized sailor the entire way.
“Did you think my idea was stupid?” Danica asks just as I get ensnared in a pricker bush. She pauses to look over her shoulder while I carefully attempt to dislodge a thorn from the baggy sleeve of my orange zip-up hoodie, and I stop fighting with the bush to look up at her. She must be able to tell that I’m deciding whether or not to try lying again, because she immediately scolds, “And don’t you dare lie.”
I cast my eyes back to the thorns stuck in my hoodie, removing them one by one with surgical precision. “No, but I think that the way you suggested it was.”
“How?”
I don’t need to look at her again to know that her eyes have narrowed into her signature mascara-lined slits. But she told me not to lie to her, so I’m going to follow her orders for once. “You didn’t think of them. You didn’t think of all the time they put into their idea before you started telling them everything you thought was wrong with it. And you didn’t wait to hear what they thought of your idea before you insisted on changing their whole video and starring in it. You made it all about you.”
“I—” Danica opens her mouth to protest, but I finish before she can.
“You bulldozed them. You’re a bulldozer, Dani.”
I think about continuing my lecture—about unleashing all of the feelings I’ve bottled up since I moved in with her two months ago, back in August—but I don’t. Just like the band’s video wasn’t about Danica, her question wasn’t about me. If I can get her to understand this, if I can get her to see why she was wrong in this one, tiny situation that doesn’t even involve me, that would be a humongous step in the right direction.
Danica stands there for a long time, her arms crossed tightly as she digests everything I said. Her long hair dances around her shoulders with the breeze, the rest of her prettily statuesque. With my sleeve finally freed from the brambles, I face her, listening to time tick in the space between us.
“But you did agree with what I said?” she finally asks.
“Huh?” I’m not sure what I expected—a revelation?—but her question throws me off guard.
“You think the video would be better with a lead ghost?”
“Yeah,” I stammer. “I guess. I mean, I think—”
“Okay, good,” Danica interrupts, a smile settling in her happy brown eyes. “Then maybe you can help me.” She links her arm with mine as we continue walking through the forest, and I lose all sense of direction as I chase her train of thought.
“Help you?”
“Help me convince them to go with my idea. I know I went about it the wrong way, Hailey. You were right.” She bumps my shoulder in a disconcerting show of affection. “But it is a really good idea. It will make the video more popular, which will help the band. And I bet they’ll listen to you. Plus, I’ll owe you one.”
I trip over a rock, but Danica catches me with our linked arms and helps me find my balance. “Why would they listen to me?” I ask as I find my feet.
“Because you don’t lie,” she says, turning her head to smile at me.
“But you do?”
“Of course not,” she says with a too-big smile just as we step from the tree line. The afternoon sun crashes into me, and my gaze swims over waves of golden grass to a large dock in the middle of a pond, where all of my friends are still laughing and carrying on.
“I thought—” I thought you had to pee? I start to ask, but I never get the chance.
“Come on,” Danica peeps, dragging me toward the dock and, consequently, toward the confused looks I get once we arrive there.
Since when are you best friends? Rowan’s look asks.
Why are you letting that she-devil touch you? Kit’s look presses.
I glance away from both of them, to Dee’s pinched brow, narrowed eyes, and tight lips. Did she make you drink the Kool-Aid? Are you brainwashed? Are you silently screaming for help? Should I drown you in this pond and put you out of your misery?
“Did you two get lost or something?” Mike asks, and I let his deep voice kidnap my attention. I turn to see him smiling up at Danica and me from the end of the grated platform, where he’s sitting on a plum-purple blanket with Joel. He’s wearing a black and green Dallas Stars snapback hat and a matching green hoodie, and looking at him now feels like staring into the sun.
I’ve tried to avoid doing it too much since meeting up with the group today. It’s strange, hanging out with him in person. Listening to him talk. Watching him laugh. Just . . . being around him.
I’ve ended every night this week by playing Deadzone with him. And every single night, with the exception of the nights we’ve talked on the phone, my phone has dinged with a text from Sexy as Fuck Drummer just before I’ve drifted off to sleep.
Sweet dreams, Hailey.
I find myself waiting for those three simple words. The text doesn’t always come right away, and on those nights, I’ve tossed and turned, trying not to think about him.
I know I shouldn’t fall asleep thinking about my cousin’s boyfriend. I probably shouldn’t even play games with him. I never mention our Deadzone games to Danica, and I’m pretty sure Mike doesn’t either, seeing as how I haven’t been axed in my sleep.