Thankfully they’re all too kind to point out the obvious. There are no follow-up questions like with the others, for which I’m grateful. Any answers I’d have would be just as depressing.
The conversation lulls then, and Ellery jumps in, never one to outlast an awkward silence.
“Wow, I really can’t believe it,” she muses. “The Mob back together at last…”
She trails off, and it’s clear we’re all thinking the same things. Of the others who should be here. Who can’t be.
“Could Josh not make it?” Adrien asks.
Ellery latches onto her question, grateful. “He really wanted to, but he said he had a work commitment. We should FaceTime him at some point.”
“What about Hari?” I ask.
Kyan looks down at the watch on his wrist, a blue-faced Omega coated with diamonds. “I talked to her earlier. She said she’d come by. She should have arrived by now. I’ll text her.”
The group falls into an awkward silence. There are two additional people missing: Phoebe and Tomas. Two people who can’t share what they’ve been up to in the past ten years.
Eventually, after a few throat clearings and the silent passing of seconds, the group moves on to another conversation topic. Rather than joining in, I take a moment and look at these people who were once my best friends, my family. People I used to know intimately, who are now strangers in so many ways. Maybe they always were.
I start with Declan. Even with all the hurt, something beckons me to run my fingers through his curls like I used to. To cuddle up beside him. But then I notice the dark circles around his eyes, the slivers of gray hair in his hair. My eyes skirt to his hands, which are grasped tightly—too tightly—around his whiskey glass.
I shift to Adrien, her perfectly botoxed forehead masking any years that have passed. Sensing me looking at her, she flicks her eyes towards mine, her gaze cold and steely. She catches herself almost instantly, the warmth from earlier seeping back into her face.
Kyan’s next to her, his face lit up animatedly as he tells some outrageous story. But there’s something off about him, something that wasn’t there all those years ago. A hardness that seems to lie just beyond the gregarious mask.
And then there’s Ellery, whose lips are pursed in something resembling a smile, but which looks more like a grimace.
For the first time, I consider that I may not be the only one uncomfortable here. But why? The others wanted to return even before they heard the news about Phoebe, and none of them seem particularly broken up about her body being found.
Unless they’re hiding something too.
6
Phoebe
Then
We make the trek to the bar, with Hari leading the way. When we’re a safe distance from campus, she pulls out a plastic bottle filled with some unidentifiable alcohol, which she passes around the group. As she prattles on, trying to give us all the insider information we need about Hamilton College and its students, I can’t help but feel myself softening towards her. Adrien, however, is a different story. Despite my efforts at ensuring I’m always within touching distance of Kyan as we walk, I can tell she’s doing the same. Every time I catch his eyes flicker over to her, my hands fold into fists.
When we finally arrive, Hari waltzes through the front door. I look furtively for the bouncer before remembering the lowered drinking age here. A smile flits across my face as we enter the bar, a drab room with sharp overhead lighting that accentuates the sticky floors and a handful of mostly empty tables and booths. I inhale astale beer smell, briefly wondering why Hari was so eager to bring us here. But she leads us through that first room and into another, with a huge bar staffed with three bartenders and surrounded by groups of college-age drinkers, all of whom are talking or laughing or tossing back pints. Hari raises her arms as a grungy looking guy with tight jean shorts and a lip ring calls her name. She skips over to him, calling back to tell us to grab drinks and a table and that she’ll join us shortly.
The rest of us hang back slightly, taking everything in. I wonder briefly if the others feel like I do, as if the rest of the patrons can easily spot us as outsiders. I shake away the feeling and raise my voice over the din of the crowd.
“First round’s on me,” I shout before sauntering up to the bar. A bartender heads in my direction almost immediately, bypassing the group of guys further down the counter waving to get his attention.
“What can I get ya?” he asks with a smile that accentuates a dimple in his left cheek.
For a second, I freeze. I don’t know what drinks to order in an American bar, let alone one in a foreign country. Unsurprisingly, I haven’t had many invitations for nights out back in Atlanta. The only drinking I’ve ever really done has been at the rare family dinner or charity function my parents have dragged me to, where everyone is so rich and negligent that they don’t mind—or care—when someone’s underaged child decides to partake in the free-flowing champagne. In fact, I usually need at least a few glasses to get through those things.
But this certainly does not feel like a place that serves champagne. My mind flickers to the little I know about Australia.
“Uh, nine Fosters, please.”
The bartender looks at me for a moment and then bursts out laughing. “First time in Oz?” he asks once he’s regained control.
I feel my cheeks grow hot, but I paint on a smile.
“Okay, scratch that,” I say, craning my neck down and looking up at him from beneath my eyelids. “Nine of whatever you recommend.”
