Meet Me at Midnight - Jessica Pennington Page 0,45
I open it and grab a spoon, wondering when breakfast became such a stressful time for me. I try again for a smile, and this time my mouth makes what I’m pretty sure is a C+ effort. There’s no teeth, but definitely a clear improvement in my performance.
I sit down at my mug of coffee, thankful that we’re sitting side by side and not across from each other. We’re eating in complete silence, our awkwardness accompanied by the scrape of spoons, the soft setting down of our mugs, the squeak of our stools as we fidget and shift.
Our walk to the boat is as quiet as our breakfast, and by the time we reach it I feel like screaming just to crack the silence. Is this his way of messing with me, without actually messing with me? Seeing how long he can go before I crack and say something first? No, surely not. The truce was his idea, after all. But I think of his silence at breakfast, how he didn’t say anything until I did. We’re always quiet, though. I’m not sure if I want a change, or if I’m just expecting one.
At the boat, Asher steps on and holds out a hand for me. I look at it like it’s covered in acid, and my eyes dart to him. He’s holding back a smile, and when I finally take his hand, whatever hold he had on himself snaps. While I sit in my usual seat at the bow, he sits in front of the little engine, shaking with laughter. His face is pinked with the exertion of trying to hold it back.
What is wrong with him? Apparently this truce is driving us both a little mad.
He’s barely composed himself when he tells me, “Tomorrow night we’re going to scout at Five Pines.” We finish our swim, walk silently back to the house, and carefully avoid each other the rest of the day.
DAY 12
Asher
You’d think a truce would mean Sidney and I could just act like normal people. The kind who can sit around and talk about normal things, like how to prank their former landlord. You would be wrong. Less than forty-eight hours into our truce, it’s become very clear that we don’t know how to act like normal people. We know how to annoy and avoid. And how to ride in a car in total silence. So I guess we’re going to wing our first night at Nadine’s.
We’ve only been out of the Five Pines houses for a few days, but already it feels like we don’t belong here. Lake House A and B are dark—lights off, blinds drawn. There are no cars at either house. Even the air smells different—like it’s missing the soft tang of fish that usually wafts out of the little hut next to Nadine’s house, where the dads clean their catch. After Sidney weaponized that smell, I can’t say I miss it.
“Creepy,” Sidney says from behind me. Her eyes are fixed on the tall blue elf that peers at us from beside a little bush, with a red hat slumped on his head. I’ve always thought Nadine’s statue collection was the weirdest thing ever. I swear their eyes follow you, like creepy little concrete Mona Lisas. And it’s not just gnomes, it’s frogs and dragons, and there’s even a red brontosaurus statue. A brontosaurus. There were a few here when I first came, tucked in around the tiny cabins that used to sit in a row here, but since the house went up last summer they seem to be multiplying exponentially.
Sidney shakes her head in mock disgust, and I want to laugh, but I don’t. We’re behind Nadine’s house, in the strip of trees that runs along the driveway and separates her property from the next. It isn’t the time or place to be amused by Sidney, truce or not. We parked down the road, at The Little Store, which had been closed for hours by the time we arrived, and then we walked the half-mile to Five Pines.
“What do we do now?” Sidney whispers.
“We scout.”
“Okay…” Her voice is sarcastic. “And what exactly does that entail? You know, for those of us who aren’t expert-level lurkers.”
“As if you’d qualify,” I scoff. “All hail Sidney, Queen of the Lurkers,” I mutter. Why can’t she just talk to me like a normal person?
“Whatever.” She takes a step ahead of me and I grab her arm, but she shakes away roughly.