I reply without thinking. “Were you watching me, Ethan? It’s like you’re obsessed with me or something.” The moment the words fly out, I kick myself. I feel betrayed by my brain. It’s a relapse in the direction I promised I wouldn’t go. I need to pull it together and keep things detached.
“Of course I’m obsessed with you,” Ethan replies easily, catching me off guard. “Besting you is all I think about. Come on, Sanger. Tell me you’re not obsessed with me.”
Of course I’m obsessed with you. This isn’t the way our conflicts generally go. Ethan’s brought a rhetorical knife to a fistfight, though I’ll walk out before I concede this to him. I look sideways, knowing I need this conversation over—now. “I’m not,” I say firmly.
The lie feels hollower with every empty millisecond Ethan watches me, facing me while I keep my eyes on the unlit fire. Deep down, I know obsession lives within my relationship with Ethan. The times I’ve strategized how to one-up him, or resented something he’s done, or reveled in some victory over him—they’re uncountable, like the grains of sand on this beach.
I preoccupy myself sorting the change in the cashbox, expecting Ethan to retort.
He doesn’t. I feel him drop his gaze to the ground. There’s a fragile pause before he walks out of the booth without a word.
The realization washes over me, cold and uncomfortable. This isn’t fun. It’s not the consumptive fire of fighting with Ethan, the exhausting push-and-pull of every day spent feuding. Instead, it’s discontented emptiness, equally distracting and unpleasant. I’m not working myself into a sweat, I’m standing soaking in the cold. I was sure ending our rivalry would make me feel mature, even fulfilled. The fact it’s not working is one I don’t know how to deal with. But suddenly I’m scared that I’ve really ended the feud I’ve followed for years.
In front of me, I watch Ethan’s steps slow, then stop. Like he’s gotten a second wind, he spins and marches toward me. “You know,” he says when he reaches me, “it’s not easy to hear that you’re not obsessed with me, Sanger. I’ve worked hard.” His voice is light like he’s joking and slightly strained like he’s not.
I’m unequipped for how my heart leaps knowing he hasn’t thrown in the towel. Familiar muscles come to life in me, stretching, ready. I don’t stop them this time. “Well, Ethan, surely you’re no stranger to working hard and falling short of success.”
Slowly, Ethan grins. It’s wide, victorious, and elated. Behind him, the bonfire leaps into flame, and there’s fire in Ethan’s eyes. “There she is,” he says. The heat hits us, rolling over the sand and covering my skin. “If I wasn’t sworn to hate you until graduation, I’d say I missed this.”
“Good thing you’re sworn to hate me then,” I say.
His grin shifts into a smirk. “Good thing.”
“Hey, um,” I hear someone say, “do you sell s’mores or what?” Pulling my gaze from Ethan, I realize a long line has formed for my stand while he and I were locked in our staring match.
I spring into action, handing Benjamin Polinski a tray. Wordlessly, Ethan joins me behind the table, counting out change from the cashbox. We work in instinctual rhythm, this unlikely mirror image of our constant clashes. I can’t help myself once we’ve served five or six students. “Hey,” I say to Ethan, “remember when you thought this s’mores stand wouldn’t be a good idea?”
Ethan’s eyes narrow, but he looks pleased. “Still should have priced it at three dollars.”
“I told you. It wasn’t my decision.”
While we work, I’m conscious of every time Ethan bumps me with his elbow, closes the cashbox while I’m reaching for it, or preempts me in passing out a tray. They’re familiar nudges, peace offerings in the form of tiny declarations of war. The heat doesn’t fade from my cheeks until we’ve served nearly the whole line. I don’t know what just happened between us, but I know what I’m feeling now isn’t discontented emptiness. It’s not consuming exhaustion I remember, either.
It’s that, and.
And what, I don’t know.
Twenty-Eight
I WATCH THE FIRE department check to make sure the final embers of the bonfire are out. In the past hour, I’ve sold countless s’mores, worked until my hands were numb and we ran out of chocolate, and once elbowed Ethan hard enough he actually smiled. He left the stand half an hour ago to check on the cleanup crew, which left me to work double time to serve everyone. While I pack the s’mores supplies into the Trader Joe’s bags Kristen left, students and teachers walk in the direction of the parking lot, leaving a smattering of cups and s’more skewers on the soot-streaked sand.
The firefighters finish and haul their equipment off, and the students who remain walk farther down the shore. It’s nearly ten. The water is inky in the night, the moon reflected in luminous ripples. Watching a guy pull off his shirt and run into the waves, I remember Dylan’s text about skinny-dipping. Sure enough, a group of girls shrug off their jackets and strip down to their underwear. I shiver just imagining it.
“I’ll take this to my car,” Kristin says, bouncing up to the stand, Bryce in tow. He gazes in the direction of the waves, obviously wishing for skinny-dipping.
“It’s okay.” I hold up the bag. “I’ll—”
Kristin cuts me off with a humorously cross look. “No. You worked the stand all night. I’ll handle this part,” she insists. “I’ll see you down there. The water’s freezing,” she says, eyes widening for emphasis.
I choose not to mention my disinterest in skinny-dipping. “Thanks, Kristin.”
Leaving her and Bryce to the stand, I walk toward where the bonfire used to be. I feel unsettled, if not exactly in a bad way. I don’t know how to do this part. The unscripted, impromptu part of high school. The parties, the group messages, the endless wandering conversations in fast-food restaurants or the house of whoever’s parents have a hot tub. It’s one of the variables I’m not interested in solving for in the equation of high school. Ethan’s stubborn smugness is my only constant.
Instead of doing nothing on the sand, I decide I’ll text my mom for her to pick me up. I head for the parking lot, up the empty stretch from the party to the pavement. It’s dark, the streetlights of the neighborhood small in the distance. When I’m halfway there, I notice a figure walking a few yards from me in the same direction.
I see it’s Ethan the same moment his eyes fall on me. We’re nearing the same point, our paths converging like the sides of an angle. Soon, we’re walking in step.