And yet it tugged at her. Those things she tried so hard to deny—her love, her dependency. That endless devotion to her old friends that she sometimes wished she could cut out of her heart and toss away. It hurt to stay. It hurt to go. In equal measure.
She sighed, rolled down the window, motioned toward Andy. “Him or us,” she said.
Maya looked sadly at Andy, back at Blue. “But—”
“Five seconds to decide,” Blue said.
Maya didn’t move.
Blue started the engine.
HANNAH
Hannah sat in the back seat, momentarily away from the noise and the tension and the cavity of night sky. She was exposed wire, a downed telephone line, spewing high-voltage electricity. She couldn’t believe Maya took her Xanax! Not that it mattered now. Between this and the call from Vivian, she was so out of there. Henry needed her. Or she needed him—she wasn’t sure.
“I seem to remember much less fighting last time we were here,” Renee said dryly.
“Yeah,” Hannah said. “And more fun.” They both stared wistfully ahead.
Outside the car Maya stood stubborn and conflicted.
Blue honked and she jumped a little, glared into the headlights. “Do you think she practices being a pain in the ass?” Blue asked.
“Yes,” Hannah said.
“I think it comes naturally,” Renee said.
Hannah pulled out her phone, pulled up Google to search for train and bus schedules. She wondered which would be more likely to be the target of a terror attack. A bus, she bet. She decided to go with the train.
Blue lit a cigarette.
Renee discreetly rolled her window down.
Hannah pulled up the train schedule. Checked the times. It was too late to go tonight. But she could take the first one out in the morning to Penn Station, a second to DC. She swallowed. Weirdly her throat no longer hurt. Just in time, now that she was leaving.
Blue shined her high beams on Maya. “Should we just leave without her?”
Before Hannah or Renee could answer, Blue backed up, steered left, let the car roll forward without Maya in it.
“Wait! Don’t,” Hannah said. “Even though she probably deserves it.”
Blue sighed, stopped the car.
Maya marched up to the window. “Let me just say goodbye,” she said, and stomped off to the edge of the parking lot where Andy stood.
“I almost feel bad,” Renee said. “He was pretty hot.”
“She’ll find another one in ten minutes,” Blue said with a shrug.
They watched as Maya and Andy embraced.
Blue honked the horn again, and Maya’s middle finger shot up behind Andy’s back. Finally Maya returned to the car, climbed in beside Hannah, slammed the door shut.
They pulled out of the lot, and Maya turned to wave goodbye with an expression that Hannah had never seen on her. It almost looked like longing. Hannah hated longing. It hurt in such a physical way, like your heart was reaching outside your chest, came just short of its desired target. But no, she was probably projecting. Maya never got attached to men.
They drove in silence, not even the radio to camouflage the strife, and everything had a lonely quality to it like the howl of a wind. Hannah scanned the side of the road for deer that might bolt out in front of them. It was so dark out here, the night.
“So that’s it?” Maya said. “We’re all just going to hate each other and be miserable for the rest of the weekend?”
“No one hates anyone,” Hannah said.
Blue cleared her throat.
“Am I seriously the only one who cares about fixing this?” Maya said.
“Some things are past fixing,” Blue said as she pulled up to a stop sign.
Hannah felt this in her chest. She felt this in her life.
“Do you believe that too?” Maya said to Renee.
“I don’t know what I believe,” Renee said.
They turned onto Montauk Highway. The air near the beach was salty with sea and the stir of memory. It was as if summers lay dormant in the body, awoken again by that smell. Hannah wondered what the memory of vacation smelled like to people who lived here full-time.
They turned onto the street where Maya had once ridden Blue’s skateboard straight into a sewer. They passed the beach where Hannah, wading in the night ocean, had turned to see Blue getting her first kiss. They reached Nana’s street and Hannah saw them as they were at eighteen, coming home after a bonfire at Ditch Plains, singing at the top of their lungs and stumbling drunkenly into one another, Renee trying her first cigarette and gagging and coughing so violently that she fell down a small ravine.
Now Blue spun into the driveway. The house was a dark, unwelcoming silhouette. They’d forgotten to leave the lights on. The engine ticked and settled, made the quiet louder as if they’d parked underwater. As they got out, Hannah could hear the waves booming like the thundering footsteps of giants. Storm surf. Angry ocean.
Renee looked at her watch. “Oh, shoot. I missed the last ferry from Orient Point.”
“Oh no,” Hannah said.
“It’s fine,” she said wearily. “Just adds another hour to the drive.”
“It’s already late though,” Hannah said. She looked pleadingly at Blue.
“All I know is I’m going to bed,” Blue said. “You guys can do whatever.”
Maya grinned at Renee. “I’ve got a big T-shirt you can sleep in!”
Renee paused, finally conceded. “Okay. I’ll leave first thing in the morning.” She looked at Blue. “Thank you.”
“Actually,” Maya said, “I was thinking that tomorrow we can—”
Hannah tuned out, thinking about how she would break the news that she, too, would be leaving in the morning. This trip meant so much to Maya. And even though she was pissed about the Xanax, Maya was still her best friend, still the one who’d tucked her into bed at the motel when she was scared, who never stopped inviting her into the world no matter how many times she refused it, who loved her when she couldn’t find much to love about herself. But Henry...
“I won’t be here tomorrow,” Hannah blurted.
“Beg your pardon?” Maya said.
“I know you’re going to think I’m ridiculous—”
“Too late,” Maya said. “I’ve thought that for years.”
Blue unlocked the front door.
Hannah braced. “I’m going back to DC.”