Page 105 of High Season
“I have to tutor tonight,” Hannah said.
The lies were coming so easily.
“On a Friday?”
“Yeah. You know what these parents are like.”
“Well.” Josie bit down on her lower lip and then released it. “Maybe we could hang out tomorrow?”
“Yeah, maybe. I might have some work to do. It’s getting kind of crazy for me at the minute.”
Josie nodded.
“The Oxford thing,” she said.
She sounded almost relieved, as if this explained everything.
“OK, well. Hope that they don’t go too hard on you tonight. They better be paying you good to work on a Friday night.”
“It all adds up,” said Hannah. “I’ll maybe see you in a few days.”
“Sure. In a few days.”
Josie stepped back, turning to leave.
“Hey, Josie?”
Josie turned around, hopeful.
“Yeah?”
“You should probably call, you know. Before you come over here.”
Something slipped in Josie’s face then. A tremor. A threat of collapse.
“Call?”
“Yeah. You can’t just show up at my house and hope I’m free, you know? It makes me feel like… I don’t know. Like you’re not giving me any choice. We’re not kids playing out in the road anymore. I’ve got other stuff going on now.”
Whatever was threatening to collapse dropped then, Josie’s mouth falling, her body seeming to droop.
“Oh,” she said. “I just thought—”
She swallowed. Seemed to gather herself.
“OK,” she said. “Yeah. You’re probably right. I’ll call you in a few days then?”
“Sure,” said Hannah, as if it didn’t matter to her either way.
Just then, she wasn’t sure that it did.
Hannah knew the caves where the bonfire was set to take place. They were a draw for tourists, the start of an ancient network formed by millennia of water finding its way through the soft clay veins of the cliffside, burrowing into the earth. An underground network of warrens and grottos, huge chambers and dark corridors.
Hannah’s parents used to run excursions down there, but had stopped when a lack of demand made them too expensive to operate. Still, the caves remained a hangout for local teenagers, older kids gathering to sneak stolen bottles of vodka, younger kids daring one another to go deeper into the darkness. The perpetually cool air would often be tinged with the smell of cigarettes, the occasional abandoned beer can floating on the surface of the underground pools.
Hannah had come up with the idea the day that Blake firstmentioned the bonfire. His comments about her not enjoying herself around his friends bothered her. She worried that his line about wanting to keep her for himself hid a deeper truth: that Blake did not think she would fit in with the people he usually surrounded himself with.
The solution, she decided, was to simply go to the caves anyway. She would surprise him by showing up, looking like her very best self. He would be amazed by how well she fit in with his friends. How easy it all was for her to slide into his world.
