She looked around the pond. Reece was the only person actually in the water. The past winter had been a rough one, no doubt freezing the quarry into a thick layer of ice. By the end of the summer the water would be pleasantly cool. Today it only hurt.
Reece treaded water as he watched her make up her mind. He didn’t look cold, or maybe he just didn’t care. “You get used to it,” he yelled.
It was a terrible idea, but the whole point of the reunion was to do childish shit as long as no one got hurt. This was a reprieve from responsibility: no strategy, no five-year plan, no fail-safe.
Fun.
When was the last time she’d taken a risk? A real risk, not just ordering delivery at a new restaurant or experimenting with shoulder pads. Where was the brash impulsiveness she once had, the wonderful jerk who bought a box of cheap hair dye and blew off studying for finals to go to Amy’s a cappella concert?
Where was the girl who refused to apologize for her identity, even in the face of her mother’s disapproval?
Charlotte thought longingly of the girl she was before she graduated college. But that wasn’t right either—this went further back than that. She bubble-wrapped herself after her breakup with Ben. Since graduation, she insulated herself against happiness even more. Some of what she felt was burnout, and some of it was genuine clinical depression, but most of it was just her. She let herself stagnate.
Once upon a time, Charlotte hadn’t feared every risk and unknown path.
She wanted to be brave again. Fuck, did she want to be brave again.
Before she could consider the many ways she could injure herself, Charlotte stepped back from the cliff’s edge. She rolled her head until her neck popped and cracked. Then she took a deep breath, held it, and let it go.
One foot after the other, her toes found purchase on the marble. And then she was falling, the air rushing against her bare skin. All around her was blue sky and the gentle green of the trees bordering the quarry. She could hear Reece whooping from the water below, and Liam and Garrett cheering for her in the distance.
She closed her eyes and curled in on herself, her arms coming around her knees.
If she could bottle this moment—if she could synthesize this pure, reckless courage—maybe she could find her way back to herself. Back to Charlotte Thorne, bachelor of fine arts with a minor in sociology, resident cartoonist of the school paper, master chef of microwaved noodles, shy until you got to know her, formerly preppy, bisexual weirdo.
The water seized her in its sudden, cold embrace. It broke her down and left her spluttering for oxygen. When her face met the silky air again, she coughed and fisted pond scum out of her eyes.
Then she laughed. The sound bounced off the marble and ricocheted around the quarry.
She’d forgotten the beautiful timbre of her own laughter.
—
At Reece’s encouragement, Charlotte handed over her buzzing iPhone. Her anxiety roared as he slid it into his backpack.
“You’ll be with Roger all day tomorrow,” Reece reminded her. His hand offered a tantalizing distraction on her thigh, fingers splayed across her bare skin.
She shivered on a damp towel in her underwear and Reece’s shirt. He’d insisted she wear it when she started to turn blue. It was a sweet gesture, but her hair soaked the fabric through within minutes.
Charlotte gave his backpack a desperate look.
“There is no work for you to do right now,” Reece reminded her.
She knew he was right. Saturday afternoon fell securely outside her office hours. Roger was, if his most recent Slack messages were anything to go off, hammered. She couldn’t prepare Twitter coverage of his commencement address until he finished writing it…which he probably wouldn’t do until he sobered up.
For years now she’d gone above and beyond what was required of her, and it had gotten her nowhere. Roger could fend for himself until he arrived on campus tomorrow. She wasn’t going to let his bullshit ruin her Saturday, not when Reece sat next to her all sweaty and sun-kissed. Not after that jump.
“Fine,” she said. “Okay.”
She chewed the skin around her thumb without even noticing she was doing it.
“Here.” Reece clicked his tongue at Misty. The dog trotted over, her fur covered in dirt from a romp through the forest behind the quarry. “Hold her, she’ll calm you down.” He scooped Misty up and deposited her in Charlotte’s lap, covering them both in dust and grime.
Charlotte laughed and brushed a dirt clod off her towel. “She’s filthy.”
“If only there were a large body of water where we could wash ourselves off.” Reece lay back beside her, pillowing his head on his arms. “See? You look more relaxed already.”
She felt more relaxed too. She didn’t know if it was getting laid or relinquishing her phone or throwing herself off a thirty-foot cliff, but she did feel better. Lighter.
“I needed this,” she said. “It’s been a shitty few years.”
Charlotte ran a spare towel through her wet hair. It was a losing battle—her thick mane absorbed anything and everything it came into contact with. Misty licked her stomach, unbothered by Charlotte’s shifting around.
Reece squinted up at her. He cupped a hand over his eyes to block the sun. “Sounds like it. Want to give me the highlights since graduation?” A smile tugged at his lips, like he was aware of the question’s absurdity.
She raised her eyebrows. “Where to start?”
“You moved to New York,” he prompted, and gestured for her to continue.
Right. Charlotte moved to New York for her internship and the city’s thriving queer scene, thinking she could reinvent herself and leave the ghosts of Hein behind. It worked, sort of, for a while.
She frowned. “I had that internship at ChompNews. I loved it there, great people, fun projects. It was kind of all-consuming in a gross way, but I was happy.”
ChompNews was the hottest website of 2013. Their home page would link to an industry-shaking exposé about discrimination in Hollywood alongside a quiz that told you which Pokémon was your ideal roommate. Instead of a salary or benefits, her internship in the art department paid her a stipend of a thousand dollars a month. She burned through her meager savings from waiting tables at Terry’s during college, and she racked up credit card debt to afford her apartment.
The financial sacrifice seemed like it paid off when ChompNews hired her as a graphics assistant at the end of her internship. For a magical nine months Charlotte drew infographics about immigration policy, sustainable fashion, and queer representation in television. Her new salary barely covered her expenses, but now she had health insurance and a manager who cared about her professional growth. She played Ping-Pong with her co-workers after hours and was the first in line at their weekly catered lunches. There was even a Slack channel for LGBTQIA+ ChompNews employees that hosted a monthly happy hour at Stonewall. She felt like part of a family.
Plus she could doodle on the subway to and from the office, her brain bursting with ideas for political cartoons and posters, maybe even tattoos…
