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“We’re doing everything we can. We have officers combing the beaches and there’s a team out attempting to drag the area where you were at with Ms. Ward and Ms. Richards.”
There’s a loose thread curling up from the blanket, looped around like a noose. She slips her finger through the center, twisting around the knuckle of her index finger.
“But given how deep the water is at that point…we really aren’t expecting to find much. We’ll just be waiting to see what washes up unfortunately.”
The tip of her finger turns a brilliant red, settling into a pale white. She doesn’t feel it, disconnected from her body thanks to whatever they’re pumping through her right now. She’s got wires stuck to her chest and a gentle-handed nurse had slipped a set of needles into the veins in the top of her hand, humming reassurances as she’d taped them all into place.
“You’ll have an officer outside, for your protection. And I’ll be by personally to update you with any developments.”
She unwinds her finger, the thread looser than it had been before. She pulls at it, trying to tug it free from the blanket spread across her lap.
“Ms. Brucks? Ava.”
Finally, she looks up, blinking at Chief Roberts in front of her. “What?”
The man looks even older than he had days before, which Ava thinks, unkindly, is really saying something. The man clearly hadn’t taken this job because he wanted to be chasing down the bad guys and busting high stakes crime. Southport had likely been everything hard hitting detective dramas were not: idyllic, peaceful, full of parking tickets and businessmen who would line his pockets to look the other way on some shady paperwork. But now there’s murder, which is definitely bad for tourism, and his cash cow has sadly been bled dry and now Chief Roberts looks like he’s about to start pouring through Solving Crime for Dummies in order to deal with all these bodies: the dead ones, the missing ones, the one sitting in the hospital bed in front of him.
Chief Roberts softens his face, probably just like they advised him in that book of his. Chapter Two: How to Sympathize with the Victim. “I said, do you have any questions?”
Ava purses her lips, giving the thread another tug. Yeah, she’s got quite a few questions, actually. A whole fuck ton of them. “No.” She pauses, considering, then curtly adds, “Thank you.”
The chief nods, unfortunately seeming to miss the tartness in Ava’s tone, which is really just too bad. “Okay. Well, like I said, I’ll be in touch as soon as I have anything to report.” He gives another nod, seeming satisfied with himself. “You’re safe now, Ms. Brucks.”
Ava glances past him, out the window of the hospital room, where she can see a few nurses go running past. There’s a brusqueness to their pace that somehow seems incongruous with how the world has been passing Ava by since she realized the truth about Ray, when everything seemed to slow to a crawl, a molasses that she was still trying to claw her way out of. It doesn’t help matters, whatever they’ve given her, making it feel even more like she’s underwater and weighed down. But the nurses certainly don’t seem to have that problem, rushing by with a determination Ava almost envies.
“And, I can assure you-”
The officer that has been stationed outside Ava’s room since they brought her inside pokes his head through the open door, his eyes skimming over her and settling on Roberts. “Chief, they need you. They’re bringing someone in.”
Roberts turns, his hand settling around the loop of his belt in such an imitation of the cops on TV that Ava almost laughs. “The Ward girl?” He lowers his voice, like that might do any good at all.
Ava yanks on the thread, pulling it free from the blanket.
The officer hesitates and Ava pretends not to notice the way he looks at her. “I…don’t think so, chief.”
The one advantage of feeling underwater is that it’s so much easier to pretend like none of this has anything to do with her. Like the world that exists right outside the door isn’t one that she is a part of. It turns without her and there’s someone else, some other poor idiot who didn’t do the right thing once upon a time and fucked up her life so completely that she’s been drowning long before this moment. Someone else with dead friends, forever unable to act when it matters, to watch everything else unfold around her. Just like now, when she can watch Roberts heading toward the door to meet the officer, to look into the poor, gutted remains of some other girl, from some other life, someone Ava doesn’t know.
The officer puts an arm around the chief’s shoulders, ducking his head closer as he says, “They’re saying she’s still alive” as they leave the room.
And suddenly, everything clicks into place again. Moving at a breakneck pace, the air suddenly slammed back into her lungs, heart kicking.
Like she, too, has just remembered that she’s alive.
There’s plenty of ghost stories in Southport.
More, apparently, than she had ever known.
But any good, old, Southern town is going to be rife with them. Plenty of stories of Civil War apparitions, ghostly children murdered by some predatory adult, men lost at sea. But Ava’s favorite have always been the other half of those stories: the women left behind on the shore to forever watch the waves, waiting for their men to return. Something about them had always felt ridiculously romantic, in the most problematic way: ghostly women pacing the balconies of gabled homes, eyes always on the sea, white nightgowns blowing beautifully in the wind.
Ava feels a little bit like those ghosts now, the women who are forever watching the waves, waiting for them to give their loved ones back. The floor is cool beneath her bare feet, something she figures the average ghostly widow doesn’t have to contend with, just like Ava is certain they aren’t worried about dodging night nurses. But this wing of the hospital, at least, seems momentarily quiet, no one around to notice as Ava slips from her room and down the hallway, pulling along her tubes and IV bag. Glamorous she is not.
Ava imagines how she might look to the patients whose rooms she peers into as she passes, that ghostly apparition sneaking by their windows in the middle of the night. It seems almost too much to hope for that the loved one she had already started mourning might be returned to her from the sea. Easier to believe that the officer was wrong, that it wasn’t Danica at all. Or, if it was, he was wrong about her still being alive. Ava had seen that hook, had fought to force it away from the soft parts of her face, her neck. It seems impossible that Danica, her lovely, fragile, perfect friend, would’ve been able to survive Stevie and the vicious tool of her anger.
But still, she silently moves down the hallway. She peers in windows. She waits.
And then, at the end of the hall, there’s a officer sitting in a chair outside the door. Asleep, which somehow seems fitting for Southport’s finest. But it makes things easier for her, at least. Ava casts the sleeping officer a final glance as she eases past him and into the room, gaze sliding toward the bed.
“Oh, Dani.” The words leave her lips before Ava is even fully aware of herself, of what she’s looking at. Her heart cracks itself open and she wraps her arms around her middle, trying to keep herself together. Since she had seen Danica disappear beneath the waves, since she had looked into Ray’s face and seen that he’d meant to kill her, since she had killed a man, since she had looked at Julie and realized she would live, there has been nothing. Just an emptiness, felt only by the vague impression that something was missing, that she should be feeling a hurt she might never recover from. But there had been nothing, just the yawning chasm there to swallow her up, to dash her upon the rocks.
But now it crashes into her, threatening to drag her under. Now, Ava wants to drop to her knees and wail like those ghostly widows on the parapets.
Danica’s eyes open and Ava inhales, pressing her hand to her mouth. Danica offers her a sleepy smile, slow and syrupy. “Hi.”
When Ava opens her mouth to answer, she just sobs instead, quickly covering her face with her hands, ignoring the pull of the stitches, annoyed at the sudden movement. “I’m sorry,” she says quickly, though the breath she attempts to pull in to center herself just turns into another sob instead. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I thought you were dead.”
It’s almost embarrassing, how easily she falls apart after everything. Danica is the one who has the right to be a complete disaster; being nearly gutted and fished out of the ocean undoubtedly gives you that right. But here she is, carrying on like Ava hasn’t allowed herself to do in over a year. Ava draws in a shuddery breath, wiping at her face, willing the room and Danica to come back into focus.
Danica just snorts, shifting herself gingerly in the bed. “Like I would let that ratty bitch kill me,” she mumbles.
That, at least, gets a laugh from Ava, watery and hoarse. “What was I thinking?”
Eyes heavy-lidded, Danica clumsily pats her hand against the bed beside her. “Cuddle?”
Ava tightens her hand around the pole of the IV stand that she thinks might be the only thing keeping her upright. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
Danica glances down at herself, as though the idea that she is capable of being hurt has just occurred to her. She plucks limply at the loose cotton of the gown, the same one that Ava is already sick of, contemplating Ava’s words. “I think I’m okay.”
Ava smiles for the first time in what feels like months. “You’re on the good drugs, huh?”
Her comment just earns her a pout, Danica giving the bed an impatient pat. “Cuddle. I almost died.”
Slowly, Ava steps closer, contemplating the bed, the girl, their various shared wires and tubes. “I thought Stevie wasn’t going to kill you.”
“I said almost.”
The bed is most certainly not made for two. And it absolutely is not made for two people with injuries and stitches that should not be jostled around. But this isn’t the first time they’ve ever shared a bed, though the circumstances are definitely different than the countless sleepovers and gossip sessions of their younger years, and Ava manages to ease herself into the space beside Danica, turning in such a way that she doesn’t crush her wires or the gash in the center of her shoulder.
Danica turns to look at her and she smells of sea and antiseptic, her hair having dried in salt sticky strands around her face hours before, but she is still the most beautiful thing Ava thinks she’s ever seen. Her eyes flood with tears once more and she reaches out, cupping Danica’s cheek with her hand, feeling the cool clamminess of Danica’s skin against her palm. “I really thought you were dead.”
“Nah, bitch, I’m tough,” Danica murmurs.
Ava smiles, nodding. “Don’t I know it.” She lets her forehead rest against Danica’s, closing her eyes.
Danica limply pats her hand, sighing. Her eyes close for a moment, only to snap open once again moments later. “What are you doing here?”
Offering Danica a terse smile, Ava gestures absently over her shoulder. “Stabbed in the back.”
Danica’s eyes widen comically, lips parting. “Stevie?”
“No. Ray, actually.”
“Ray,” Danica repeats in a whisper, eyes narrowing. “That fucker.”
Ava snorts, nodding. “Yeah. Didn’t see that coming.” She reaches out, pushing Danica’s hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear.
Danica grimaces, attempting to nudge Ava’s hand aside but succeeding only in offering a half-hearted jerk of her shoulder. “Don’t. I’m so gross.”
“No you aren’t,” Ava assures her quickly. “You’re beautiful.” Danica blurs as her eyes fill with tears again and Ava would be embarrassed by all the crying if it wasn’t because of the impossible fact that her best friend is alive and inches away from her. “I just can’t believe you’re alive.”
Danica hums, doing her best to wiggle her body closer to Ava’s without moving too much of herself in the process. Ava had seen her own stitches in the reflection of the bathroom mirror, the strangely alien Frankenstein nature of the pulled, red skin. She can only imagine what Danica looks like beneath that hospital gown, is grateful that some miracle of fate held her together until the doctors could come in and finish the job.
“I’m really tired,” Danica says, her words thick and gangly in her mouth. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Ava rubs her thumb against Danica’s cheek, watching as her friend’s eyes flutter and close. Without her makeup, her face bruised and swollen, she looks so much younger than Ava thinks they’ve ever been, like rather than adding on the years the trauma and loss have stripped them away, left them aching and raw and vulnerable.
“I’m here,” Ava says, but she isn’t sure if she’s talking to Danica or reassuring herself.
The sound of something shattering against concrete echoes through the still summer air as Ava nudges the car door closed with her hip, pushing her sunglasses to the top of her head. “What the fuck?”
The only response she gets is another crash, a grunt of exertion.
Carefully, Ava winds around the side of the house, not fully convinced she’s not going to be brained with something the second she’s in full view of the backyard. The backyard that looks immaculate, lush and green in spite of the simmering heat, the blue water of the pool cool and inviting…if not for the detritus currently floating on the surface or sinking straight to the bottom. Ava squints, trying to make sense of the sodden fabric, the picture frames bobbing beneath the surface.
Another yelp of frustration jerks her attention from the pool and Ava turns in time to see Danica, standing on the balcony, hurtle something over the side. She doesn’t manage to give it much heft, so the something just falls directly to the cement below, fracturing into a half dozen pieces. That bizarre blue mermaid statue that she had unwrapped days before, all giddy smiles and laughter.
Ava looks at the broken statute, the scattering of debris joining it on the patio -shattered frames and broken candles. She looks up at Danica, who is staring down at her, chest heaving. “You good?”
“No,” Danica says sharply, turning around and disappearing from view. She returns moments later with another bundle of fabric, which she promptly lets fly with as much force as she can muster. The sweater flutters just shy of the pool, landing in the grass.
“Can you maybe take a break? Before you pop a stitch or something?”
Danica huffs, scowling, but nods. “Fine. Hydration break.”
Ava gives the shattered mermaid a parting glance before heading into the house itself, winding her way through the lower level and upstairs to meet Danica in the kitchen. There’s a pile of things sitting on the table, joined by a stack of dishes sitting just beside the sink. It’s strange to see the evidence of this disarray, clutter in a space that has been previously so perfect. That’s the word Ava thinks she would most associate with her childhood memories of Danica, of visiting the Richards’ home: perfection. She knows better than to assume that Danica and her parents were the ones responsible for the constant tidiness; even now, she wouldn’t attribute the general upkeep of the home to Danica, even if she wasn’t recovering from a potentially life ending injury. But the dishes are still strange, proof that no one has been by recently, that Danica either hasn’t bothered to pick up after herself or hasn’t cared enough.
Danica slams the doors of the stainless steel fridge closed, holding two bottles of expensive water. She passes one over to Ava before sitting at one of the stools positioned in front of the island. Her forehead is beaded with sweat, her loose tank sticking to the small of her back, breath still coming in short pants. “Seriously, you should be taking it easy,” Ava says, trying to swallow down the impulse to let her worry explode all over the kitchen.
“I’m fine,” Danica mumbles. She twists open her water bottle, frowning at it. “It’s therapeutic.”
Ava smirks, sitting down at the table. She wedges the bottle between her thighs, twisting it open with the hand that isn’t currently strapped against her chest. The doctors had given her some good reason for this torture, something about not putting strain on her stitches and muscles, but in the few days since she’s been out of the hospital she’s about ready to rip the thing off and toss it into the ocean. Not only because it makes everything from going to the bathroom to opening a bottle of water exceedingly difficult but because when she wakes up in the middle of the night and imagines that Stevie is there in the room with her it makes it impossible to imagine that she’s going to protect herself.
The bottle finally opens, the thousandth “small victory” Ava has had to celebrate since she got up this morning and had to put on a bra. She exhales, sitting back in her chair. “Is that what Fleur told you?”
Danica scrunches up her nose, looking at Ava as if she’s lost her mind. “No. Fleur would never advocate for violence.”
Ava scoffs, covering it with a sip of water. “Of course.” She glances toward the pile still sitting on the kitchen table, poking through it. “What is all this stuff?”
Danica’s expression quickly shifts into a scowl and she abandons her previous spot to come stand beside Ava. “All the shit Stevie has given me,” she grumbles.
Ava picks up a Carly Rae Jepsen CD, holding it up and quirking her eyebrow. Danica frowns, snatching it back. “Freshmen year.”
“Ah.”
Danica gathers up the rest of the pile, cradling it carefully in her arms as best as she can without holding it too close to her chest. She shuffles back out to the patio and slowly Ava eases herself out of her chair, grabbing her water bottle and following after her. The morning summer sun is sharp and she pulls down her sunglasses as she watches Danica. Everything has felt so bright recently. Too bright, too loud, too much to think about. She keeps waiting for things to start to return to normal but Ava isn’t entirely sure she’s certain what the normal is. Weeks ago? Before last summer? Before that even? She isn’t sure what part of her life she’s supposed to be yearning to get back to.
With a grunt, Danica breaks the CD case in half, taking her time flinging the three separate pieces out into the backyard. The CD sails toward the pool like a Frisbee, sinking into the water with a satisfying plunk. Ava nods, tucking her other hand into the sling; it’s becoming a habit, this strange new way of crossing her arms. “That does kinda look like fun.”
“It is,” Danica assures her. “I highly recommend.” She flings another framed picture toward the concrete below, the frame and glass shattering.
Ava watches for a beat before heading back into the kitchen and opening her purse. She pulls out the book she’s kept tucked inside for the past few days, clutching it tightly between her fingers as she joins Danica once more. She shows her the book - A Grief Observed- and off Danica’s look, she just shrugs. “I shoved it in my bag when Pastor Judah gave it to me. I didn’t know what else to do.”
Danica furrows her brow. “Isn’t that the guy who wrote the book with the talking lion?”
“Yup.” Ava throws the book toward the pool, watching as it arcs over the water and flutters downward. It doesn’t take long for the pages to soak, the book sinking below the surface.
From the pile, Danica retrieves another mermaid trinket, one of those kitschy ornaments they sell at downtown street markets -stalls full of wooden mermaids drinking bottles of wine or flipping their fins off toward the sunset. This mermaid is in a strange sort of yoga pose, though the tail makes it hard to tell. “Another stupid fucking mermaid,” Danica grumbles. She lifts her hand to throw the ornament only to pause, seeming to deflate suddenly. “I’m just so mad, Ava. I’m so fucking mad.”
She drops onto the edge of one of the perfectly white lounge chairs, wincing and pressing a hand to her sternum. Immediately Ava goes over to her side, attempting to gracefully balance herself onto the other side of the chair, settling her hand between Danica’s shoulders. “It’s okay to be mad,” she says, her eyes searching Danica’s face. “You should be fucking pissed. She tried to kill you.”
Danica nods, looking down at the mermaid in her palm. “I thought she was my friend,” she says softly. “That she cared about me…about…” She shakes her head, swallowing. “That whole time she was probably thinking about what an idiot I was. Just a stupid, vapid, fucking idiot.” She tosses the mermaid but without any real force and it goes skittering across the patio.
Ava leans into her, resting her chin against Danica’s shoulder. “You aren’t an idiot,” she says softly. “And anyone who thinks that about you doesn’t know you at all.”
Danica attempts to offer her a smile, but it looks far from convincing -watery and stretched too thin. She sniffs, nodding, but it doesn’t seem like she truly believes Ava’s words. “Thanks,” she whispers. She sniffs again, exhaling. “I just can’t believe I never noticed…a whole year and I had no idea.”
Swallowing, Ava smooths her hand down Danica’s hair, pulling it back from her face before it gets taken by the wind once more. “I’m sorry,” she says softly. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here with you.”
Would she have seen through Stevie? Would she have known what Stevie was going through, what she was planning to do? Or would she have been just as trusting as she was these past few days, oblivious to the danger right under their noses. Had her absence only made it easier for Stevie to want to kill her, to kill Milo? Or had her closeness with Danica only fostered those feelings of anger? Did she leave every interaction with Danica stoking the coals of hatred inside her chest, imagining how good it would feel to pay back the debt they most certainly owed?
Danica just shakes her head, letting her forehead rest against Ava’s. “You’re here now.”
Ava nods, giving her the best hug she can muster with one arm held against her chest and the awkward way they’re sitting together on the edge of this chair. “Yeah. I am.”
Danica leans into her, some of the tension seeming to leave her body, and, in turn, Ava feels herself relax. Danica’s closeness, her easy forgiveness, the familiar weight of her body and the smell of her shampoo and the way she seems so content to take Ava at her word makes it worth coming home. All her good memories of this place involve Danica.
“Okay,” Danica says finally, giving a final sniffle and straightening her shoulders. “Let’s go inside. My moisturizer doesn’t have any SPF.”
Ava chuckles, nodding. “Good idea.”
They must might quite the pair, Ava imagines, the two of them awkwardly trying to stand up with their slings and their stitches and all the bumps and bruises still doing their best to heal. At least the bruises around Danica’s face have more or less faded; the sight of them made Ava feel like someone had grabbed her heart and was squeezing it, one millimeter at a time, a slow suffering she could almost but not quite get used to. Now, at least, the yellowing bruises are easier for Danica to cover, and most of the time the only way anyone might look at her and know something was wrong would be to study the strange sort of waddle she does whenever she has to walk anywhere: arms hanging stiff at her sides, body rigid and shoulders squared. Ava follows behind her as Danica shuffles back toward the half kitchen of the upper level of the house. Danica seems all to grateful to take her seat again and Ava pretends not to notice the way she attempts to catch her breath.
“So,” Ava says, going to stand by the balcony and peering down into the lower half of the house. The closer she is the lower level, the more the smell of bleach still lingers in the air, persistent despite the natural air fresheners and open windows. She wonders who had cleaned up after the police left and took Wyatt, who wiped down the blood, who gathered up all the engagement gifts and signage and stored it all away where Danica wouldn’t have to see it. Not Danica’s mother, surely, but likely the woman had been the one to call in the extra hands to do the dirty work. She puts her hand around the railing of the balcony, studying the picture of Wyatt and Danica on the wall. “Have you talked to Wyatt’s parents?”
Danica exhales, a sort of groan, and Ava almost regrets asking. “They keep coming by,” she grumbles. “They’ve been nice but…they always thought Wyatt was ‘moving too fast’ when he proposed anyway.”
Ava grimaces even though Danica can’t see her. Even though she had thought the same thing, when the invitation to the bridal shower had arrived. The timeline of her life over the past year feels like a tangled web of shadowy half-memories; everything she’s done has been to avoid thinking about that night and the lie she’d told and told and told over and over every day. Standing in the kitchen of her one-bedroom apartment, studying the invitation on its thick, cream colored paper, Ava hadn’t even been entirely sure when Danica and Teddy had broken up…surely she had known, right? That things between them had ended? That Danica had someone new? Surely she was at least that good of a friend…wasn’t she? Though she wasn’t really a good anything: not a good person, not a good friend, not a good lover once morning came around.
“I can tell they…” Danica pauses and Ava turns around, watching her friend. “His mom is trying to be nice. His dad wants the house back.” Her shoulders jerk up, once, in her current approximation of a shrug.
Ava crinkles up her nose even as she says, “Good. You shouldn’t have to stay here anyway, Danica. It’s fucked up. Just thinking about how Wyatt…” She trails off, forcing her gaze to remain on her friend rather than drift downstairs once more, toward the place where Wyatt had been.
Danica blinks, turning her gaze toward the windows overlooking the patio, the sparkling blue of the sky. The house is perfect in just about every way that counts. Ava can almost imagine Danica’s life here, how she would’ve looked perfect too, among all these nice things and pleasing color schemes, hosting boozy brunches and a book club that was really an excuse to drink wine and gossip. Danica, pretending to be happy, like she was perfect too. It feels like a physical thing, the hurt she feels for Danica, that knife back between her shoulder blades.
“My mom keeps talking about me coming back home,” Danica says, nodding. “All this has just…freaked her out. I can tell she’s trying not to make this a class thing, like Stevie wasn’t just some Southport trash who had it out for rich people…and then acting all proud of herself because she’s just so accepting of everyone.” She rolls her eyes, grimacing, and Ava can’t help the grin, the way she has to roll her eyes in return. Sounds exactly like the Mrs. Richards she’s always known. “I think it would just make her so happy to have me home forever, tucked away in my old bedroom.”
Ava shifts, toying absently with the strap of her sling. She adjusts the position of her arm inside, her fingers swollen and red from hanging out of the hammock. God she can’t wait to be done with this fucking thing. “Sounds great.”
Danica just glares at her, unimpressed.
“I think you should come stay with me,” Ava says, words she’s been trying to figure out how to say for the past few days. Ever since they’d left the hospital and Danica had been pulled away by her parents, fussing and fawning over her, and Wyatt’s too, politely concerned and trying to figure out what exactly had happened to their golden boy. “I think…” At the tip of her tongue are the excuses that she’d come up with, all the ways to make it sound businesslike and necessary. Safety in numbers. Getting away from this house and all the memories and the smell of bleach that still lingered. Purely logical. But in the end, she just tells the truth, “I really would love it if we were together.”
Danica looks at her, a slow smile spreading across her face. “I thought you were never going to ask.”
Despite the burgeoning plan to set up temporarily at Ava’s father’s house and reexamine what the rest of their lives looked like post covering-up-an-accidental-murder-and-nearly-being-murdered-themselves was going to look like, by the time the day crawls to its end, they’re still at Danica’s, all the doors and windows firmly locked, shades drawn. Even with Danica sleeping beside her in what probably has to be the most comfortable bed Ava thinks she’s ever slept in in her entire life, she can’t seem to fall asleep. Danica had taken a painkiller a few hours before, drifting off easily with her hands resting against her abdomen, cheeks rosy and lips slightly parted like a medieval fairy tale princess awaiting a kiss.
Ava lays on her side, the injured part of her so easy to reach for anyone who might come back to finish the job. She watches Danica, relieved rather than envious that her friend has found that escape so quickly. Hopefully whatever she’s seeing in her mind is being kinder to her now.
It isn’t the unfamiliar house or even that strange knowledge tickling the back of her mind, reminding her that Stevie is still alive and out there. Sometimes Ava can almost forget it, too distracted by the passage of her actual life to remind herself that there’s someone out there who has actively tried to kill her and has even more reason to want her dead now. It’s been harder to sleep recently, now that Ava feels like she’s been stripped of all the excuses, all the distractions, all the things she’d used to shield herself from what she’d done. Now there’s just her and the truth of it, the feeling that there’s still something owed that can’t be paid by Milo’s death or Teddy’s or her own blood running red hot and sticky down her back.
At least she has this: Danica, firmly back in her life. Danica, safe beside her. Danica, still. It’s more than Ava knows she deserves, all things considered, but she’s not about to argue with the universe.
Giving Danica one final glance, Ava slowly eases herself backward out of bed; she’s just about mastered the strange crab-walk movement that’ll get her on her feet without putting any weight on her muscles, though she ignores the sling on the bedside table. Instead, Ava just crosses her arms over her chest and the tug of underused muscle and stitches almost feels good. Reassuring.
When she reaches the door, she hears Danica stir, the murmur of her name. “Ava?”
“Just getting some water,” Ava reassures her. “All good. I’ll be right back.”
If Danica means to say anything else, its lost in the haze of sleep and medication, and Ava slips out of the bedroom and toward the kitchen on the upper floor. She fills a glass, holding it between both hands, flexing her fingers to remind herself that she can. The pain is manageable, a dull ache, and it puts her in mind of Julie’s words, how forceful and reassuring they’d been in that moment and in most moments since. You aren’t going to die today. And she hadn’t. And neither had Danica. And Ava is starting to realize that that makes up for most things.
Ava takes the glass over toward the glass doors, hesitating for a moment before opening them and stepping onto the patio. Though she wouldn’t put it past Stevie, it’s hard to imagine her lurking around in the shadows, twirling a fisherman’s hook and salivating at thoughts of their demise. Stevie feels more like a ghost than active threat, just another one of Southport’s pacing specters waiting for something to return to them that, in reality, they’ll never see again.
The night is by no means quiet. It is humming with the sounds of cicadas and crickets, with the call of frogs and the echoes off the marina: waves and creaking boats and clanging pylons. Beyond she can see the beam of the Southport Lighthouse, endlessly traveling the same path its taken for over two hundred years. Ava watches the sweep of the beam, listening to the endless din of the cicadas’ call, bare feet warmed by the stones of the patio.
She senses more than hears Danica’s approach, the tingling of hair at the nape of her neck, that same animal part of her that had come to life when the truth about Ray had settled over her. Only when she turns, looking over her shoulder, she isn’t afraid. Danica still looks half asleep, her robe loose and undone, the bottom of her tanktop rucked up enough to show the thin line of her stitches. Ava had seen the whole of her earlier that night, what Stevie had done. She had wanted to hold Danica close, to check all those raw and fragile parts of her body, grateful and amazed that someone could withstand that and live. That she could have Danica, still, rather than have to curl up alone in the darkness and wonder if maybe she shouldn’t have fought so hard.
“What are you doing?” Ava asks, gently chiding with a shake of her head. “I thought you were asleep.”
Danica just steps closer, wrapping her arms around Ava’s waist, putting her chin on Ava’s shoulder. Ava does her best to swallow up the grunt of pain that comes from her touch, because it’s worth it to be held like that. “What are you doing?” Danica just asks instead. “It’s late.”
“I know.” Ava watches the rippling of the pool, the water inky black in the darkness. The moon is full, the only source of light at the moment, shimmering against the mirrored surface. “I have a hard time sleeping.”
Danica nods, her chin digging into Ava’s shoulder. “I have a Xanax.”
Ava smiles. “No thanks.” She pauses, considering. “Well. I’ll let you know.”
These seems to satisfy Danica temporarily. They stand like they for a moment, Danica’s arms wrapped around her, Ava trying not to lean too much of her weight against her friend, the night noisy and alive around them.
Finally, Danica lifts her head, looking at her. “You aren’t going to leave again,” she says softly. “Right?”
Swallowing around the tightness in her throat, Ava shakes her head, covering Danica’s hands with her own, keeping them linked around her midsection. “No,” she says forcefully. “I promised, remember? I’m not going anywhere.”
Danica nods, relief flickering across her face. “Okay. Good.” She kisses Ava’s temple. “I need you.”
There’s that pressure behind her eyes, that familiar prickle of the tears Ava knows she’ll never be fully able to shed. It seems unfair for her to have anything to cry about, not now, not all things considered. But she feels them anyway, feels the wave of relief and love toward Danica, all that love that threatens to wrap her up and drag her under.
“I know,” Ava says, voice thin. “I need you too.”
Danica kisses the side of her face again and Ava feels goosebumps race up the base of her spine, her body leaning into Danica’s.
Danica steps back, reaching for Ava’s hand. “Can we please go back inside? I think I just saw a palmetto bug and I will freak out if it flies at me.”
Ava laughs, twining her fingers with Danica’s and then looping their elbows together so that they lurch, shoulder to shoulder, toward the still open patio door. “I think we can handle a palmetto bug.”
Danica grimaces, shuddering. “Speak for yourself.”
They climb back into bed, all awkward limbs and bruised bodies, and Ava curls onto her side once more, reaching for Danica’s hand beneath the covers. Absently, Danica rubs her thumb against the veins in her wrist, the motion rhythmic and soothing as she falls back asleep, and Ava falling with her.