Jake: There’s a diner in your town . . . I just looked it up. Kettle n Griddle. It’s 24 hours
Ivy: A diner? Are you sure?
Jake: We can eat pancakes and stare at each other’s faces
Jake: We can listen to Finbeeyato and have a two person dance party
Ivy: I am sick of pancakes
Jake: You can get a waffle
Ivy: Thank you
Jake: Ice cream even
Ivy: FANCY MAN
Jake: Nothing but the best for my girl . . .
Ivy: Are you scared?
Jake: I’ve never been more excited for anything in my life
August 9, 7:49 p.m.
TwistedTree16: Hey, Jake. Change of plans: Let’s meet in the woods near my house instead. We can be alone. Cool?
JakeJones1717: Wait . . . what? Why???
TwistedTree16: I texted you a map
JakeJones1717: But what about that Kettle n Griddle place?
TwistedTree16: Fuck the diner
JakeJones1717: Aren’t you scared to meet in the woods? I’m a stranger
TwistedTree16: You’re not a stranger. And if anyone should be scared it should be you
JakeJones1717: I AM
TwistedTree16: Jake . . . just meet me in the woods. You won’t regret it
Sasha
And yet there was a part of me that didn’t really believe I would go through with it, not until I found myself getting into my car that Thursday night. And that’s when I realized: Holy fuck, this is actually happening.
It had been hot all day, the air thick and heavy and still, like the whole world existed inside somebody’s mouth. I had sent Xavier a text earlier that afternoon, a final attempt to get him to realize what was going on, but only because I felt I had to. I wrote: I think Ivy is cheating. Steph said Gwen said. Check her phone. He wrote back rumors shmumors . And the truth was, I was glad. I wanted to confront her. I was excited to. I was ready.
I didn’t put on the stereo as I drove. I didn’t sing. I cranked the air conditioner. I was cool and clear. I thought about how I was saving Xavier. I thought about how I was saving myself.
I parked on the side of the road. I got out. The sun was on its way down. I knew after this, everything would be different.
I headed into the woods.
I cannot believe who I have become.
I did not know I was capable of feeling this. And I am so nervous. I AM SO NERVOUS, I AM SICK.
I know after I meet him, everything will be different.
It’s like that dream where you find a door to a new room in your house, except the door is Jake and the new room is an entirely other world.
Look, I’m not some idiot, okay?
I know that everyone who falls in love thinks this. I know that love makes people into dumb dummy idiots who believe they are special. I know that everyone thinks their love is the REALEST LOVE, that no one else has ever felt it before as much as they do.
But here is a secret, just a little secret that I know is true. Everyone thinks it, but me and Jake? We are the only ones who are right.
Sasha
I spotted Ivy through the trees before she saw me. She was sitting on a tire swing. A string of yellow LED bulbs was wrapped around the rope, lighting her up in gold. The air was warm and dim, the sun had just set.
I watched her—twisting in the swing, gently smiling. It had been eighteen days since this all began. Eighteen days and thousands of messages. I imagined what she must be thinking, out here in the woods, waiting for Jake. I imagined the night she thought was in store for her, so different than the one she was going to get.
I took a breath and stepped into the clearing. Ivy turned and looked at me. My body was buzzing with adrenaline. This was it.
For a moment, we just stared at each other.
“Hello, asshole,” I said. “Surprise.”
She pursed her lips ever so slightly and raised one dark eyebrow.
She didn’t understand what was happening. “I’m who you’re waiting for,” I said. “I’m Jake.”
Slowly Ivy’s face transformed in that golden light, and she opened her mouth and out came a dirty cackle. “You sick fuck,” she said.
“Break up with Xavier or I’ll tell him everything,” I said.
She shook her head. “Oh, come on. You think I didn’t know it was you?”
Ivy reached down her shirt, brought out a lighter, flicked it. She lit a thin hand-rolled cigarette. A joint, maybe. She took a long drag and blew out a curl of smoke. She sucked her teeth and stared at me. She was bluffing, wasn’t she? Of course she was. My heart was pounding.
She pulled herself out of the swing, joint clenched between her teeth. She walked toward me, slowly smiling.
“Stop lying,” I said. “You wrote to me because you thought I was a hot guy who liked you and . . . If you knew it was me, then why did you come here?” I tried to keep my voice calm. I had no idea what to believe.
“For proof,” she said. She reached into her pocket and took out her phone. There was a sudden burst of blinding light as she snapped a picture. “So should I upload this right to Instagram or tell Xavier first, do you think?”
I could barely breathe. I pointed to her phone. “Delete that.”
Ivy grinned and shook her head. “Nah. I thought he deserved to know the truth about what a fucking psycho you are, and now he finally will.”
The blood was hammering in my ears.
And in that moment I realized how incredibly fucking stupid I’d been. I was so desperate for the satisfaction of getting to confront her, that I convinced myself it was a safe bet. I thought Ivy would do whatever I said just to avoid Xavier knowing what she’d written. That she’d be so ashamed and all the power would be mine. And if she protested I could threaten to show her messages to the world, and make her soft squishy core public. But in all the versions of this scene that I’d ever played out in my head, I had never for a second imagined this one.
And maybe she was lying. But maybe she wasn’t.
I couldn’t be sure of anything anymore.
I started to reach for her phone. She shoved it into her pocket. Then in one swift motion, Ivy grabbed me by the neck of my T-shirt, bunched it up in her fist and yanked me toward her, hard. Our faces were almost touching. Then she pushed me back.
She stuck a foot into the center of the tire and pulled herself up. “Maybe I should just call him right now, and we can all talk about it,” she said.
“Delete the picture!” I said. I reached for the swing. The tire was heavy and cold. I started to climb too.
“Oh, you’re coming to get me? Maybe it’s not just him you’re obsessed with. Maybe you’re obsessed with both of us, hmm?” She swung her foot forward toward me, her heel colliding with my jaw. My teeth rattled and hot pain shot through the side of my face. I grabbed the rope to steady myself.
The swing jerked. Ivy stumbled. She windmilled her arms, teetering on the edge of the tire.
And then she fell.
She landed on the ground with a sick heavy thunk. Her head cracked against the base of the tree.
A shot of adrenaline exploded in my stomach.
Ivy wasn’t moving.
I jumped off the swing.
“Ivy.” I leaned in. “IVY!?”
I touched her shoulder, gently at first, then harder. I shook her. My heart was pounding so hard. “Oh my God.”
Ivy’s eyes popped open. “Boo!” The joint was still pinched between her fingers. She stuck it into her mouth and sat up. “Sorry, you’re not that lucky,” Ivy said. She laughed. “I actually feel sad for you.” I could smell alcohol on her breath, sour and sharp. “What did you think would happen out here? That I’d weep and cry and boo-hoo and beggy beg you not to tell?” She paused, took another drag of her joint. She rubbed the back of her head. “Too bad, turns out you’re the one who’s going to do the begging!”
“You’re bluffing,” I said.
“Think whatever you wa
nt,” she said, with a slow grin. “By morning he’ll finally know who you really are.”
She held her phone out then, and turned it toward me so I could see the picture she’d taken.
And for a moment, everything stopped—there I was, eyes wild, mouth twisted into a snarl, fingers raised to block the light. Seeing myself there on her screen, something inside me flipped.
I looked crazy. Sick, insane.
I looked like a monster.
Maybe I was one.
I stood up, hands shaking. I turned, and I ran. “Aw don’t leave now, Peaches!” Ivy shouted after me. But I just kept going.
He’ll finally know who you really are.
He’ll finally know who you really are.
He’ll finally know who you really are.
I had wanted to keep him safe from Ivy. But maybe all along I should have been protecting him from someone else, someone just as messed up, and dangerous—me.
Xavier
Xavier had forgotten what it was like when Ivy disappeared. Forgotten what it was like to have a plan with her and wait, and wait, and wait, have her just not show up, stop returning texts, stop answering her phone. But two weeks and five days after she became his girlfriend again, it all came rushing back.
They were supposed to see a movie, the one Steph had been talking about at the diner, starring that dumb comedian who neither he nor Ivy were even into. The comedian had this signature move thing that he would do after he made a joke. He’d go “Oh oh oh” and hold up one hand, like he was waiting for a high-five. It was supposed to be ironic and not ironic at the same time. A lot of people at school loved him. Ivy thought he was horrendous. “He is obviously a sociopath,” Ivy had said. “You can see it in his eyes. I’m not even kidding. He’s probably killed people.” And then she would do a spot-on imitation of him that was both cutting and hilarious.
Not a lot of people knew that about Ivy, how funny she could be when she wanted. Except she usually didn’t bother. “Being funny is mostly a waste of time,” Ivy had told him once. “I don’t really give a fuck about funny.”
But the movie was her idea. She said she was excited to go and hate it.
Only, instead of picking him up at 8:30 the way they’d planned, she just didn’t. And she hadn’t answered his texts or his calls. And now it was 9:17, and the movie had already started and where was she?
When they were a couple the first time around, she used to do this pretty regularly, just vanish without warning. And he would worry so much, feel absolutely certain something horrible had happened to her. By her third disappearance, he’d understood this was just this thing she did—she’d vanish for a day or so, then come back with a fake-sounding excuse, or no excuse at all. But always completely fine. And yet, somehow, when she did it the next time, the same fears always came back. Even though the reasonable part of him knew she was safe, some other part of him would think, but what if this time is different?
And that’s what was happening now.
There was the gnawing in his stomach and pounding in his chest, his itchy fingers checking his phone over and over.
He tried to tell himself it was actually insane to worry. But if nothing bad had happened to her, it meant she was just messing with him. Again. And it seemed impossible she’d be doing that now, considering everything, considering how she mostly seemed to be trying very hard to fix things.
So where did that even leave him?
There was a knock on his bedroom door. “Xavier?” It was his mom.
Xavier jumped. “Come in!”
“I’m getting ready to head to Aunt Kay’s for the night,” his mom said. Aunt Kay and his uncle had just filed for divorce, so his mom was spending a lot of time there to keep her company. “If you need anything, give me a call, of course. Your dad will be back from his business trip tomorrow afternoon, but I’ll probably be home before he is.”
“Okay,” Xavier said.
“Are you . . .” she started to say. Their eyes met. Xavier knew she probably wanted to ask him what was wrong, but he also knew she wouldn’t. “Don’t stay up too late,” she said instead.
She left, and he was all alone. Xavier wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do. It was 9:28 now. His heart nearly exploded when a text came.
He felt bad at how disappointed he was when he saw it was from Sasha.
hows your night going??
Xavier so desperately wished he could tell her the truth. She had always been the person he went to with this stuff the first time around. She was the only person he could ever talk to about it. But Xavier knew he couldn’t, not anymore.
Great! Xavier wrote back. He stared at Sasha’s text from a few hours before, read it for maybe the fiftieth time. I think Ivy is cheating. Steph said Gwen said. Check her phone. He had written back something flippant, but now her words made his stomach twist and twist. What if she’s right? Maybe that’s what this is about. . . .
Xavier sat down on the floor in front of his bed.
He sent another text.
Ivy this is so messed up
And then:
But are you okay?
Xavier thought of all the other times this had happened, how Sasha had always been there to talk him through it. Then later, when the panic subsided, he’d try and backtrack. “The thing is, the real Ivy is not the one who does crazy stuff,” he’d say. “The real Ivy is the sweet one, the one who is funny and fun, and you’d probably really like her if you got to know her.” Sasha would try her best to be supportive, and they’d both pretend not to know that Sasha thought he was crazy for being with Ivy at all. “What if the bad Ivy is the real one, too?” Sasha had asked once. But it wasn’t really a question.
Xavier realized, in that moment, that when he finally talked to Ivy—because the reasonable part of him did understand that she was absolutely okay—he had to break things off.
He had to shut the door and lock it and cover it with cement and melted steel so strong that even Ivy couldn’t kick her way through. Because as long as he was with her, this was always going to happen. As long as he was with her, this would never end.
“Ivy is not my girlfriend anymore,” Xavier said out loud. “We are breaking up.” But he knew there would be no real relief until he talked to her again.
And who even knew when that would be?
He just had to wait, and wait, and wait.
And there was nothing he could do.
Or was there?
Suddenly, Xavier had an idea. He opened his closet and looked in a shoebox at the back. There was a water bottle inside full of tan liquid. It had been there a while. He didn’t remember what it even was. He unscrewed the top and took a long gulp. It burned as it went down. Tequila. He hated tequila.
But he hated this feeling even more.
Xavier made up a little game for himself. He took a swig and checked his phone. Then took another swig and checked it again.
Usually, drinking helped, but maybe his tolerance was too high, or maybe his panic was so strong that just alcohol was not enough to dull it. He needed something more.
And then Xavier remembered the pills. He’d decided to stop using them because they took him right out of his brain and body. The last time he took one was many weeks before, back when his heart was broken. He and Sasha had been drinking and watching a nature movie on his laptop, just like normal, and then all of a sudden it was fifteen hours later and he was waking up at 1:00 p.m. in all of his clothes, with his skull being crushed in a vise, and no recollection of anything that had happened. It was like traveling through time, but terrible because Xavier couldn’t shake the feeling that he had maybe done something very bad in the time he had skipped over. And there was no way to go back and fix it.
Only now, being out of his brain and body was exactly what he wanted. It’s what he needed, just this final time. And so he opened the pill bottle and swallowed one down. And then he curled up on top of his bed, and took another swig.
Xavier rememb
ered what it was like when Ivy disappeared.
But after that, he remembered nothing else.
Only an idiot is surprised by THE BAD THINGS
Only an idiot has HOPE
THAT SOFT SMALL ANIMAL NEXT TO YOUR BED
IT IS WAITING FOR YOU TO FALL ASLEEP
SO IT CAN TEAR INTO YOUR CHEST
AND DEVOUR YOUR HEART
I should NOT have been surprised
I should not have been SURPRISED
I SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN SURPRISED
So why the fuck am I?
And what am I going to do now?
Sasha
When I got home, I erased as much as I could. I smashed the phone I had used to text with. I deleted Jake’s Instagram account and closed down the email address I’d used to make the Instagram, as though that would somehow change anything at all.
All the while, I replayed the night over and over in my head. And the weeks leading up to it. My thoughts got louder and louder and bigger and bigger until they filled up all the space and the house was full of them and they were shaking the goddamn walls. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE, YOU CRAZY FUCK?
I texted Xavier, asked how his night was going, to see how he’d respond. He replied, Great! He didn’t know yet.
But he would soon enough.
And when he found out—how would I even begin to explain it? There was no way I’d be able to convince him that I had had good reasons for all of it, because even I wasn’t sure what was true anymore. I doubted everything I thought I knew except for this: I loved Xavier more than anyone in the world. And I would not be able to bear losing him from my life. But I was almost certainly going to. It was what I deserved, and my own goddamned fault.
* * *
I did not sleep that night, just watched the hours tick by. I checked Ivy’s Instagram again and again, but at 4:00 a.m. the picture wasn’t up yet. And I hadn’t heard from Xavier either.
I tried to figure out what this might mean. Did it mean she must have been bluffing after all? The more I thought about it, the more I convinced myself. I had started to believe Ivy in the woods because she was a good liar. But I had seen everything she’d written to Jake. And those messages were way too personal to be any kind of trick. She knew it, and I knew it, and she knew Xavier would know it if he ever saw them. I’d started to believe her in the woods because I’d panicked. But I understood the truth now.