She grins and nudges me with her arm and tells me to relax. We’re out of the house. Maybe it’s the relief or adrenaline, but I feel a charge of energy. Trouble. But the kind of trouble I gravitate toward, the kind that’s bold and fun and makes me momentarily forget everything that weighs me down. It makes my skin tighten and my eyes focus, like someone has blown cool air in my face and the dim fog I’ve been under is finally lifting. I am awake again and don’t really care about the risks, not now when we’re outside and the sun is shining down like a kiss. Not now.

We walk down toward the lake, and Dee buys some ice cream from a sad little truck parked at the curb. I wonder what Lottie’s doing, and then I don’t care. We clamor down over some rocks toward the water’s edge and choose a couple of big ones where the sun is shining all over the place. Dee stretches out, way out, her legs and arms going straight as she gets long and yawns and reaches out like a huge lazy cat. She almost drops her ice cream but saves it, sucking it from the bottom. It’s sweet and obscene, and I look away, out across the lake.

“So what other movies do you like?” I ask, my back to her.

“I told you, old high school revenge flicks are my jam. Heathers, Pump Up the Volume, Carrie; I even like things like Revenge of the Nerds and Back to the Future, but for me, there has to be some real payoff at the end. The assholes have to get theirs.”

“What do you consider ‘getting theirs’?”

“Like, they need to suffer. How else are they supposed to learn?”

I turn back to look at her, and she is taking off her shirt. I look away again, my face going red.

“What?” she asks, laughing at me. “It’s hot. I’m hot. I am going to enjoy it.”

I watch a boat in the distance and say nothing. She lets out a satisfied sigh. I turn my head again and take a small peek. She is stretched out on her rock, arms over her head, brown nipples looking straight up and daring me to defy them.

Her eyes are closed, but she says, “It’s not going to kill you to loosen up a bit, Stevie.”

I roll my eyes.

“I’m serious. What’s the worst that will happen to you?”

I spend so much time worrying about the worst things. I can’t imagine anymore what it feels like not to care, every second, what people think, what kind of danger I’m in. I look at Dee again, she’s smiling sleepily, bare to the world. I consider my shirt, sticking to me in the heat. What if someone sees us?