Such small obsessions, I would find, were typical of Laurel, who was delighted by beauty in all its forms and abhorred ugliness, especially when it constituted, as she put it, a “missed opportunity.” Why would anyone ever choose to have her world be ugly, she wondered aloud once. Because ugliness is the truth, said Janet. Because beauty costs more, I said. Neither ugliness nor beauty exists on an absolute level, said Serena. At this, Laurel flung her legs out in front of her, traced her fingers along her smooth calves. If we’re all living in a constructed, illusory reality, that’s fine, she said. Mine’s going to have a chandelier. And cake. Easy for her to say, I thought. Her house already had a chandelier.

My mother would have agreed with Laurel, for what it’s worth. She always refused to watch horror movies or documentaries, arguing that paying good money for bad feelings was the absolute height of insanity. I once found her position silly, irresponsible, even. But now I agree with her. Now it’s plodding historical romances or old episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or nothing. I don’t want to feel anything anymore. I want only comfort. I want only to forget what we did.

When everyone had finished eating, Colin stood, cleared his throat, and pointed at the rock face opposite the place where we were standing. The mountains were so close together we could count the individual branches on the trees on the other side, but it would have taken hours to climb down and around to touch them. Two smooth furrows sloped down the rock, maintaining a parallel stance until they disappeared into the brush.

“The Sweet Sorrows,” he said. He cleared his throat again. It was an annoying tic he had. “As the story goes, long ago a handsome boy and a beautiful girl from a settlement at the bottom of this mountain fell in love, but each was betrothed to another.” (He really said it like that. Betrothed to another. He had completely dropped his displaced surfer-dude style for a sweeping storytelling voice. Janet groaned and gave him the finger again when he said it, even though he could see her, but he only winked.)