“I like you this way,” I say, and the words make me nervous, because they are the most I have and maybe she won’t want them. I like her more than anyone I’ve ever met.

“I don’t feel wrong right now,” Carly says. “I don’t feel wrong with you or Adam.” She pokes at the fire again. “Maybe we’ll be friends for a really long time.” She smiles at me, looks away. “I don’t even feel wrong with Bodie.” She laughs. “I just feel… bossy.”

“He needs it,” I say.

“He does.”

We’re sitting too close to the fire. My face feels chapped and hot. “Maybe we can come back and have campfires here,” I say. “Like even years and years and years from now.” And I try to picture it. This little bit of future that could be mine. A friend and a fire and no one feels wrong. It’s the first time I’ve ever thought of getting older in a real way, where I can picture myself as someone different, not just me right now in a different situation. There’s a new person waiting for me to catch up, and maybe she’s happy. Maybe she belongs right where she is.

“You know what I want?” Carly says. “I want to jump in that lake.”

I look around like someone might be watching.

“It’s fine,” Carly says. “I swear.”

And it’s what I want too.

We strip to our underwear. The tentacles on Carly’s neck belong to a giant octopus that stretches to the small of her back. In the flicker of firelight, with the movement of her body, he’s alive. One of his wavy tentacles is wrapped around her ribcage, under the band of her bra, curling up over her heart.

“It’s to remind me,” Carly says when she catches me staring. “Don’t let it pull you under, you know?”

“Yeah.” I study the lines, the way it makes her body into something otherworldly. And maybe I don’t know what it really is, but I feel like I do.

“Ready?” she asks, and I nod.

We make a mad dash for the lake. When the water hits my ankles it is so cold I want to scream, but I run harder, faster. Carly’s wake crashes into mine. We dive in at the same time, plunging into the blackness. I kick my legs and fight to stay under, to feel the cold seep in. To feel every inch of my body. I will be warm again, by the fire, in Carly’s car, in Adam’s bed. Cold isn’t my enemy anymore. I open my eyes and look to the surface. The moon is split to pieces by the water. I hold my breath until I feel like I’ll burst.