I pull a face, shuddering. “Please tell me nobody actually typed that ship name with their bare hands.”
“I would, but that would make me a liar.” She tilts her head back up to stare at the boys, who are now engaged in what seems like a drunken game of Red Rover that will inevitably end with at least one broken bone and two very angry coaches. “Anyway, he’s clearly not as big of a dope as this lot, so he has that going for him.”
I laugh, turning my head away from them because it is honestly starting to make me nervous. But just as soon as I turn away, I blink myself there again, standing in the shallow end of the pool, staring into Jack’s face in that breathless, hesitant moment from yesterday. In some ways I’ve been there all day, the thought of it latching and tugging to every other thought, refusing to leave me alone. For a moment I just let it happen to me, let it take me to wherever it wants to go, and then—
“Oh, god.”
“What?”
My stomach lets out one of those ominous, inevitable kind of roils, and I manage to blurt, “I’m definitely gonna hurl.”
Pooja doesn’t miss a beat. “Okay. Uh — sit tight.”
She runs over to a trash can and comes back with a paper bag, just in time for me to shove my face into it and let out half the contents of my stomach.
“Pepper?”
It sounds like Jack, but that’s ridiculous. And in any case, round two follows up round one so quickly, it’s a miracle I’m still upright, with the amount of hot dog I’m presently upchucking. It’s volcanic, and so disgusting the mere act of throwing up makes me want to throw up, like some kind of vomit-ception. Pooja had the foresight at least to grab my hair before the worst of it, and I turn to give her some messy combination of a thank-you and an apology when I realize the hand holding my aforementioned hair back belongs to Jack.
What are you doing here? I almost ask, but then I clamp my mouth shut — I’m sure my breath smells like a hot dog funeral.
“Hey, put your phone down, you asshole,” Pooja yells.
I glance in the direction she’s shouting and see I have accumulated quite the audience. Landon, Ethan, Stephen, Shane — the whole drunken crew has stopped what they’re doing to stare, as have random people in the park.
The Pepper I was five minutes ago was so naive to think this day couldn’t get any worse.
I straighten up and manage to put the vomit-filled bag back in the garbage. Jack’s hand is on my elbow, following me like a shadow, and Pooja is charging forward and yelling at someone who must have taken a picture.
“Whoa,” says Landon lowly, coming up to me with a broad grin on his face. “Props, Pepper. Never would have guessed you’d be the first party foul, considering the size of the stick up your—”
Jack moves forward with his fist cocked, looking like a cartoon character. I yank him back by his elbow, and he’s surprisingly easy to pull, all momentum and lanky limbs.
“She’s not drunk, you dick.”
“Jack, it’s fine,” I mutter, pulling him back a little farther so he’s next to me. He gives in to the tug like a very angry noodle, but doesn’t look at me.
Landon’s expression can’t quite settle on irritated or amused. “Hey, man, chill out.”
“Seriously, Jack,” says Ethan, who has walked over to the commotion.
Jack scowls. “Really, Ethan?”
Ethan gestures vaguely, like he wants to apologize but his body doesn’t know how to commit to it.
“Nice,” Jack mutters.
Ethan sighs. “Shouldn’t someone get her home?”
“On it,” says Pooja. She hooks her arm into mine, and I feel a rush of gratitude so intense that for once, it doesn’t make me ache for my own sister — for once it feels like I have someone as unquestionably on my team as a person can get. She steers us away, flanking one side of me with Jack on the other, who is hovering like he walked into the wrong reality and needs directions to get back.
“Are you okay?” Jack asks.
“Yeah. I weirdly feel better now.”
“It was definitely that shady hot dog,” Pooja concurs.
“In that case, I hope Landon starts chucking some up soon too.”
“Why?”
Jack is in full Jack mode, his body like a live wire as he follows us.
“Jack, you don’t have to — I mean, I live like six blocks away.” I nod my head back at the edge of the park. “You can go hang out with the others.”
Jack hesitates. Out of the corner of my eye I can see his arm lift, can see him scratch the back of his neck the way he always does when he’s put on the spot. “Actually, I came to see you.”
Pooja ducks her head in an ineffective attempt to hide her smirk.
“Oh.” Something lifts in my chest. Thankfully this time it isn’t dinner. “Sorry to be a buzzkill.”
“Eh, I’ve seen worse,” says Jack.
I look over at him and he’s got this doofy kind of smile on his face, the kind that tricks me into thinking I look okay right now instead of the sweaty-browed, post-throw-up mess of a human I absolutely am. It’s stupid how relieved I am to see him, how glad I am he’s here. That he’s talking to me. That he crossed the whole length of this overcrowded island to do it.
Pooja and Jack drop me off at the lobby of the building, Pooja hugging me and rattling off instructions to stay hydrated. Jack leans in unexpectedly and hugs me too, like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and just like that it is. I hug him back, squeezing him for an extra beat, accidentally scrunching some of his jacket in my fist.
“Feel better,” he says, his cheeks bright red.
I do. So much better, I forget to respond, until the doorman of the building clears his throat and Pooja’s eyebrows go up as if to say, Girl.
“Yeah — you too.” Shit. “I mean — well—”
Jack laughs, backing up and nearly stumbling into someone on the sidewalk. “Later, Pepperoni.”
Pepper
For someone who has had the kind of day that ended in literal vomit, I have no right to be full-on grinning in the elevator. But I am, and it’s wild, like there’s something bubbling in me, pooling at the base of me and making me feel so light I feel as if I should tether myself to the railing. I let myself imagine things I never let myself imagine: what it would feel like to grab Jack by the sleeve of his coat and pull him close. What it would feel like to run my hand through his wet, messy, post-dive hair. What it would feel like to cross the distance to him in the pool yesterday, close my eyes, and kiss him.
I’m still dizzy in my own imagination when I open the door, completely miss my mom’s suitcases lined up by the doorway, and walk straight into her poised on the couch with an expression that slams into my daydreams like an oncoming truck.
“Uh.”
My mom raises her eyebrows at me. “Sit.”
I consider my other options, which are limited to running away and seeing how far the five dollars in my purse will take me. Pooja told me the other day the Q train goes straight to Coney Island.
Too bad it doesn’t go to Mars.
So I sit. Mom turns to me, her expression unreadable — I can’t tell if she’s mad or concerned, but she’s definitely some kind of upset. “We have several things we need to discuss.”
I wonder if it’s too late to pull the I just vomited in a public park card, but it feels too risky.
“Okay?”
She pulls out her phone, and I can feel the anger inflating in me like a balloon. If she pulls up the Twitter page, I will explode. I will go full Paige Evans with a metaphorical baseball bat and yell until the neighbors think she’s back from college. I may even lean fully into the teenage cliché of slamming and locking the bedroom door.