Chapter 24: Lake Crew

On the first Saturday of June, the lake was warm enough to swim in, and the dock was full of people eating pie.

I stood at the kitchen window with the screen door propped open on my hip, watching them.

Dee lay flat on her back at the end of the boards with a sunhat over her face.

Beckett sat beside her with his feet in the water, trying to explain a spreadsheet to nobody.

Rowan was on one knee at the foot of the dock stairs, with a hammer, fixing a board.

Behind me, the kitchen smelled of butter and rhubarb.

The wall over the stove was bare, and I had hung Gran's copper pans back on it, one at a time.

I'd graduated nine days ago.

Dee had screamed my name from the third row, loud enough that a dean looked round.

My phone buzzed on the counter.

It was a new group chat, one I had made myself the night before.

The name at the top said: Lake Crew.

Dee had already written in it: who is bringing the ice. I'm not bringing ice. I brought the dog.

Underneath, Beckett: There's no dog.

Dee: He's in spirit.

Rowan, from the dock, three feet from where Dee was lying, had typed: I can see you all.

I laughed out loud, alone in the kitchen.

There were four members, and every one of them was standing within sight of me.

I thought about the other chat, the one with eight names in it, which I had never opened again.

Beckett had told me the rest one afternoon in April, without being asked.

Keep reading free with an account. Start They Left Me Out of Their Group, So I'll Leave Them Out of My Life from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.