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It’s hard to tell which felt longer, by the time they’re both over; the night on the mountain or the questioning afterwards.
Jessica was apparently out first. When Ashley comes out of the grey-brick room to see her sitting quietly on the bench, hands folded and pretty face still smeared with blood, she hesitates to sit next to her. Even when she does, Jess doesn’t look up.
It makes sense that she’s already here, Ashley supposes. Jess was missing all night. She probably has no fucking clue what happened.
Quietly, she says, “I’m glad you’re alive.”
Jess just nods. It’s a long silence between them, one Ashley has no idea how to fill. She’s cried out, she’s worded out. There isn’t anything left to say.
Then Jess says, “They said you heard my voice.”
Relieved to hear her speak, some concrete proof that they’re real and alive and sitting on this bench, Ashley nods energetically and turns bodily to face her. “I did! I did, in the mines. I-”
“It wasn’t me,” Jess whispers. There’s a deep gash in her head. Now with the adrenaline draining away, Ash feels like hell all over. They need help. They need better help. “Ash, that wasn’t me down there.” When she looks at her, Jessica’s eyes are hooded but easily as afraid as one still up there on the mountain. “What happened? What happened up in the lodge?”
Before Ash has to respond, Emily comes storming out of the room all the way to the left, slamming the heavy metal door behind her. She comes to a sharp stop in front of the bench but doesn’t sit; instead, she just turns to face them and crosses her arms. “Where’s the rest of the peanut gallery?”
The last thing Ashley wants to do is talk to Emily right now, but Jessica’s in no shape to be speaking, much less piecing last night together in a head that’s still oozing blood. “Um,” she says quietly, looking down at her hands. “Sam and Mike… they’re still in there. Josh and Matt… they’re missing.” Even though it feels risky, she whispers, “Sorry, Emily.”
Even though she meant the apology for Matt, Emily’s eyes go hard and mean, and she knows they’re both back in the basement with the gun pointed at Emily’s head again. “Oh, you’re-”
Suddenly, Jessica’s voice cuts through. “What about Chris?”
They both look at her, and Ashley’s throat fills up. Jessica glances between them, and then repeats, voice trembling, “What- what happened to Chris?”
“Ash killed him,” Emily says shortly.
All the blood drains out of Ashley’s face, and Jessica gives a horrified squeak and scoots away from her on the bench. “That’s not- that’s not true-”
“You sure?” Emily says, and she hasn’t broken eye contact for a moment. Ash can’t help but stare back, frozen, a rabbit transfixed by the fangs of the snake. Emily isn’t smiling, but there is a curious, unforgiving glint to her eyes. “You were pretty trigger happy in the basement. I heard you stabbed Josh, too. And no one saw how Chris died. Did you keep the door locked, Ash?”
Jessica’s hyperventilating. For her part, Ashley’s pretty sure she’s crying again, but her face is already so damp with blood and her eyes so stung with cold that she can’t tell anymore. “No! No, I didn’t! He didn’t-” It’s like it’s happening in front of her all over again. “He didn’t make it to the door!”
Emily tosses her head derisively. “Yeah, because your word means soooo much. I know you, Ash. You would’ve left him out there to die, we’ve all seen how strong your self-preservation instinct goes. Did you watch as they tore his head-”
Ash is pretty sure she’s going to throw up, and she can guarantee Jess is going to, but before either of them can, Sam’s firm voice comes out of nowhere. “Emily. Stop.”
They all look up, and Emily turns around. Sam’s out of the questioning room and coming to stand beside Emily, looking weary and sharp. Behind her, Mike is limping out of his own room, and Jess sits up at the sight of him. Sam sighs, and reaches a hand towards Ashley to help her up. “Listen, it’s over. We gotta let it go.”
“Let it go?” Emily repeats incredulously, sparing a dark glance to the left when Mike lifts Jess to her feet and embraces her furiously. “Like, just forget about the crazy fucking monsters and how Matt and Chris and Josh and Beth are all dead and how Hannah turned zombie and how-”
Sam lets go of Ashley’s hand, takes Emily by both shoulders, and shakes her. Not hard, but enough to make her shut up. “No, not all of it,” she says, her voice barely louder than a whisper. “But maybe we can ease off stuff our friends did because we were all scared out of our minds with monsters after us? Maybe, Em? So we won’t go to jail?”
Oh, God. Ashley didn’t even think about that. She’s going to go to jail. For nearly getting Emily killed, and probably for getting Chris killed too, and definitely for stabbing Josh. Hurriedly, she grabs Sam’s sleeve. “Are we going to go to jail?” she whispers. “Sam, we didn’t do anything wrong!”
And the uncertainty in Sam’s eyes just about kills her. Sam, in the entire time Ash has known her, has never looked uncertain. “Well,” she says, beckoning Mike and Jess over and avoiding Ashley’s gaze, “we’re going to go to the hospital first.”
---
In the end, none of them get a prison sentence, but they do all get stitches. Mike’s hands, Sam’s knees, Emily’s shoulder, Ashley’s right arm, and Jessica’s head and legs, all sewn back together like dolls.
The legal process is stitched up even faster than they are. They blame Josh, both for what they can explain and what they can’t. It’s easy, and uncomfortable, and easy.
And after that, all they can do is go home.
---
They make Ashley go to therapy. She’s pretty sure they’re making all the survivors go to therapy. It’s useless, and she can’t even say so. She can’t say they saw Wendigos in the mines, and she can’t say she watched one tear Chris’s head off his body like a celery stick, and she can’t say it wasn’t Josh’s fault, and she can’t say she nearly got Emily killed, and she can’t say that the therapy is useless. The list becomes longer by the day.
She’s given a diary, too, when she says she wants to become a novelist. “I won’t read it,” the therapist says. She’s an older, portly woman, with staunchly grey hair and a mouth that pinches when she smiles. “It’s just for recording your own thoughts. I think it will help you, Ashley.”
And Ashley does try.
Dear Diary, five of my friends are dead and it’s all my-
Dear Diary, Emily won’t answer my texts and I don’t blame her. After all, I tried to-
Dear Diary, I miss Matt, and Hannah and Beth, and even Josh. And I miss Chris. But more than anything, I miss my friends who are still alive. What are we supposed to do if we’re all alone?
Dear Diary, how can we explain what happened when we barely know ourselves?
Dear Diary, it was a dark and stormy night-
She hates herself for that last one, and tears out the entire page.
---
It’s been a month and a half and Ashley hasn’t gone back to school. She knows for a fact none of them have gone back to school. Her parents keep taking ‘private’ phone calls that end with them shouting. She keeps watching Beauty and the Beast, over and over and over, in her pajamas on the couch.
The survivors have a semi-active group chat that isn’t doing a lot of chatting. Sam’s sent out about three reassuring texts that ultimately ended up in the void, Ashley tentatively suggested a dinner date that fell flat, Jessica and Emily have been entirely silent, and Mike has sent out only one, barely decipherable message.
Mike: fck trpest ass frgt mtn guys it wast OUR FAULT
No one responded to that one.
So it’s kind of scary when her phone lights up with Emily’s name.
She lets it ring three times before she presses answer, and she doesn’t dare lift it to her ear. Instead, she hits speaker, hugs a pillow, and leans as far away from the phone as possible. “Hello?”
“Hey,” says Emily, sounding terse. Emily always sounds terse, though, so that might not mean anything. “Are you at home?”
Without really thinking, Ashley says, “Yeah,” then regrets it.
“Okay,” Emily says, like she didn’t expect any different. “Are you alone?”
Her mom’s asleep upstairs, but she doesn’t say so. She draws her knees up to her chest and asks, warily, “Why?”
Emily gives an annoyed little huff. “So I can murder you, obviously,” she says. “Look, I’m coming over.” And she hangs up.
Ash stays frozen on the couch. She keeps the door locked.
---
About twenty minutes later, Emily’s hammering on it with a vengeance. “It’s me, Ash! Let me in- God, don’t be a bitch about it.”
It’s another five before Ashley can convince herself to get up to answer. She rises and stumbles over to the door, only to jump back at the sight of Emily glaring at her through the window. “About time! Jesus, open the door already.”
“Show me your hands,” Ash says, and is surprised by the flatness in her own voice.
Emily doesn’t even seem daunted; she just raises a displeased eyebrow, takes a step back to put a hand on her hip. “Excuse me?”
“Show me your hands,” Ashley repeats, her voice exactly the same. When Emily doesn’t move except to raise her eyebrow higher, a challenge, this time she shouts. “Show me your goddamn hands, Em!”
Reluctantly, Emily raises both her hands into the air. They’re empty. “Hey, Ash, if I wanted to hang with Mike’s paranoid ass, I would’ve driven to his house, all right?”
Still suspicious, but mostly just tired, Ashley opens the door with a click, and stands to the side to let Emily stride past her. She looks around the room as though it’s been years since she’s been to Ashley’s house, instead of months at best. Sam’s surprise birthday, back in October. Then her gaze levels on Ashley herself. “Christ, Ash. Don’t you look like shit.”
Emily, on the other hand, looks immaculate. Her hair is point-straight, her outfit out of a magazine, full face of perfect makeup, the works. It’s clear she hasn’t been lying around eating stale popcorn and avoiding a shower.
“Yeah, well,” Ashley mutters, and shuts the door behind her. “I’ve had a lot on my mind. Why are you here, Emily?”
At this, Emily hesitates. It’s so unlike Emily that Ashley relaxes, just a little; if Emily were here to insult her or hurt her, she wouldn’t flinch. Whatever she’s unsure of, it’s not malicious intent.
“Uh,” Emily says, and tosses her hair, a nervous habit she developed in the seventh grade. “My parents, they left for the day, and they’re not coming back till tomorrow. And maybe I didn’t feel like being alone in my house.”
As much as Ashley doesn’t feel like sympathizing with her, she can’t help it- she hasn’t been alone for one moment since she left the mountain. She’s been following her mother around like a five-year-old, and lies awake at night for fear of being alone in the unconscious. But. “And you decided to come here?”
Avoiding her gaze, Emily turns away and heads over to the couch, throwing herself onto it with a decadent thump. “Yeah, well, it’s not like I have a lot of alternatives. Mike is the last person I want to see, and it’s not like that whore Jessica is going to answer my phone calls.”
“Jess isn’t answering any phone calls,” Ashley says, tentatively moving forward to sit on the opposite end of the couch. “You know she’s so hurt- she’s so hurt, physically, and she’s all scarred up, and her face- she thinks she’s never gonna be a model now.”
Emily closes her eyes and doesn’t respond. Whether it’s out of spite or out of empathy, Ashley can’t tell. Emily is vindictive as hell, but she and Jess were friends once. That could mean something. Or nothing.
Then Emily opens her eyes again, and continues talking like Ashley hadn’t said anything “And I did try Sam, but she’s not here. She’s in Colorado somewhere, mountain climbing.”
Just the sound of the word mountain makes Ashley feel instantly nauseous. “She’s- what?”
“Yeah,” Emily says, sounding unimpressed. “All of this shit just rolled off her back, didn’t it? She sure is the toughest gal at the rodeo.”
Certainly that’s what Sam wants them to think. She had been the same after Hannah and Beth disappeared too; energetic, peppy, always exercising. Like she was trying to push every negative feeling out of her. Still, Ash sometimes caught the deadness to her eyes, the way her lips had pressed into white lines when the court had pinned it all on Josh. She thinks Emily can sense it about Sam too.
But neither of them say anything.
Finally, Ashley says, just to break the silence, “My mom’s asleep upstairs, by the way. So we shouldn’t-”
Emily rolls her eyes. “Listen, I wasn’t looking to have, like, a slumber party. I just want to sit here and watch Netflix and not talk.”
Stunned for only a moment, Ashley says, “Okay. I can do that.”
“Good,” Emily says, because her coping mechanism is to call the shots and look good doing it. If Sam’s is to be as sunshiney and tough as possible, and Jess’s is to shut up and close herself off from everyone, Ash’s is to watch TV and be a burden. “What was on?”
When Ashley turns her Netflix queue back on and The Lion King starts loading up, Emily just rolls her eyes. “Goddammit, Ash.”
---
They’ve just reached the part of the movie where Mufasa falls off the cliff when Emily speaks. “Did you really leave Chris out to die?”
Her knees are already hugged to her chest, so all Ashley can do is glance at her. Emily’s gaze hasn’t left the TV, but her face is tight. “What happened to no talking?” she asks.
Huffing a little, Emily rolls her eyes. “Don’t be cute about it, Ash, just answer me.”
There’s a long moment of silence. Then, slowly, Ashley says, “No. I told the truth, before. He was-” She’s had to tell this story so many times it doesn’t sting so much anymore. “He was fighting off the wendigos, and he was maybe a hundred feet from the door and he just- missed. And it ripped his head off. It rolled all the way up to the door.”
Emily nods, looking slightly appeased. “Okay. I believe you.” She doesn’t look over to see Ashley sag with relief, either. “I thought you might’ve, though. Sam told me he shot at you to save his own skin, when Josh was fucking with us.”
Ashley had left that story out of the police reports. In her opinion, it kind of put everyone involved in a bad light. She’d said Sam and Mike had busted in before any shooting had happened. “Uh,” she says, and curls back against the couch. “Yeah. I mean, he did. And I was… I was really mad about it. But it wasn’t the biggest issue on hand, so I didn’t bring it up, but. God, if he had made it to the door-” She stops, because it feels like she is at the door again, like she’s watching Chris come closer, like she’s five feet away from the lock. “I don’t know, Em. I don’t know.”
She’s sure Emily is going to say she knows, that she knows Ashley would’ve locked him out, because didn’t Ashley do the same to her and worse?
Didn’t she?
Instead, they silently watch Simba push at his dad’s corpse for a minute before Emily says, “Matt did the same to me.”
That doesn’t sound like Matt. “What?”
“When the tower was collapsing,” Emily says, still staring straight ahead blankly but starting to gesture with her hands. “I’m, like, dangling from this rebar, right? Over a huge pit. And Matt’s up there, and he could’ve pulled me up, but he’s like, ‘Sorry, Em, one sec,’ and he jumps off the tower onto this cliff to save himself and I basically drop into hell. So yeah. Guys are the shittiest thing on earth.”
That’s pretty true. Ashley nods, and they finish the movie without conversation. She does sing Hakuna Matata under her breath, though, and she’s almost a hundred percent sure she hears Emily chuckle.
Then Emily leaves, without a goodbye, and she’s alone again.
---
Ashley’s the first to call, a week later.
Emily answers after three rings. “What?”
“Can you come over again?” Ashley whispers. “I’m home alone and my house is making noises.” Her house has always made noises, but she hasn’t always had PTSD, so.
There’s a long pause, then Emily gives a long, aggravated sigh, which means she’ll give in. “God, you’re such a baby. Fine.”
She hangs up, and it only takes Ashley fifteen minutes to unlock the door this time.
When Emily comes in her house this time, she sheds her jacket and tosses it carelessly across Ashley’s coatrack. Underneath she’s wearing nothing but a tank top, yoga pants, and scars.
“I was at the gym,” she says, noticing and then disregarding Ashley’s stare. “I’m gonna use your shower. Make something to eat while I’m in there, yeah?”
She’s up the stairs and away before Ashley can respond, or look at her bare shoulders for too long. The sound of water starts up, and Ash slowly makes her way to the kitchen. There’s some stale popcorn underneath the sink.
Emily takes long showers. After twenty minutes of anxious pacing around the microwave and five minutes of excruciating worry after the water’s turned off and there’s minimal sound of movement, she comes back downstairs, massaging water out of her hair with Ash’s Pirates of the Caribbean towel. The hard red lines of the wendigo bite blaze against her cool-chilled collarbone, and all Ash wants to do is look away but her eyes stay fixed on it. “Em-”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Emily says sharply, rubbing furiously at the part of her hair with the towel. Her eyes flash in and out of view, her gaze flashing along with it. “If you say anything, I’m leaving, I swear.”
So Ash looks away, and retreats back into the kitchen. She takes three breaths, then comes back out with the popcorn to find Emily perfectly turbaning the towel around her head. “I made popcorn,” she says lamely, then gestures to the living room. “What do you want to watch?”
“Anything but Disney,” Emily says firmly, and reaches forward to cram popcorn in her mouth.
They find an 80s movie marathon in Ash’s Netflix queue, and they finish Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller, and Pretty in Pink before they both fall asleep.
---
After that, it’s weekly. Emily comes over to Ash’s. They lie around like they’re lazy and sated teenagers with nothing more to themselves than an impractical outfit and a sense of irresponsibility. Sometimes they watch movies. Sometimes they sleep. Sometimes they say more than a sentence to each other. Then Emily goes home.
It’s three weeks of this, and they’ve migrated slowly from the couch downstairs to Ash’s room. Ashley’s lying horizontal on her bed, shirt riding up and idly flipping through Leaves of Grass, as Emily goes through her bookshelves.
She hears the dusty slide of a book off the shelf and the rustling of pages, but doesn’t look up until she hears Emily say aloud, “Dear Diary, is it wrong to blame the dead for things they can’t fix?”
Leaves of Grass falls with a painful thump onto her bare hips, and in its empty space Ashley can now see Emily leaning against the wall, Ashley’s therapy diary in both hands. She glances up when she hears Ashley’s sharp inhale. “Pretty philosophical, Ash.” She flips to the next page. “Dear Diary, how can I blame Josh for going insane when the same thing is happening to me?”
In a second, Ash is on her feet and lunging forward. “Emily, give that to me!”
Emily dodges her easily, flipping to the next page as she ducks under Ashley’s grabbing arm. “Dear Diary, how can I ever make it up to Emily- Dear Diary, it’s all my fault-”
Ashley snatches at her again, and Emily hops backwards, grinning, albeit a little distractedly. “Dear Diary, I still have nightmares where I don’t make it, where Sam and Mike don’t make it, where Emily gets killed because of me-”
This time when Ashley makes a grab for her, her fingers wrap around Emily’s sleeve as the second girl hops away one-footed, and they go toppling backwards onto the bed again. Ashley gives a little oomph as she lands face-first in the sheets, and Emily hugs the diary tight to her chest as her back hits the pillow stack.
When Ashley rolls over to look up, Emily’s already looking at her and smirking. “Are you in love with me or what?”
“You wish,” Ashley says automatically, and snatches the book away. Emily doesn’t fight her for it. “Gosh, I can’t believe you! This is private!”
Emily sighs, the fun apparently having gone out of the exercise, and sits up, hands gathered between her legs. “Can’t believe you still keep a diary. How Bridget Jones can you get?”
Tossing the book aside, Ashley says sourly, “My therapist is making me write one. Did yours not?”
“Sure he did, when I was thirteen,” Emily says, rolling her eyes. “He learned real quick that me and that Jane Austen bullshit doesn’t really mix. Not like I’m gonna get better at it after enduring hard psychological trauma. But I guess you’re still keeping up.”
Without a book in them, Ashley’s hands feel empty and anxious. They wind around each other, and she watches them absentmindedly. “It does make me feel better sometimes,” she says. “I want to talk about what happened, you know. I just don’t want to talk to anybody about it. Because anybody who wasn’t there won’t believe me, and everyone who was there just wants to forget. Isn’t that true?”
She and Emily don’t have a ton in common, but they both need validation. She knows that.
When she glances up, Emily’s gaze has fixed in the blank stare Ashley’s been trying so hard to avoid. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she says. “At all. But I don’t want to be Healthy and Empowered like Sam and put it in the past either.”
As far as Ashley’s concerned, there’s no middle ground between the two. Curiously, she asks, “So what do you want to do?”
Emily closes her eyes. “Feel better,” she says. “Be stronger.”
Then she stands, stretches, and heads towards the door. “I’m heading out,” she says.
“Okay,” Ashley says, and rolls over onto her face, because usually that’s the end of that.
She doesn’t expect to hear Emily speak again, much less murmur, “Bye, Ash. See you next week.”
But when she turns back over in surprise, Emily’s already slipped out the door.
---
Next week, Emily sends her a text (Em: put some clothes on btch) exactly five minutes before the doorbell rings.
Obviously there wasn’t enough time to put on clothes, so she’s still in her ratty pajamas when she opens the door. “Emily, what-”
“Hey, Ash!” Sam says happily, throwing an arm around her to pull her close. She’s in a cocktail dress and smells like roses and shampoo, which is super nice compared to what Ash probably smells like. “It’s so good to see you!”
Over Sam’s right shoulder, Ashley can just focus on Emily, two steps down with arms crossed, rolling her eyes. “Come on, Ashley,” she says, when their eyes meet. “I know you saw my text, what’s this shitshow?”
Sam releases her, and Ashley stumbles back a step, pushing her hair out of her face. “I mean-” she says. A few feet away, she sees Mike’s car idling in the driveway. “What’s going on?”
“We’re going out to dinner!” Sam says, crossing her arms and looking pleased. “So come on, go upstairs and put on something nice. It’ll be fun.”
Ashley just blinks at her until Emily elbows past Sam, impatiently grabbing Ashley by the wrist. “I knew this would happen,” she mutters. “Sam, you can go back to the car, we’ll be there in ten minutes. You’re coming with me, hot mess.”
The last Ashley sees of Sam, she’s shrugging and wandering off, a little smile on her face. By the time she’s able to fit a word in, Emily’s dragged them all the way upstairs and is already digging through her closet. “Uh, Em?”
“Sam’s idea,” Emily says, her voice muffled. “The dinner, anyway.” A purple dress comes flying out and hits Ashley square in the chest. She just manages to grab it before it falls. “We already picked up Mike and Jessica. It’s a bad idea, obviously, but to be honest I’m starting to go stir-crazy and you need to get out of the house.” A pair of dark heels hit the floor by Ash’s feet, and Emily emerges from the closet, shaking a huge bottle that cannot possibly have come out of the tiny purse slung over her shoulder. “Dry shampoo. Flip your head over.”
She pulls Ashley by the bangs until she complies, then sprays methodically across her hair. Ashley coughs, then says, “How did she convince everyone to come? Are Mike and Jess tied up in the car?”
Emily scoffs, forcibly flips Ashley’s head back upwards and starting to brush through it. “I’d be having more fun if they were. No, she convinced Jess to come first, God knows how, and that convinced Mike, and she told me she’d pay for my meal, so I told her if we jumped you with it you’d come too.” She fixes a butterfly clip by Ashley’s temple. “By the way, you totally owe me for undoing like three weeks of you stewing in your own shit. Now put the dress on.”
Dazed, Ashley starts to pull her pajama top off. Emily turns around.
---
It’s pretty quiet in the car when they get in it. It’s quiet when they get out, too.
Only when the muted restaurant light hits them is Ashley actually surprised into speaking. “Whoa, Jess!”
Jess flinches, and Mike takes a small, almost imperceptible step forward. Still, Ashley’s the kind of person who finishes her thought. “You look amazing! I love your hair!”
The braids are gone, and now Jess’s hair is short and layered, fluttery blonde and windswept. Her eye makeup isn’t so heavy, and the pink scars across her cheeks are shadowed by dark red lips. Jessica looks at her in surprise, then touches her hair self-consciously. “You’re just saying that.”
“I’m not!” Ashley says, and it feels so genuine and young to say so that she can’t help but forget for a second, smile for a second. “It looks really great. Short hair suits you.”
The shy smile that flickers across Jess’s face is worth the scowl that crosses Emily’s. “Thanks, Ash,” she says softly. “I like your dress.”
The tension visibly leaves everyone’s shoulders, and Sam smiles, bumping Jess with her hip. “I do too,” she says. “Is that Forever 21, Ash?”
Ashley looks down uncertainly. “Honestly I have no idea,” she says. “I forgot I even owned it. Emily dug it out of the Narnia side of my closet, I think.”
The feeling of cool fingers against the back of her neck makes her stiffen up. The scratchy feeling of a tag rubs against her shoulder blades. “It’s from the Loft,” Emily’s voice says, and the tag is tucked back under the dress again.
Sam and Jess both nod wisely, and Mike rolls his eyes and is about to say something when the desk calls, “Munroe, party of five?”
The conversation lulls as they seat themselves, and before it can get too awkward, Ashley blurts out, “So how was your climbing trip, Sam?”
That buys them another ten minutes of talking, and they all have drinks in front of them when Sam putters out of words. This silence lasts two and a half minutes, and is cut in half when Mike says abruptly, “So what are you guys’s therapists making you do to recover?”
“Michael!” Sam snaps, her voice lowering to a whisper. “Really?”
His own eyes go hard. “What?” he fires back, his own voice low and dangerous. “We can sit here and not talk about what happened, fine. But there’s only so much we have in common, and if we don’t find something to talk about, this isn’t going to be worth-”
“I’m keeping a diary,” Ashley says, because as much as she doesn’t want to talk about it, she doesn’t want to fight about it more.
All four of them look at her in surprise, then Emily’s lips quirk, and she puts down her lime water. “I’ve read it,” she says, leaning towards the other three conspiratorially. “It’s pretty juicy.”
“Shut up, Em,” Ashley says, without any real heat, and shoves at her forearm. “What’re they making you do, then?”
With a dismissive snort, Emily leans back in her chair again. “Yoga,” she says. “Joke’s on them, I was doing that already.”
Jess raises one hand. “Makeup tutorials,” she volunteers. “Making them. I’ve put some on YouTube.”
Even Emily looks impressed at that. Ashley grins, and Sam runs a hand through her own hair. “Jess, that’s awesome!” she says. “Is it cool if we check them out?”
Ducking her head, Jess shrugs with one shoulder. “Sure, if you want to.” Then, lifting it again, “What are you doing, Sam?”
“Meditating,” Sam says dispassionately. “Nothing strenuous, but I kinda like it. Mike?”
Mike grins a little. “Hypnosis.”
They all gape, and he nods, looking self-satisfied. “Yeah, it’s kind of fucked. Because they don’t believe me, you know, they’re trying to get what ‘really happened’-” heavy finger quotes, “- out of me. They haven’t really gotten anything yet, apparently, but it’s pretty relaxing. I’d recommend it.”
“Huh,” Ashley says, but can’t fit in anything more because their smiley waiter has reappeared. “You folks decided on what you’d like?”
Even after they’ve all ordered, he hangs back for a second, giving them another smile, this one slightly more perturbed. “The five of you look so familiar to me.”
They all go stiff. There hasn’t been any interviews, but the footage of the lodge’s explosion, the hospital rooms, and them in court have all been on basically every news network. It’s a nightmare. It’s a sensationalist’s dream.
The waiter’s still gazing at them curiously, trying to place them, and his eyes fall on Jess, on the angry scar across her face. One eyebrow goes up, and then-
“We’re professional extras,” Ashley blurts out.
The look of incredulity she gets from the waiter is the same she gets from every single one of her friends. “Professional extras?” he repeats.
“Yeah, uh,” Ash says, doing her best to avoid eye contact with everyone else at the table. “For action films, mostly? You’ve probably seen us in the background of some movies. Like, um- we were just in, uh, the new Divergent movie?”
His face lights up, and she sags back in her chair, relieved. “No way! My girlfriend loves those movies.”
“Yeah,” Sam says, jumping on the bandwagon with a sly wink in Ashley’s direction. “That was us. We were the teenagers carrying big guns.”
He chuckles. “That’s so awesome. Do you ever meet celebrities doing that?”
“Sometimes,” Sam says, just as Mike says, “Not as much as we’d like to.”
They share a quick, accusatory glance, but the waiter just laughs. “Isn’t that the way? Sorry for keeping you, folks, but that’s an awesome career to have. Your meals will be out in about twenty minutes.”
“Thanks!” Sam chirps, and they all wait pleasantly until he disappears into the kitchen. Then four gazes land hard on Ashley. She flinches.
“Professional extras?” Emily says, sounding half amused and half appalled. “The hell was that, Ash?”
Ash sinks lower in her seat. “It was the first thing I thought of,” she whines. “I’ve been watching a lot of documentaries lately, there was a double feature of one on professional extras and one on Scientology-”
“Oh yeah, I saw that,” Mike says, nodding wisely. “They’re fucked, aren’t they?”
“I thought it was really clever, Ash,” Sam says encouragingly. “You were so convincing, too. But the real question is, what kind of extras would we be?”
Jessica sits up, looking eager. “I’d be the fainting blonde,” she says.
“I’d be the guy that catches the fainting blonde,” Mike says, grinning, and presses a kiss to Jess’s cheek. Emily makes a gagging noise.
Sam taps her fingernails against the table in thought. “I think I’d be the one helping people over a wall,” she says. “I’d like to be, anyway.”
That’s picture-perfect Sam, all right. Ashley doesn’t really want to think about what kind of person she’d be in a movie.
Emily shrugs. “I’d be the one digging through bodies for clothes.”
Ash is about to say something about that being gross, and unhygienic besides, but they’re all shut up by the sound of Jess giggling.
She doesn’t pay their silence any mind, and keeps on laughing. “I’m not sure you’d be finding any Vuitton on a corpse, Em.”
Only after her laughter’s faded does she seem to remember that she’s supposed to hate Emily. Startled, she glances at Mike and then down at her hands.
And they’d be doing so well with awkward silences. Desperately, Ash says, “I’d be the person falling off the Golden Gate Bridge as it collapses.”
The resulting stir of surprised, unanimous laughter is enough food to sustain the rest of an evening’s worth of conversation.
---
Ashley is drunk off conversation and sleepy with it, too, when Mike pulls into her driveway. “Your stop, Ash.”
She nods groggily, lifting her head off Sam’s shoulder and reaching blindly for the door handle. Then, on her other side, the left door opens with a smart snap.
“Mine too,” Emily says. “I’m staying over, Ash.”
Mike mutters something amused about bossy cows, but Ashley just nods again and slips out Emily’s side instead. Once landed on her own feet, she turns around and bends over to wave goodbye. “Thanks, guys. I had fun.”
“Yeah,” Sam says fondly. “Me, too. We should do it again sometime.”
In a sudden flash of daring thought, Ashley says, “Um, next week, if you want? On Friday, my mom’s out. We can do a girl’s night, like we used to.”
They haven’t done a girl’s night since Hannah and Beth. Still, she can see Sam’s eyes light up in the dark. “I’d love that! I’ll bring the popcorn!”
“Don’t worry about me, Ash,” Mike says, sounding faux-wounded and draping his arm over Jess’s headrest. “I’ll just cry myself to sleep alone, typical Saturday night at the Munroe residence.”
Jess shoves the side of his head. “You have plans already, you oaf,” she says, before flashing a sunny smile backwards. “I’ll come, Ash.”
“Okay, Parent Trap,” Emily says, sounding irritated as she slings an arm around Ashley’s neck to pull her upright. “See you, losers.”
Her grip isn’t too tight as she drags Ash back into the house, though, so Ashley doesn’t complain.
---
Three hours later, she thinks Emily’s asleep on the other side of the couch when she hears a whisper of, “Tell me you’re sorry.”
At first Ashley thinks it’s sleeptalking, then she sees eyes glittering in the dark. She sits up in an instant, more afraid than surprised, takes two deep breaths, and says, “What?”
Emily doesn’t move. Instead, her eyes just follow Ashley in the dark, catlike. “I want to talk about what happened now,” she says. “Tell me you’re sorry for almost killing me, and I’ll say forget it, and then we’ll never have to talk about it again.”
Ever since Ashley had read the journal, all those nights again back in the lodge, that’s all she’s wanted. To forget. To say sorry. To never talk about it again.
Now though, in the darkness, speaking seems more delicate, fragile as glass, and yet somehow not as dangerous. Maybe it’s because she can’t see Emily’s face, her sharp chin tilted upwards. Maybe it’s because the mountain seems so close in the darkness and so far away in the faint warmth of streetlights.
So she does something unlike herself, stands up, and crosses the couch to sit by Emily’s legs. Emily doesn’t move, only continues to watch her, eyes narrowing suspiciously.
Ashley folds her hands in her lap, but she looks at Emily when she speaks. “Emily, I am so, so sorry,” she whispers. “And I’m not just saying that so you’ll tell me to forget it. I really, really am. I was so scared that night. I know you were too. So it’s not… an excuse.”
Her voice trails away, even though her thought’s not over. Emily pushes the blanket off herself, but doesn’t sit up. Her eyes don’t leave Ash’s face. “So why should I forgive you, then?”
Weakly, Ash gives a little giggle. “You can’t, I guess,” she says. “But I am sorry. I’ll never stop being sorry. I just… I saw Josh die- I know it wasn’t real, but he is dead now so it doesn’t matter anyway, it was so horrible. And I watched Chris die right in front of me, and I didn’t do anything to help him, and all I could think about was-”
“Oh my fucking god, stop crying,” Emily says, sounding sharp and shocked at once, and Ashley touches her face to find it wet. Surprised, she just laughs, and the sound is damp.
She shakes her head, and keeps going, doing her best to talk around the lump in her throat. “No, no, Em, listen- all I could think was, god, it got Emily and she’s gonna become one and kill all of my friends and it’s gonna be my fault, I couldn’t save Chris or Josh and I couldn’t save Em but I can try to save everyone else-” Now she can feel the tears, and it’s near impossible to talk around them but she manages a sodden, “I wanted to save them because I thought I’d already lost you, but I never wanted you to die, Emily, you’re one of my best friends and I do love you-!”
Then it’s too much, she can’t go on. She leans over, cups her hand over her mouth, shuts her eyes as tight as she can to set them all free and be rid of them. Holding sound in and letting tears out, she breathes through her nose, and prays Emily can’t see her in the dark.
Then there’s a soft feeling against her back, and she sits upwards just a little, just enough to let a sob slip out. “God, don’t cry,” Emily mutters, her cheek moving against Ashley’s shoulder blade. “It’s annoying. I forgive you, so stop.”
Of course, that just makes her cry even harder.
In an hour or so, when Ash is all cried out and falling asleep by Emily’s feet, she hears the whisper of, “Now we don’t have to talk about it anymore.”
When Ashley wakes up, Emily is still there.
They never speak of the gun on the mountain again.
---
Girls’ night rolls around fast, and Emily and Sam knock on Ashley’s door at the same time, just as they had for dinner. When Ash opens it, Sam beams at her, clad in Hello Kitty pajamas and holding a DVD in one hand and a bag of popcorn in the other.
“Hey!” she says, stepping in and kicking off her boots. “I brought Pacific Rim.”
Emily elbows her way past her and shoves her coat into Ashley’s arms. “I brought Bend It Like Beckham,” she says, and flattens out the tank top and shorts she’s apparently sleeping in. “And that better be the first movie, because there’s no way I’m not sleeping through Sam’s wannabe Godzilla movie.”
“Whatever,” Sam says good-naturedly. “Anyway, Ash, Jess is-”
“Here!” chirps a voice from behind them, and Sam steps aside to reveal Jess, whose short hair is up in a tiny bun. When she sees Ashley, she smiles and brandishes her own DVD. “Legally Blonde!”
Emily scoffs. “What a surprise,” she says, but there’s little bite to it, and besides, Jess has been bringing Legally Blonde to girls’ night since they were twelve. Jess just smiles serenely, crossing them to hang up her own coat. Then she spins around, and puts a hand on her hip.
“So,” she says, the left side of her mouth quirking up into what is almost a classic Jessica smile. “I bet I can catch more popcorn in my mouth than any of you.”
She and Ashley lose that competition rather spectacularly, but it ends up becoming an impressive one-upmanship contest between Sam and Emily. They finish Bend it Like Beckham, Legally Blonde, and half of Pacific Rim with the two in a fierce tie, and Sam is in the lead when Ash falls asleep.
---
Ashley wakes up sprawled across Emily's lap, and has to blink a few times to adjust to the filtering sunlight. When she rolls onto her back, head still against Emily's thigh, she can see her still asleep, one arm draped carelessly over Ash's waist but otherwise in a completely upright sitting position.
It looks like such an impossible and uncomfortable way to sleep. It's so Emily.
A little past Ashley's head she can see Sam still snoozing, on her back, and Jess curled up in the fetal position with her head on Sam's stomach. The sunlight catches well in their hair, and Ash has the brief thought that this is the first time in more than a year that any of them have actually looked peaceful.
"Hey. Ash."
She looks up again to see Emily looking down at her, a little blearily, rubbing the palm of one hand against her eyes. "Good morning," Ashley says softly, just watching her clear the sleep away. "Sam and Jess are still asleep."
Emily nods, looking a little hazy. She's still staring down at Ash like she's coming out of a dream. "Your hair's a mess," she says.
Well, she's been asleep. They've all been asleep, right? "Yeah? Well, yours looks... perfect," Ashley finishes, lamely. Still, mentioning hair reminds her that she's still in Emily's lap, so she sits up and nearly bonks their heads together. "Oh, sorry."
" 's fine," Emily mutters, and stretches. Then she opens one eye, looks at Ash. "Coffee?"
This is an unknown side of Emily; one that's not sharp-edged and precise. Feeling jittery all of a sudden, Ashley hops up, nearly stepping on Jess and doing a little dance around her and Sam. "Yeah, sure. I'll make some for every-"
Emily stands too, stretches even higher. Touches her toes, because she's a show off and terrible. "I'll help," she says. "I usually have to make my own anyway. Do you have rice milk?"
Ugh, Emily. "Uh, we have soy."
With a long sigh, Emily steps over Sam's head and starts heading to the kitchen, leaving Ashley in her wake. "I guess that will have to do," she says, and disappears into the kitchen.
By the time Ash catches up to her, she's already got two mugs out and is doling instant coffee into them, looking at the shavings distastefully. Ashley grabs two more mugs, for Sam and Jess, places them in the marching line, and goes to heat up some water and find the soy milk. "It's probably not going to be the best coffee you ever had, Em, sorry."
"It's whatever," Emily murmurs. She seems distracted; Ashley watches her stir the coffee grinds in the empty cup aimlessly for a minute before saying, "Hey. Everything okay?"
Emily jumps a little, but doesn't turn to face her. "I'm fine," she says, voice hard. "I haven't been... sleeping that great. Since."
Ashley gives a little laugh. "Last night was basically the first night I've really slept a night’s sleep. Since."
"I'm sorry I pushed you getting out of the lodge," Emily says suddenly.
It's such a non sequitur that Ashley doesn't even know what she's talking about. "What?"
"Like, you've apologized a hundred times for the bite thing," Emily says, and she's stirring the coffee grinds into the cup so furiously it's making scraping sounds. In a few minutes it'll be coffee powder. "And yeah, that was shitty of you. But I pushed you getting out of the lodge, when the wendigos were after us. And that could've killed you. So. Sorry."
Honestly, the running out of the lodge had happened so fast that Ashley barely remembered anything but RUN RUN RUN and then watching Sam's still back carefully as the wendigo crept towards her. "Uh," she says. "That's not... a big deal? Like. I lived. So it's okay."
Which is weird, because she was so, so angry at Chris for firing a gun at her with no bullets. Less fatal, but a much worse feeling in her gut. Looking at Emily, she can't help but feel pity and maybe a stab of fondness, watching her stab the coffee beans into a pulp.
"Okay," Emily says to the coffee mug. "Okay, so now we don't have to talk about that anymore either."
So they don't. Ashley heats up the water in silence, and Emily pours it in silence as Ashley roots around in the fridge for the soy milk.
Which she finds, after about three and a half minutes of searching. "Ah ha!" she says, pleased with herself and turning on her heel to present it to Emily. "Now, your highness, may I present-"
She's cut off by Emily's mouth pressing against hers.
Oh.
Emily's eyes are screwed shut, not romantically, but as if she's afraid something will jump out at her if she opens them. It's a chaste kiss, because Emily's mouth is uncertainly closed and Ash's mouth wasn't expecting a kiss at all. She's still standing with the soy milk outstretched in one hand.
Then they come apart. Nothing had touched but their lips. Emily shoves a steaming coffee mug into Ash's free hand and snatches the milk out of the other. "Here," she says, unnecessarily, and turns away to pour milk into her own mug, held awkwardly in her own hand.
Oh.
The jittery feeling from waking up in Emily's lap and watching her blurry is back a hundredfold in Ashley's stomach again. She puts her coffee mug down, and takes an uncertain step towards Emily's resolutely turned back. "Em-"
"That was abysmal," Emily says sharply, still without looking at her. "God, Ash, you better tell me that was your first kiss, because if you have any sort of experience there's no excuse for that tragedy."
"Oh yeah?" Ashley says, without really thinking about it, and Emily, startled, turns back around, and then they're kissing again.
It's a moment before Ashley realizes she instigated this one. It’s even sloppier than before, but they’re touching in more places and it feels like a real kiss, so it’s not so bad. Then Emily’s head tilts, just a little, to align their mouths, and there’s a tentative hand in Ashley’s tangled hair, and as far as a second first kiss goes, this one’s nothing to complain about.
Then there’s a faint squeak by the doorway, and they break apart, startled. Emily coughs, and Ashley touches her mouth.
The other two girls are standing in the doorway, neither looking entirely surprised. Sam is smirking. She turns, arms crossed and leaning, towards Jess, whose eyes are wide but not exactly shocked. “You owe me ten bucks.”
“Nuh-uh!” Jess says, sounding indignant. “You made that dumb bet with Mike, not me. I’m not a bad gambler like he is.”
It’s so anticlimactic that Ash gives a surprised giggle, then a second, and then she’s all-out laughing. Sam joins her, looking amused, and then Jess, spurred on by the other two. Emily just looks at Ash again, looking half surprised and half insulted. “Hey, Ashley, don’t think-”
“Oh my god, shut up,” Ashley says, feeling young and irredeemably fond and maybe even a bit free, and she plants another kiss on Emily’s cheek, just because she’s alive.