The Gathering Darkness by Lisa Collicutt

so to compensate for the lack of attention from the Knight boys, she flirted. She started with Justin, who brushed her off and then moved to any guy who wasn’t with a girl. Lastly, she sat next to Marcus on an old weathered log near the fire. I kept my eye on her from a distance, or maybe I was keeping my eye on them, but wouldn’t admit it to myself.
    In the middle of some juicy gossip Robyn was spreading about another girl at school, Evan, who had left us sometime before, came back and stood on the blanket, towering over us. He held out his hand to me. I was reluctant to take it.
    “Come on, Brooke. Let’s go sit by the fire.”
    All eyes were on me now. Ugh, what could I do without hurting his feelings? So I reached my hand out and let him pull me up, but that wasn’t the end of the hand-holding. He didn’t let go until we came to the fire, where he offered me a fold-out beach-chair next to his. We sat at opposite ends of the fire from where Marcus and Megan sat.
    Evan handed me another beer. An unsettled feeling stirred inside me. I wondered if he thought we were a couple.
    Through the flames, I watched Megan grab Marcus’ arm and cuddle up to him. He didn’t cuddle back, but he didn’t cringe away either. Megan tilted her face up to his ear. He leaned his head toward her. Whatever she whispered to him, made his body shake with laughter. She shared his beer. Jealousy burst inside me. Then Evan did something that made me totally uncomfortable.
    Our chairs were close together. He reached over and played with an end of my hair. Eventually his hand found its way to the back of my neck. I wanted to cringe away. Not that it didn’t feel good; on the contrary, it felt awesome and made me want to lean toward his touch, but not in front of Marcus.
    I looked through the flames again until I saw Marcus. He leaned forward, resting his arms on his legs. His expression was dark, and he was glaring at me.
    For a moment I felt as if only the two of us and the fire between us existed. The nervous, scared butterflies inside me kept me from breathing. I lowered my gaze to the chunks of burning wood and took a deep breath, chasing them away. When I looked up again, he shrugged Megan off his arm, got up and walked away. Megan looked after him, pouting. I turned my head to see where he was going. Then a warm hand was massaging my neck, breaking my concentration. I turned my gaze back to the flames. The hand subtly reached down my back and pulled me closer. My only thought was that I wanted out of this situation. I felt a nudge to my other arm. I looked over to see Sammy grinning sinfully down at me. I nudged her back, harder, more of a jab.
    “Ow!” she protested with a fake hurt look on her face. She bent forward and whispered in my ear. “I just came to see if you had to go.” Her head bobbed strangely to one side.
    I looked at her just as strangely. “Go where?”
    “You know, go.” Her eyes rolled toward the woods.
    “Oh!” I actually did have to go, but wasn’t looking forward to the nature part of the task. “Yeah, I’ll go with you.”
    I looked at Evan. It seemed as though I couldn’t stand up now without offering him an explanation as to where I was going. I sighed to my pathetic self. “I’ll be right back.”
    “I’ll be right here.”
    His voice was uncharacteristically soft, his blue eyes dreamy—probably the same look he gave all the girls he seduced. He gave the back of my neck a little squeeze before I got up, sending an unexpected tingle down my spine.
How did he do that
? This was getting way out of control, and the sad part was I didn’t dislike it. How pathetic of me to allow myself to be next on his list.
    As Sammy and I walked toward the woods, I looked back and spotted Marcus on the wharf talking to some guys, although his face was turned toward me.
    “Saaaaammy,” Robyn called from down on the beach. We stopped in our tracks. She staggered toward the water, throwing her clothes