The Probability of Miracles by Wendy Wunder Page B

now tamed, shoulder-length, and held back with a thin, unadorned headband. She had stopped using her bold, liquid eyeliner and instead wore some soft blue (blue!) eye shadow that matched the crystalline of her eyes. “What did you do, Alice, jump down the rabbit hole?”
    â€œI guess you could put it that way.” Lily smirked. She sat next to Cam at the end of the dock and put her feet in the water.
    â€œYou did it , it?” asked Cam, seeing how far she could splash and then watching the water settle in concentric ripples.
    â€œAffirmative.” Lily kicked out her foot, sending a few drops of water about two feet farther than Cam’s latest splash.
    â€œWith whom?”
    â€œRyan,” said Lily, and she couldn’t stop herself from smiling.
    â€œWho is Ryan?” Cam asked. She was shocked that this was the first time she was hearing about this. They talked to each other every day. How had Lily failed to mention that she had a “lover”?
    â€œI met him at church.”
    â€œYou go to church now?” The surprises just kept on coming.
    â€œAnd youth group,” said Lily as she pulled her foot out of the water. She shivered a bit, grabbed her bright orange beach towel, and wrapped it around her. She snuggled up next to Cam, shoulder to shoulder.
    â€œAren’t you youth group people against premarital sex?” Cam asked, wondering how Lily could possibly be cold. It was still eighty degrees and humid in spite of the slight breeze wafting in over the lake.
    â€œPublicly.”
    â€œAnd privately?”
    â€œLike rabbits.”
    â€œAhh. Thank you for finally solving for me the mysterious allure of youth group,” said Cam. “So do you go to Christian rock concerts now?”
    â€œNo. I had to draw the line somewhere,” Lily explained. She still listened to Rancid, Propagandhi, Anti-Flag, and the Dead Kennedys, but she was straying away from Crucifux and Christ on a Crutch, for Ryan’s sake. Lord’s name in vain, and all that.
    â€œWhat does he look like? I’m getting a gangly, freckly, pimply vibe.”
    â€œCam.”
    â€œIn a good way. I mean pimply in a good way.”
    â€œHow can you be pimply in a good way?”
    â€œI don’t know.” Cam felt something. Was it jealousy? Was she jealous of gangly, pimply Ryan? Or envious that Lily was having this experience? Or furious that Lily had never told her about it? She was suddenly embarrassed that she had sloppily confessed her every private thought and desire to Lily, while Lily was up here leading a secret life. She watched a firefly hovering over the lake blink five times before asking, “So is Ryan, like, your boyfriend?”
    â€œOnce he breaks up with Kaitlin.”
    â€œRight.” There’s a catch , thought Cam. There’s always a catch.
    â€œNo. I know he loves me. He’s just been with Kaitlin for a long time, so it’s difficult for him to extricate himself,” Lily said as she shook an American Spirit out of the box.
    â€œLet me guess. Kaitlin does not believe in premarital sex.”
    â€œCam. He loves me. A woman knows,” she said through clenched teeth as she lit the cigarette with the South of the Border lighter Cam had stolen from Rocket City.
    â€œWoman?” asked Cam. “He’s made a woman out of you?”
    â€œEntirely,” Lily said, jutting her bottom lip out so she could exhale toward the sky and away from Cam’s face.
    â€œDon’t smoke,” said Cam.
    â€œDon’t nag,” said Lily, flicking the cigarette into the lake.
    â€œBut how do you know he loves you? Like, how are you so certain?”
    â€œThere are signs, Campbell.”
    â€œLike in Bugs Bunny when his eyes bulge out and his head is encircled with a wreath of hearts and chirping birds, and his heart springs visibly out of his chest?”
    Lily turned to her. “How’d you guess?”
    â€œNo,