C4 Chapter 4

The Grove operated on exactly two non-negotiable mandates, passed down like ancient folklore from one graduating class to the next: you leave your vehicle on the unpaved shoulder of the main road to trek in on foot, and if you touch a single drop of alcohol, you are locked into the perimeter until the sun comes back up. There were no exceptions, no hall passes, and no phone calls home to parents who thought their kids were merely having a wholesome sleepover.

The property sat right on the absolute edge of the Berband town lines, just where Thornhill Road began to dissolve into empty stretches of highway. It consisted of endless, rolling acres of thoroughly harvested orange groves, where the overgrown, skeletal branches had long since stopped bearing fruit and now served purely as a privacy screen from the local sheriff's department. The acreage belonged to Jacob Miller, a local legend who had finished college a bit ago and mostly left the land to rot. He’d cleared out the thickest patches of brush years back when he was just a freshman at Berband High, carving out a flawless, hidden sanctuary for the local teenagers to escape the suffocating weight of small-town oversight.

Reaching the main party hub required a grueling, half-mile hike down a cramped, unpaved gravel trail that cut sharply away from the asphalt. The path wound deep through the thicket, the loose rocks crunching under heavy sneakers, before suddenly opening up into a massive, circular clearing on the right side. Pitch-black and slate-gray camping tents bordered the furthest boundary of the field like a makeshift village. Each structure featured a small, rectangular slate board dangling above the zipper by a piece of twine. People routinely showed up hours before the actual start time just to scrawl their names in thick white chalk across the slates, securing a designated shelter for the inevitable crash that followed the chaos. It was a strict policy of first come, first served, and the prime real estate near the center always went fast.

The real event never truly kicked off until the last remnants of daylight dipped below the horizon, plunging the woods into deep shadows. A towering bonfire occupied the dead center of the clearing, flanked by a massive, intimidating reserve of split logs and wooden pallets that the boys had spent all afternoon hauling in. Four separate kegs formed a neat square nearby—positioned safely away from the stray sparks but close enough that anyone filling a plastic cup could still feel the radiating heat against their face. Long strings of warm, amber fairy lights snaked through the bare thicket and traced the frames of every tent, casting a soft, nostalgic glow over the clearing, while a prominent "Congratulations Seniors" banner stretched between two of the oldest citrus trees. We’d spent years attending various ragers in this clearing, dodging seniors and hiding in the shadows, but the underclassmen always respected the timeline. Tonight was an exclusive engagement; nobody outside the graduating class of 2016 was permitted past the tree line.

We’d made a point to arrive early, just as the sky was beginning to bruise into shades of deep purple and orange, ensuring a decent parking spot along the shoulder and a place to drop our overnight gear before the rush. Our chosen shelter sat dead center in the row, identifiable by the nearly illegible, aggressive scrawl of Ivan’s handwriting across the slate. Sabrina and I tossed our heavy duffels inside and pulled the main zipper shut with a definitive snap. For the most part, the crowd respected the chalk boundary, but once the alcohol started flowing and logic evaporated into the night air, all bets were off and people would sleep wherever they landed.

While the beer from the kegs was essentially infinite, people had also hauled in massive rolling coolers stocked with cheaper, heavy liquor and questionable mixers. Right alongside them, clearly labeled bins offered sodas, sports drinks, and bottled water for the designated drivers and those who preferred to keep their wits about them. Most people brought their own snacks, and a few even managed to get local pizza delivery drivers to drop grease-stained boxes off at the gravel entrance by offering massive tips, but the main camp kept communal bins overflowing with variety bags of chips and a massive, ice-filled cooler packed with pre-made grocery store sandwiches to combat the inevitable midnight munchies.

Typically, Grove gatherings carried a strangely formal vibe, with everyone treating the woods like a black-tie venue where girls wore dresses and guys wore button-downs despite the dirt. The lone exception was the annual senior send-off. Tonight, the dress code was strictly sleepwear—a final, comfortable middle finger to the high school dress code. Sabrina and I had fully committed to the ridiculousness of it; she was swallowed whole by a fleece penguin onesie with a floppy yellow beak, while I was sporting a ridiculous, oversized giraffe suit complete with a tail that kept hitting my calves. It had required an agonizing amount of begging, pleading, and strategic kissing on the kitchen counter, but we’d successfully coerced Charles and Ivan into matching outfits—Charles was sporting the penguin fleece, and Ivan was stuck in the giraffe pattern.

Despite the immense structural blow to their carefully cultivated pride, neither of the guys seemed particularly bothered by the outfits anymore once they realized everyone else was equally ridiculous. Ivan was currently hovering near the unlit pyre, his hood pulled completely up so the stuffed giraffe horns were on full display, making sure the entire clearing could see we were coordinated. He looked absurd, a six-foot-tall bad boy with juvenile detention on his record, sporting plush animal ears in the firelight.

By the time the darkness solidified and the stars rolled out across the clear Florida sky, all eighty-five members of our graduating class had settled comfortably into the clearing. The atmosphere was thick with the scent of pine smoke, cheap beer, and expensive body spray. A few couples had already drifted off into the dark rows of trees, cups in hand, looking for a modicum of privacy. Others were unfolding nylon lawn chairs around the pit, though the vast majority had gone on an immediate, ravenous raid of the food coolers.

Honestly, as I stood on the edge of the circle, I’d been anticipating something a bit grander. The classes before us always spoke about this specific night in hushed, legendary tones, deliberately withholding the finer details from anyone younger as if it were a sacred ritual. They swore it was a core memory, a night where the universe shifted, but looking around, the reality felt entirely ordinary. It was just the same people I had seen in homeroom for four years, drinking the same cheap alcohol, standing in the same dirt. They possessed a certain mystique we’d spent four years chasing, but now that I was standing in the middle of the actual rumor, it felt like a beautifully decorated waiting room for the rest of our lives.

"I recognize that expression," Sabrina said, sliding into the empty lawn chair beside me and pressing a red plastic cup filled to the absolute brim with foaming beer into my hand. "You're already completely checked out and analyzing everything."

"I guess I just thought it would feel different. More significant, somehow."

"What could possibly beat this?" she countered, leaning back and gesturing vaguely to the crowd of teenagers laughing by the kegs. "You’re surrounded by every single person we grew up with, the people who saw you through your worst haircuts and your worst breakdowns. After graduation next week, we are never going to see the vast majority of them again. Just go mingle, drink the beer, get a little reckless, and enjoy the atmosphere. We are never getting a night like this back. Sure, there’s college, and there will be plenty of house parties with people we don't know, but the energy will never be the same as right here."

A low melody was filtering out from someone's phone connected to a portable Bluetooth speaker, turning into background noise against the roar of eighty people talking over one another. Someone had hauled in an industrial-sized bag of marshmallows, and a few people were roasting them on pointed twigs they’d snapped off the surrounding brush, laughing as the sugar caught fire. A steady queue had formed near the sandwich cooler, and a loud, shifting wall of guys completely surrounded the keg station, chanting someone's name as they attempted a keg stand.

"Take a walk with me?" Charles asked, appearing out of the shadows like a ghost in a penguin suit. He didn't even bother waiting for a response before wrapping his fingers around my best friend's hand and hoisting her out of the lawn chair. Sabrina let out a loud, uncharacteristic giggle as she stumbled forward, her beer sloshing over the plastic rim and onto the grass as she tried to keep stride with her new distraction. She tried to throw a parting comment back over her shoulder at me, but the roar of the crowd swallowed her words entirely, leaving me alone in the folding chair.

It didn't take long for the plush interior of the fleece onesie to turn into a complete oven. Florida summer nights are brutal on a good day, but pairing the stagnant, humid air with a massive, roaring bonfire made the heat almost unbearable. I yanked my hood back, letting the slight evening breeze hit my face as I lifted my heavy brown hair off the damp skin of my neck, wishing I had worn something lighter underneath.

"Keep the hood up," a voice murmured from directly behind me, and a pair of large hands pulled the fabric right back over my head, blocking out the light for a split second.

"You'd think after four years I’d stop letting you startle me like that," I said, not even turning around because I already knew the exact scent of his jacket and the weight of his presence.

"Don't act miserable. We both know you tolerate me."

"You caught me," I sighed dramatically, turning around in the lawn chair to face him. "I am completely, desperately infatuated with you, Ivan. Let's elope tomorrow morning."

Ivan’s hand instantly clamped over my mouth, cutting off my words as he let out a frantic, panicked hiss, though his eyes were dancing with amusement. "Keep your voice down. Can you even grasp the absolute chaos that would erupt if our mothers caught wind of a proposal in the middle of the woods? My mom would start sobbing before beating me senseless for not being traditional enough to ask you myself on one knee. And your mother—honestly, I don't even want to simulate that nightmare in my head."

"She’d have the entire catering menu locked in by midnight," I mumbled against his palm until he finally dropped his hand, wiping my mouth on the sleeve of my onesie.

"The venue would be booked, the registry would be finalized at Target, and she’d already have the nursery painted for the two children she insists we’re having. Oh, wait, she actually did all of that sophomore year when we accidentally studied together for history."

There had been exactly one brief window of time where my mother had paused her grand narrative about our inevitable future together. It happened during the final leg of Ivan's singular, year-long relationship with Julia Peyton back in eleventh grade. Back then, they looked like the definitive blueprint for high school sweethearts—the type of beautiful couple to get married straight out of a university catalog, buy a house with a white fence, and settle down permanently in our hometown. My mom had been fiercely resistant to the idea at first, dropping passive-aggressive comments at dinner, but during those final three months, she’d finally shelved our wedding binder and started pulling for them because she realized Ivan was genuinely happy.

We all thought they were the real deal. So, when her family packed up and relocated across the country for her dad's job, and Ivan made the definitive, cold call to break it off because he didn't believe in long-distance promises, my mother immediately picked up right where she’d left off. She’d already named our hypothetical twins Patrick and Penelope, which I thought was a form of psychological torture. She’d scouted a beachfront venue on the Atlantic side because she fancied the sunset lighting, and insisted on an autumn ceremony since it was my preferred season. Naturally, I’d pointed out every single logistical flaw to her faces: I loathed the names she picked, I had zero desire for an outdoor ceremony in a state defined by sudden, violent downpours that would ruin my hair, and the honeymoon destination she selected—Hawaii—was a place both our families had already visited together during a previous spring break, meaning there would be zero romance.

"Our parents are completely unhinged," Ivan noted, a sudden gravity in his voice as he looked out over the fire, the orange light reflecting in his green eyes. "But hopefully, once we transition to our college campuses and put some actual highway between us, they’ll finally back off and find a new hobby."

"We established a strict embargo on college talk tonight, remember?" I reminded him gently, tapping his chest. He rolled his eyes at the restriction, but after a long, heavy beat of silence, I looked up through my eyelashes and asked softly, "Do you really think they'll stop, though?"

"Not a chance," Ivan admitted easily, a small smirk returning to his lips. He pointed a long finger at the lukewarm, untouched beer still resting precariously in my hands. "Are you actually going to drink that or just use it as a fashion accessory?"

I wasn't much of a drinker, but alcohol usually served as a necessary buffer for these mandatory high school social events. Sabrina typically abandoned me the second her boyfriend entered her line of sight, leaving me to navigate the small talk alone, and Ivan’s default mode was a constant, aggressive flirtation that kept me on edge, so a little liquid courage helped dull the sharp corners of the night.

Ivan stood up from his chair, reaching down to grab my hand with a firm grip and pulling me up with him out of the nylon seat. His fingers slid naturally between mine, locking our hands together as he casually flipped my cup over with his free hand, letting the cheap beer drain into the sod. He tossed the empty plastic cup over his shoulder into the dark brush, and before I could even open my mouth to lecture him about his terrible environmental habits, he was already steering me away from the main fire pit. I could feel the heavy eyes of our classmates tracking our exit through the trees. Everyone in our grade was entirely aware of our long-standing, zero-commitment dynamic, and they looked at us like we were a puzzle they couldn't solve. Ivan didn't slow his pace when we hit the perimeter of the clearing; instead, he parted the heavy brush with his shoulder, guiding me down one of the hidden paths without breaking his grip on my hand.

The Grove was a complicated maze of these secret, carved-out pockets, maintained by generations of teenagers who needed a place to hide. There was the primary clearing where the tents and the bonfire were currently raging, but if you knew which forks to take in the dirt, the trails opened up into smaller, hidden zones. One path led directly to a secluded clearing dominated by a massive white folding table—the designated arena for beer pong, flip cup, and loud arguments over technicalities. A second trail sloped downward toward a small, artificial pond that looked incredible at dusk, typically acting as a sanctuary for couples looking to escape the suffocating crowd of the main fire. There were various other clearings hidden deep in the orange trees, some housing extra keg stations, and one that randomly contained an old, rusted trampoline that everyone was explicitly banned from using while drunk.

Ivan stopped abruptly at a fork in the trail, maneuvering my body until my back hit the thick, leafy outer branches of a large orange bush. The twigs poked uncomfortably through the thin fleece of my giraffe suit, forcing me closer to his chest.

"Promise me something," he said, his voice dropping an octave, his green eyes completely serious in the shifting shadows of the canopy. "Once people really start drinking tonight and things get messy, you do not leave my perimeter. At all."

"Ivan, it's a high school party with eighty people we've known since kindergarten. Nothing is going to happen to me."

"You don't know that, Zoe. Guys lose their minds when they've had too much to drink, and judgment goes completely out the window. People get reckless, fights start over stupid things. Just give me your word that you’ll stay right next to me so I know you're completely safe. I'm not trying to be a dick, I just need to know."

"Fine. I promise I won't run off," I whispered, the intensity of his gaze making my stomach flip in a way that had nothing to do with the party.

I wasn't entirely sure what kind of worst-case scenario he was playing out in his head, or if he was just using his protective streak as an excuse to keep me close. "Dangerous" wasn't the word for tonight. We were all just a bunch of terrified, insecure teenagers trying to get a little numb and cling to each other before the clock ran out on our childhood. This was the absolute final time, outside of the formal graduation rehearsal next week, that our entire class would occupy the same square footage of earth, and I realized Sabrina’s earlier lecture was completely accurate. There wasn't some massive professional DJ or a light show drawing the attention of the local sheriffs, and it certainly wasn't going to go down as some cinematic masterpiece of a night—at least not for me.

But decades from now, when the names of our classmates are hard to recall and we’re sitting at our ten- or twenty-year high school reunions with real jobs and real lives, this specific clearing is what our brains will retain when we think of youth. We won't remember the dozens of freezing Friday night football games we sat through while wishing we were somewhere else, or the endless, agonizing hours spent cramming for standardized tests instead of sleeping. We won't remember the absolute mortification of flunking an oral presentation in sophomore English, or the repeat performances in junior and senior year when our nerves got the best of us. Those details will completely fade into white noise.

Instead, we’ll remember the specific, warm lighting at prom and homecoming; we’ll remember the people who stood by us through the worst rumors and the friendships that quietly fractured along the way over things that seem trivial now. We’ll remember the sheer, overwhelming panic of getting lost on our very first day as freshmen in a school that felt too big, and we’ll remember the exact weight of the humid air when we walk across that wooden stage next week to collect our diplomas and scatter into our separate lives. We’ll remember this exact night—the final boundary line before everything changes.

Ivan reached into his pocket, pulling out a new drink he'd secured from a cooler and handing it to me. I took a heavy swig, the liquid burning a harsh, synthetic path down my throat as it settled in my stomach. For the first time all week, the ambient anxiety about what was coming at the end of August evaporated into the woods. I wasn't going to pry about his college applications, because I knew the reality of leaving this town terrified him just as much as it did me, even if he would never admit it to his friends. Instead, I tightened my fingers around his hand, letting the tail of my ridiculous giraffe suit drag in the dirt, making a silent promise to just hold onto him for the rest of the night and let tomorrow worry about itself.