Read Unfriended for Free Online

spot whenever we wanted some uninterrupted time together. Nate had named it the Bluff early on, even though technically, it probably didn’t have enough of an overhang to qualify it as a true bluff. But whatever we called it, it was an ideal spot. We’d learned after the second time that it was located in some kind of strange dead zone. It was almost impossible to get cell service, and neither of our phones were able to connect to the internet—which meant, in terms of Constellation, that we dropped off the map entirely. When my friends had gotten concerned after this had happened, I’d told them about the Bluff, but vaguely: I didn’t want Lisa and Dave—or Ruth and her boyfriend, Andy Lee—to start using it as
their
makeout spot. It was my place with Nate, the one spot that was entirely ours, and I loved it.
    Nate killed the engine and we got out, taking the Colonial Diner bag, along with the blanket Nate always kept in his truck for our visits here. Nate left the doors open and kept the stereo on, so we’d be able to hear the music. We walked to the center of the property and spread out the blanket on the ground.
    “So, I have a new theory,” I said as I sat down cross-legged. Nate stretched out across the blanket and rested his head in my lap.
    “Tell me,” Nate prompted. We liked to put forward guesses as to why this land was just sitting here empty. They ran the gamut from the aforementioned tornado toa very large sinkhole that had somehow miraculously repaired itself, to a shoddy construction job.
    “Really, really efficient termites,” I replied, and Nate burst out laughing. I joined in, and then we both fell silent, soaking in the night air. I ran my fingers through his soft, curly brown hair and Nate turned his head and looked up at me.
    “I think there was a house here,” he said, taking one of my hands in his—the one that wasn’t stroking his hair—and running his fingers across my palm, making me shiver. “I think that there was a really perfect, really beautiful house here once.”
    “And what happened to it?” I asked as Nate rested my hand on his chest, brushing his fingers across the back of it.
    “I think that it got torn down,” he said, his voice strangely thoughtful and sad. “I think that this was a home for two people who were really in love. And something happened.”
    “What happened?” I asked, feeling myself getting swept up in his story, as though there was a real answer, as though Nate wasn’t just wildly speculating.
    “What always happens,” he said, glancing up at me. “Betrayal. Hurt. Misunderstandings. And I think the other person didn’t want to be in the house without them. So they tore it down.”
    I looked at the land surrounding me and suddenly felt sad, even though Nate was just making all this up. I almost preferred his cursed-ancient-burial-ground theory to this one. “But maybe it was that
and
termites,”I said, trying to lighten the mood, and was rewarded when Nate laughed and leaned up and kissed me.
    What started as just a light kiss quickly turned more serious, and we stretched out on the blanket together, the takeout bag pushed to the side and forgotten.
    Making out with Nate lately had been better than ever, and it was because I knew absolutely where we stood. Nate wasn’t a virgin, like me; he’d slept with his ex-girlfriend Melissa when they were still together. (I had tried very, very, very hard after I’d learned this not to hate Melissa irrationally, as she actually was a really nice person.) We had decided that we weren’t ready to sleep together yet, which took pressure I hadn’t even realized had been there off our makeout sessions. Now, we would just make out for hours, and when we began to move a little closer to new bases, we always checked in with each other to make sure it was okay.
    But lately when Nate and I were making out, I tended to get totally lost in him and in the moment, and often it was Nate who moved us back to