Page 17

Seventeen

Before

September 2nd

It takes another ten minutes to get the bleeding to stop. At first I think Claire must’ve clocked a vein, until I realize not all the blood is coming from my nose. Jena draws my attention to this when I make the mistake of sharing a secret smile with her in the wake of Claire’s very loud exit. Jena screamed like a naked girl in a horror movie, which was a little dramatic in my opinion, but Dylan also looked a little green until I rinsed out my mouth in the sink.

“Let me see,” Dylan says when I’m done, stepping into my personal space for the second time tonight. He presses the edge of his thumb to my upper lip and tugs it up, with a wince. “She cut your lip on your teeth. I’m going to get you some more ice.”

He turns for the freezer, and I catch Jena looking at anything but the carnage on the paper towels. Jena’s never been the best with blood, which works in my favor because I have a much more important job for her.

I lean close and take her hand. “While I deal with this, can you please shut down the party? I think we’re done for the night.”

Jena looks at me and then, realizing her mistake, the ceiling. “Are you sure? We might be able to salvage it.”

“The damage is done. I just want to clean up and be done with it.”

She nods emphatically and backs away without another word, making her way toward a group of guys from the soccer team. “Come on, party’s over. Go drink a protein shake or something.”

Luckily there aren’t many guests left after Claire’s little truth game, so kicking out the stragglers will be a quick job.

This party shouldn’t have happened in the first place, and now it’s all about the damage control. Next steps spin in my head, ordering and reordering themselves according to importance. Priority number one is getting everyone out, in case Claire calls in a noise complaint or something from the driveway. The nearest town is several miles away, so even if she’s already made the call, everyone should be gone before the cops get here. At worst, they’d find a couple friends hanging out, which isn’t a crime and not even worth writing a report.

Unless, for instance, there’s drugs in the house.

Unfortunately, investigating that is going to have to wait. The highest priority should be finding whatever Claire might have stashed, but I’m not about to look with classmates watching. Once the house is empty, I’ll find it, and then I’ll clean this place from top to bottom. It’ll be like this party never happened.

I watch everyone trickle outside, grabbing their phones from the basket one by one, and disappointment sours my stomach at what could have been. I wish there was a way to go back and start this night over. It was supposed to be so special.

A finger appears beneath my chin and turns my face back toward the kitchen. Dylan smiles at me, and my disappointment evaporates. He wets a paper towel and dabs the blood from my face and hands like I’m precious and delicate. His fingers ghost across my cheek, and goose bumps appear up and down my arms.

He hands me a fresh wad of paper towels and I swap out the bunch under my nose. There’s a graveyard of bloody Bounty in the sink, but this latest one comes away more pink than red.

“I think it’s almost done bleeding,” I say. I catch sight of my reflection in the dark window over the sink. Mascara runs down my cheeks. Oh no. I try to cover my face with more paper towels. I should have gone to the bathroom and locked the door to deal with this alone.

I catch him staring at me, eyebrows pinched together.

“I look awful,” I say, trying to keep the panic from my voice.

He shakes his head. “You’ve never looked awful a day in your life.”

“Damn straight!” Jena shouts from the living room.

I laugh under my breath, but I tuck my chin. My mother would throw a fit if she found out anyone saw me like this. “You’ll change your tune when I swell up like that girl from Willy Wonka . This is going to be so embarrassing.” My voice wobbles at the end of my sentence and I press my lips together.

Dylan swears under his breath. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. You didn’t ask to get punched in the face. You didn’t even invite her. I did.”

I frown. “What?”

Dylan runs his hands up and down his cheeks. “I’m really sorry, Brooke. This is all my fault. I didn’t know you two had this much hostility or I never would have told her about the party. If I hadn’t, tonight might have been totally different.”

So that’s how she found out about the party. I knew someone had to have spilled the beans, but Dylan was the last person I expected. I didn’t even know he and Claire were still talking post-breakup, much less inviting each other to parties.

I should be mad, considering all that happened because of his invitation, and I probably would be if this were anyone else. But he’s looking at me with those big regretful eyes, and Dylan never intentionally causes problems. He clearly didn’t mean for all this to happen. I’m more upset that he wanted her here in the first place.

“It’s not your fault. You’re not responsible for Claire. Even I didn’t think she’d take it this far. I was expecting drama and maybe a broken entertainment system or something.”

He sighs. “I can’t believe she hit you. Claire has always been a lot of things—”

Bossy, rude, opinionated, entitled, bitchy…

“—but I’ve never seen her attack someone like that. When we came back in the house, it was so calm in here I thought she’d left the party. I didn’t realize you two were outside until someone started shouting, and by then you were flat on your back.” He scrubs his hands over his face again. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

I dab at my nose one more time and almost nothing comes away on the paper towel, so I drop it into the sink and turn to face him fully, grabbing his forearms until he meets my eyes. “Dylan, you didn’t do this. You wouldn’t have invited her if you knew how the night would end. Claire crossed that line all on her own. You didn’t push her over it.”

His beautiful chestnut eyes gaze into mine. “You’re going to have black eyes on the first day of school.”

I can see it so clearly in my head: I walk through Waldorf’s front doors looking like a raccoon, and everyone averts their stares, whispering about how Claire lost it. I’ll have to invest in some expensive concealer before then. I don’t want him to worry about that, though, so I shrug. Like it doesn’t matter. Like I won’t freak out when I wake up tomorrow looking like I lost a fight with a badger. “I’ll spin it. Besides, Jena will probably tell everyone I bruised my face saving a baby in a runaway stroller or something. She’s a great hype woman.”

“Can’t argue with that.”

I smile at him. “And, if you’re still feeling bad, you can tell me how amazing I look for a few days. To balance out the universe or whatever.”

His laugh is so much lighter this time. “That I can do.”

“I don’t care who you drove with!” Jena yells from the foyer, dragging our attention from each other. “The party’s over. Get out. You too, Beau.”

The last of the stragglers make their way out the front door and down the steps. Beau hovers in the doorway, phone in hand, shifting his weight between his feet like he’s trying to think of an excuse to stay longer. Before he can come up with anything compelling, Felix shoots him a more-than-threatening glare, and Beau practically throws himself out.

Felix closes the door, and he and Jena stand there, awkwardly staring at each other in the entryway, not saying anything. After two or three seconds, they still haven’t spoken and I’m intensely uncomfortable watching them.

“Did Felix talk to you about the Jena thing?” I ask Dylan, trying to keep my voice from carrying across the room.

“He didn’t have to; I watched them hash it out in the driveway. I only stayed to make sure they didn’t kill each other, but it seemed way more constructive once they got away from everyone. I think they’re okay, but he’s still not happy.”

I look back at them. They’re talking now, but too low for us to hear.

“That looks like an understatement.”

“From what I gathered, he was more upset that she didn’t tell him that it happened. He knows they weren’t together at the time. He probably wishes it wasn’t one of his teammates, because that stings, and he has to deal with Beau at practice after this. But he doesn’t really have a leg to stand on and I think he knows it.”

That doesn’t make any sense to me. That was probably the third time Felix had broken up with her that month; why would she wait around for him if he’s stupid enough to let her go? And why would she tell him? It’s not like he sat down and made a confession list of everyone he made out with whenever they got back together. The double standard is upsetting.

“I hope they work it out and stop with the whole on-again-off-again thing,” I say. “They’re good together when they’re not picking each other apart and looking for a reason to break up.”

“I agree. It’s hard to be with someone who would rather fight than talk.”

The words are innocent enough, but the way he says them seems to imply something else, and I wonder if he’s thinking about Claire again.

I lean my hip against the sink. “I hope they find a way to stop hurting each other.” I catch Jena’s eye across the room and she blows me a kiss. I let the frozen corn drop from my face and send her one back. “That, or end it for good, you know? Stop the will-they-won’t-they stuff.”

“Sometimes the fighting pain is easier than the goodbye pain,” he says with a faraway look in his eye.

What the fuck did Claire do to him?

Jena pops into the kitchen and leans against the island. “Everyone’s gone. We’ll help you clean up before we go.”

I look around at the sea of plastic cups on nearly every surface, despite my earlier efforts to clean up along the way. “God, thank you. I just want to forget this party ever happened.”

“Keep icing that or you’re going to regret it in the morning,” she says, pressing the bag of frozen corn back to my nose.

We split up and each of us takes a room. In less than ten minutes, Dylan and Felix put the couches in the den back in place and reposition the coffee table. Jena helps me dump the rest of Beau’s magic punch down the drain and runs a load of bowls and cups in the dishwasher.

While the others are gathering trash, I covertly scour every single inch of the den, wiping down surfaces as I go. I rummage through end table drawers, through electronic storage, under couches, behind picture frames, between cushions. I search high and low and find absolutely nothing, only a few extra Solo cups. I do the same in the living room and the library. I even check the bathroom cabinets and the closets in there, then make another pass through the kitchen, where Jena’s been cleaning.

There’s nothing here. I’ll do a deeper clean later, but apart from my quick trip upstairs to look for Dylan, I had my eye on her all night. Claire didn’t go upstairs, and she was only outside when she was with me.

She’s full of shit; she didn’t plant anything in my house. She only wanted to scare me.

My anxiety levels drop and my shoulders release from my ears for the first time in hours. This could have been really bad. Throwing a party like this while my dad is still being vetted was a stupid move. I left a door open for Claire to cause some real damage to my family. Rookie mistake.

While I’m rounding up the bottles of alcohol I stashed around the kitchen, Felix comes in with a trash bag full of plastic cups and half-eaten snacks. I don’t miss the way he skirts around Jena. Or the way he downs whatever’s left in a random cup on the counter before he tosses it.

Gag, who did that even belong to?

Jena asks if he can pass her some clean paper towels, and he ignores her.

Apparently, all is not well with them after all.

I hand the paper towels to her with a meaningful look, and she rolls her eyes. We wipe spills from the outside of the bottles and put them back in the living room liquor cabinet, then lock it with the key I’m not supposed to have. I stick the key back in the top drawer of my dad’s desk.

The house looks almost exactly like it did when I arrived this afternoon. The three trash bags piled by the island and a lone bottle of Malibu on the counter are only evidence that a party occurred at all.

Dylan comes in from the deck with a fourth bag that’s only half-full. “Found some more cups out on the deck and in the yard. I got them all.”

He drops the bag on top of the others and Felix claps him on the shoulder. “Jesus, Miller. After all this time, you finally come to one of Brooke’s parties and it turns into a brawl.”

I gape at him. Felix, shut the fuck up.

Dylan recoils, and I can practically see the guilt crash back over him. He stuffs his hands in his pockets. “I should probably get going. Sorry to brawl and run, but…”

I shoot a panicked glance at Jena, but the wheels are already turning behind her eyes. Dylan takes a step away from the sink and she jumps in his path.

“Actually, I was thinking we could light a fire outside. Just the four of us? It’s been a wild night, but it would be nice to end it on a high note. The point of this party was to celebrate starting our senior year, right? There’s no reason we can’t do that in a smaller group.”

Dylan hesitates, looking from Jena to the sliding glass door, and then to me. I smile and will him to stay with everything in me.

Finally, he shrugs. “That sounds cool.”

Yes!

The boys head for the deck, shoving each other as they go, and the second they’re stomping down the stairs to the backyard, I wheel on Jena, planting a huge kiss on her cheek.

“Have I told you lately that I love you?”

Jena laughs. “It’s the least I could do after leaving you to deal with the Demon Queen alone.”

I wave her off and lower my voice. “I don’t want to talk about Claire—ever again. I want to talk about you and Felix. What happened outside?”

“Let’s not talk about that either,” she says, snatching the bottle of Malibu off the counter. “We sorted through it, but it’s…far from resolved and not something I wanted to deal with tonight. Come on, let’s rally and start this school year with a bang.”

She waits at the door for me, but I hold up a hand.

“Go ahead. I’ll be right out.” I point at my mashed-up face. The bathroom mirror is calling my name something fierce. “I need a minute.”

“Fine, but don’t leave me down there by myself. If they start talking game stats, I’m going to throw myself into the lake,” she says, slipping outside and sliding the door closed behind her.

I race to the bathroom. In the harsh overhead light, I can already see bruises forming beneath my eyes, but it doesn’t look as bad as I thought it would. I take a second to gently wash the makeup smears from my cheeks and under my eyes, and I reapply what I can with the makeup in my purse. When I’m done, I look…mostly okay? A little puffy, but no longer like a raccoon caught in a rainstorm.

Before I pop outside, I lock the front door—in case any stragglers try to come back inside. The basket by the door catches my eye. There are four phones still inside.

Felix’s, a plain black iPhone with some kind of goofy-haired anime character on the case.

Dylan’s, in a blue silicone case with a sticker on the back that says “Stephen King Book Club, EST 1974.”

Jena’s, in its gold glitter case.

And a fourth, plain silver iPhone, no case.

Claire left her phone here.

I hold it up in the light and smile. Looks like it’s mine now. Maybe I’ll throw it into the lake. Or run it over. Or toss it out the window on the drive home.

I picture her searching the woods for it along the highway in the middle of nowhere, using Find My iPhone to locate it. It’s not like she can afford to get a new one. She’ll have no choice but to wander around in the muddy brush for hours trying to find it.

I toss it on the counter as I walk by, laughing to myself.

Revenge is a bitch…and so am I.