Page 33

THIRTY-THREE

DANNI

For Florence’s eighteenth birthday, she throws a house party at a rental only a fifteen-minute walk from Bramppath. We’re allowed to leave the grounds on weekends—as long as we’re back by curfew—if we have a permission slip. Only, everyone is going—from Bramppath anyway, a bunch of the Ashford guys have a history practice exam on Monday they’re studying for—and I’m kind of worried Mom won’t sign my slip. Especially given that it has a paragraph warning everybody about the school’s zero-tolerance policy, which seems exactly like the kind of threat that might spook Mom into making me be the only student who skips the party. The only invited one, anyway. So, feeling like the worst daughter in the world, I sign it for her. I’d rather apologize later than be the only one in the whole grade stuck at school while everyone else is at Florence’s party.

My guilt is replaced by excitement by that Saturday night, though. And by the time Rose comes by my room to walk me over, after I wrap up piano practice early, I’m in a great mood. We sent Molly and Eleanor ahead without us so we could have a few minutes together on the walk over, before we have to split up. Even walking into the party together might get read wrong with the state of the rumors at the moment, and we can’t risk it.

I sit in my desk chair and grab one of my sneakers. “I’m almost ready,” I say. “I just have to get my shoes on.”

She saunters up, nods, then she kisses me until I drop my shoe to the ground. And for god’s sake, that one kiss is enough to quicken my breath and plant a needing heaviness in the pit of my gut. The ache is back, like it always seems to be these days, and I want her, even if it means we’ll be late. No, I need her to. It’s kind of ridiculous, isn’t it? I go my whole life without sex, and now it’s suddenly all I want to do? I’m better than that, aren’t I?

Nope, actually, I don’t think I am. It’s really hard for me to sound casual as I ask, “When did you tell the girls we’d meet them?”

She looks at me, and her eyes darken from light to forest green in an instant. “They can wait,” she says, getting to her knees as she runs a hand up my thigh. It drifts over the material of my jeans, skipping a little over the zipper and buttons, and then her skin meets mine, and I let my head fall back until it hits the top of the chair. I do my best to control my breathing—because for some reason, in that moment, it seems embarrassing how quickly she brought me from fine to definitely-not-fine—but then she cruelly stops there. I wait for her to keep going, but she doesn’t. She just waits, the pads of her fingers pressed just by my hip bones.

I’m shaking with the effort of reining myself in when I finally open my eyes and look down to find her looking smugly back up at me. She quirks an eyebrow in a silent question.

I hate her a little.

“Do you want to head to the party now?” she asks. “We’d get there on time.”

I shake my head.

“What was that?” she asks, and she is enjoying herself at my expense a little too much here.

“No,” I say grudgingly, and one corner of her mouth lifts into a crooked smile.

“No?” she repeats, and my hips buck weakly of their own accord as I seek out her hand. She holds it steady. I hate her. “Is there something else you’d like to do?”

I open my mouth to answer, but even though my lips start to form a word, the only sound I manage to make is a clipped noise in the back of my throat. “Rose,” I force out.

“Danni.” She presses down firmly.

My breathing is past the point of control now. To my dismay, it comes out in a rasp, quick and shaky and frantic. I lift my hips one more time. “Please,” I say. “ Please. ”

And that, thank god, is finally enough for Rose. Silently, she moves her hand from my hip, rising off the ground as she does, and I take back everything I thought about hating her, before I stop thinking anything rational altogether.

We’re almost at the right street when Rose pauses, looking up at the moon. Her face goes weirdly dark, just for a second. We stand there for so long, Theodore almost catches up to us.

What’s upset her? It’s just the moon, as far as I can tell. It’s super pretty tonight, actually. It’s full, but that attention-seeking kind of full, where it sits really close to the horizon, and it’s more of a golden egg-yolk sort of color than its usual soft white.

“It’s a path light moon,” she says, and there’s something about the way she says it that makes it sound like the moon’s committed some sort of personal crime against her.

“A path light moon?” I repeat.

“Yes. That’s what Hennish people call it.” She tears her eyes away. “We won’t be able to spend much time together tonight, you know.”

I do know, obviously, but it’s still a stab in the gut. It’s not a rejection sort of feeling. Just, I guess, a sort of bitterness. Maybe a bit of anger. At the world, not Rose. Anger that it’s somehow more moral for me to be seen all day in public on a “date” with a guy I couldn’t care less about than to be caught spending thirty seconds with the girl I’m… I mean, the girl I really… like a lot.

“Got it,” I say.

“And make sure not to give me pining looks across the room,” Rose says. “As far as you’re concerned, I’m not even a little bit breathtakingly gorgeous. Now, I know that will be quite hard to pull off, but—”

“I don’t give you pining looks,” I interrupt her.

She stops mid-step to look at me. “Why not?” she asks, sounding wounded. “Don’t you adore me?”

Adore. That might be the word I was looking for a few seconds ago.

“You’re fine, I guess.”

“That’s the spirit. Though you really could have waited until there were cameras on us to switch on the nonchalance.”

“There could be cameras anywhere,” I say.

“Quite right. That level of vigilance and paranoia will take you far in my life. William would be so proud.”

We turn onto Florence’s street. “Danni,” Rose says in a serious voice that’s really unlike her. “If you need me, though. Just find me. Okay?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“No, promise me.”

She’s honestly starting to weird me out at this point. “I promise,” I say, and she falls back.

“Okay. You go in first. I’ll see you later.”

I want to hang back and ask Rose why she’s acting like this—like there’s some sort of terrible prophecy that’s meant to take place tonight or something—but we’re already on Florence’s street, so I can’t. All it takes is a photograph of us talking alone in the dark, and we risk the internet blowing up again.

They barely even need photo evidence at this point, these faceless strangers. If we don’t give them material, they just make it up.

For example, a few days ago I stumbled across someone online who’d found a post I made two years ago on Rose’s birthday. It was a photo of two steaming cups of tea in cute, rose-petal cups. Mom was going through a phase at the time where she bought a new flavor of tea at the nearby specialty shop every chance she got, and I had to be her taste tester then. Not only the common flavors like peppermint and chamomile, but real fancy shit like “orange pekoe” and “crème br?lée” and “fruit-basket explosion.” I drank so much tea during those months I’m pretty sure it started leaking out of my pores.

It just so happens that Rose was celebrating her fifteenth birthday in London that year. So far, so unrelated, you would think. But of course, you would be wrong—at least, according to this poster. Because this poster has us all figured out. According to them, my tea post was actually a coded way for me to wish Rose a happy birthday—and that I wished I was in London celebrating with her. Because apparently Rose and I started dating years and years ago, and the proof is clear if you just pay attention to our posts over the years.

Basically, any photos are risky, no matter how innocent. And if we’re gambling with Rose’s future, it’s not up to me to roll the dice. It’s fine, anyway. It’s not like I’m lost without Rose. I have… Eleanor, for example, who’s already making a beeline for me the second she sees me come through the front door.

“Danni,” she cries, grabbing my upper arm. “You are gonna be so proud of me. I’ve decided something.”

“What have you decided?” I ask. She’s already past tipsy, and she’s leaning most of her weight on me.

“I have decided—why don’t you have a drink? Let’s get you a drink.” She yanks me by the arm through the crowd of kids. Most of the party has gathered in the living room, where the sofa has been shoved to one side to make space for a kind of dance floor. In a regular house it would have felt ridiculously cramped—half of Bramppath seems to be here. Luckily, Florence’s “rental” is a mansion by another name, so it’s basically like being in a club. At least, I think it is, if the movies are anything to go by. She’s even hired a DJ, who’s set up his spin table right next to the sprawling archway that connects the kitchen to the lounge room.

The kitchen is where Eleanor drags me. “I’ve stashed a bottle in here,” she yells over the music. “You good with vodka?”

“I think I might just stick with soda,” I say. “The warning on that permission slip rattled me a little.”

Eleanor blows a raspberry. “What, the zero-tolerance thing?” she asks. “Everyone in this house is drinking. What are they gonna do, expel all of us?”

Well, she has a good point. Safety in numbers, right? So, I shrug, and she grabs one of about a dozen half-empty Coke bottles littered over the counter and pours some vodka in a red plastic cup for me. “I’ve decided I’m over Santi,” she says as she mixes my drink.

“What? Why?”

She gives me a funny smile. “Because he doesn’t like me. Obviously.”

Well, I thought the last time I saw them together he seemed kind of interested. And she’s always coming back from play rehearsal with little stories about him saying hi to her, or picking up something she dropped. But if Eleanor has a gut feeling, who am I to argue? Maybe the guy has no taste. His loss.

She passes me the cup, and I try it. It’s too strong for me, but that sad, bitter feeling from earlier hasn’t really gone away, and if I’m going to have to avoid Rose all night, I’d rather not be sober for it. So, bottoms up. “Screw him,” I tell Eleanor. “He’s not meant for you.”

“Agreed,” Eleanor says, raising her own cup.

“This is good! Now you’re making space for The One to come along.”

“I don’t want anyone to come along,” she says. “From now on, my priority is my friends. I don’t need a boy in my life to be happy.”

“Wow. You’ve grown up so fast in the last… week,” I say.

“I think I’ve had a growth spurt.”

“That makes a lot of sense.” I take another sip, and shudder. Then, steeling myself, I drain the rest in a couple of gulps. Eleanor watches with wide eyes, then holds out her hand for my cup. She refills it with a look I can only describe as impressed.

“Have you been drunk before?” she asks as she passes back my cup.

“ Yes, ” I scoff. “Once. My friend brought a flask into the tenth-grade winter dance.”

“Ooh, watch out, we have a rebel over here.” Eleanor pushes my cup to my mouth, bursting into laughter as it spills over and soaks my chin.

It doesn’t take long for her to suggest we move on to shots. As far as I’m concerned, the drinks she was pouring weren’t far from shots to begin with, so it’s not much of a jump. She teaches me to breathe in and squeeze my thumb in my own fist before I tip my head back to get better control of my gag reflex. Her soda runs out after the first chaser, so she rummages around until she finds a bottle of wine she seems to think is fine to steal for some reason.

“Wine as a chaser?” I ask.

“It’s a sweet wine,” she says as though that explains it. This seems like a great point to me, which is definitely the vodka talking, so I just shrug.

We’re probably being antisocial, but as far as I’m concerned, our kitchen party is just as good as the one out there. We’ve been hanging in here for god knows how long when Eleanor slumps over. At first, I think she might be passing out, but then I realize she’s just sad. “Every time we do stuff with the Ashford guys, it’s weird now,” she says. “I keep expecting to see Oscar in the crowd. I wonder if that ever goes away.”

“I don’t know,” I say, taking her hand. “But it must be really tough.”

“It is. And we barely ever talk about it. It’s like—”

Before she can finish her sentence, someone speaks up behind us. “Hi, Eleanor.”

We turn together to find Santi, clutching a cup with both hands. He looks unsure of himself, like he’s expecting Eleanor to reject him. Her to reject him . Does he telepathically know that Eleanor’s decided she’s over him? Or, worse, did he somehow hear her tell me that, and it sparked his interest? Ew, if so.

But I’m gonna have to give him the benefit of the doubt, I think, because Eleanor’s busy looking at him like he just rode down from heaven on a floating cloud. I’m kind of glad she has a distraction from thinking about Oscar, honestly, even though I wish she had the chance to get her feelings out properly. “Hi,” she says. “You’re… here, at this party. How cool. So am I.”

Come on, baby girl. You can do better than that.

But, amazingly, Santi just smiles back. “How cool.”

Oh my god, it’s happening. I need to vanish, now . “Bathroom,” I say to Eleanor, grabbing her vodka bottle as I leave, and I’m not even sure she hears me. I turn back at the door to find Santi mid-laugh at something Eleanor’s just said.

I’m so proud of her I could burst. Look at her go.

As for me, I now have exactly zero people to hang out with. But I’m just drunk enough that I don’t really care. Vodka bottle in hand, I happily wander through the house. I’m barraged by a wave of music and thudding bass in the living room, and I weave in and out of couples making out in the hall, and then I head into the backyard where I’m hit with freezing cold air on my cheeks. It’s busy out here, too, with a few dozen students hanging out and talking or smoking, even though it’s got to be somewhere near freezing.

“Danni!” Someone tackles me from the side, and it’s Harriet . Hi, Harriet! I forgot for a second I had more friends here after all. I’m really silly. I throw myself into her arms.

“ Hey, ” I say. “I didn’t have anyone to talk to! But you’re here!”

“I’m here!” She chuckles. Her hair is frizzy, and her oversized denim jacket has fallen off one of her shoulders. She’s drunk and I’m drunk and we’re both grinning like idiots. “Where’s Rose?”

“With Molly.”

“Why aren’t you with them?”

Well that’s a great question I forgot to prepare a lie for. “Um, I’m not hanging with them tonight.”

Smooth.

“Oh, shit, you didn’t have a fight, did you?”

“No, no way. I’m just… expanding my horizons.” I throw my arms to the side and spin in a circle to illustrate my point, because liars don’t do things like that, and I just know my enthusiasm will totally convince Harriet.

“Oh,” I say, remembering. I tug on Harriet’s arm so she follows me and we go around the side of the house, where we’re alone. I don’t want to talk about Eleanor’s private stuff where anyone else might hear us. “Eleanor and Santi!”

“Santi?”

“Yeah, she’s talking to him.”

“When was this?”

“Like, five minutes ago.” Then I think a bit harder. “Or maybe half an hour ago.”

“Give or take, huh?”

I grin. “I don’t usually drink. But I’m really glad I came.”

“I’m glad you came, too.”

God, I feel so warm and fuzzy. All the sadness and bitterness is gone. I have friends here. People I can rely on. I can hang out at a party without anyone else without feeling weird, or even being alone too long. People like me, and I like them. I wish I could go back in time to months and months ago and tell past-Danni that she didn’t have to worry about coming to Henland at all, because there are good people everywhere.

I’m so fucking happy .

“Everyone here is so awesome,” I say, and I lean against the brick wall and let my head fall back against it. “Eleanor’s awesome, and Rose and Molly, and you’re awesome. You’re really, really nice. I’m so lucky.”

“ You’re the awesome one.”

“No, you are. You’re super awe—”

I swear, I don’t notice. I don’t notice her leaning in until she’s right in front of me, because the world’s sort of swimming, and my eyes aren’t really focused, and suddenly she’s there, and she is kissing me.

And it all happens at the exact same moment. She kisses me, and her hand is on my jaw, and she’s pressing me against the wall. She kisses me, and a group of guys come around the side of the house, and all I’m aware of is her lips on mine and the sound of their banter. She kisses me, and I pull away, the very second I catch on to exactly what’s happening.

“Harriet,” I whisper, and she knows right away, and she’s horrified .

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I thought… I thought you…”

The guys, laughing, stop in their tracks and make a big deal of backing away from us. I don’t even get a good look at who they are, because I’m still trying to process the fact that Harriet just kissed me.

Wait, did I just cheat on Rose? Does that count?

“No,” I say. “I like you a lot, but not like that.”

“You do like girls, though, right?” she asks. “You do . Just not me.”

This cannot be happening. It doesn’t make any sense, and I think I’m going to throw up. Everything blurs and then morphs back together, and I press my palms against the wall to steady myself. Did I get drunker?

“Shit, I’m so sorry, honestly,” Harriet says, and I can tell she means it. “I assumed, and I—shit, I shouldn’t have assumed. I’m drunk, and I think I thought you were saying one thing, and you weren’t, and, please, I’m really sorry.”

“I need to be alone now,” I say, and Harriet nods.

“Do you need me to get someone? Do you need anything?”

“No. I just need space, please.”

So, she leaves me. I take several deep breaths until I feel calm and focused. And that’s when the anger and bitterness pours in, like I’m a lifeboat with a puncture in the middle. Fuck this. Fuck all of this. Fuck people thinking I’m queer, and fuck the fact that I can’t even tell them I am, and fuck the fact that I can’t even be by my own girlfriend’s fucking side when all I want is to be with her. Fuck everyone’s staring eyes, and their little theories, and their incessant obsession with our lives because their own lives are too fucking empty to satisfy them unless they’re fucking up mine. Especially fuck Harriet for kissing me without any warning.

And, unfair as it is, fuck Rose for being twenty feet away from me when I need her. I need her. Fuck her for not magically knowing that.

I stalk through the garden and slam the back door, Eleanor’s vodka tucked under my arm. I don’t know where Eleanor is, or Rose, or Molly, and I don’t give a damn. Upstairs, I find an empty room—a bedroom, with a pristine king-sized bed and a bookshelf full of classical novels that look like they’ve never been opened. I kick my shoes off, climb onto the bed, and pour vodka straight into my mouth. It’s basically like a shot. It reminds me of Rachel pouring her bottle in our punch that night at the winter dance. Wait, Rachel. Rachel I want to talk to.

I text her, and she doesn’t reply. Then I look it up and realize it’s the middle of the school day in Boulder. Of course it is. Fuck everything, including time zones. I’ll make myself feel better. I already know drinking enough can make me forget things, because I can’t remember the entire second half of the tenth-grade winter dance. So, my goal is to forget I ever spoke to Harriet tonight.

How many shots could that take?