Wren looks impressed. “You play a lot of videogames, Isis?”
“What else does a friendless fat kid do?”
“So this entire time you’ve been calling me a nerd, but you’re secretly one?” Jack quirks a brow.
“Isis just calls everyone nerds. It’s her way of saying she likes you.” Kayla smiles.
I flush. “Is not!”
“Is that the best comeback you can come with tonight? ‘Is not’?” Jack makes a ‘tsk’ noise. Kayla leads him over to the kitchen, and pours him some booze. He grimaces at it, but he glances at me and takes a swig. I go in and fix myself a rum and coke, and stand by Jack.
“Do I drive you to drink or something? Thought the Ice Prince doesn’t drink.”
“I don’t. Tonight’s special.”
“Yeah? Why’s that?”
He jerks his head to Kayla, who squeals with a group of girls and points at Jack, then squeals louder with them.
“She’s excited, cut her some slack.”
“Excitement is not covered by my eardrum healthcare provider.”
“Every girl is excited by their first boyfriend. Let her enjoy it.”
Jack’s quiet. Someone turns on house music. The bass thumps through my chest.
“Did you?” Jack asks.
“Did I what?”
“Enjoy having your first boyfriend?”
“At first.”
I stare at Kayla’s smile, and smile into my own cup.
“At first it was great. It was really great. Held hands. Went on a picnic, once. He didn’t like going in public with me much, since I was a whale. Didn’t kiss, because I was too shy. Mostly we stayed at his house or my house. Talked. Watched TV. Once he brought some pot over and I almost vomited. It was the first I smoked anything, ever.”
“Rebel,” Jack murmurs.
“I know,” I laugh. “I felt so badass. All it did was make me hungry and then I slept for fifteen hours. It wasn’t even fun.”
“But you had fun with him.”
I watch the dark soda bubble, fizz, pop. Soda can corrode stuff. Metal. Stone. I read that somewhere, once.
“Yeah. I had fun. Except it wasn’t real. He was pretending.”
Jack’s patiently quiet. I grin and shove my cup at him.
“I’m gonna go dance. Don’t drug that or anything.”
As I sway to the beat, getting lost in the nest of heat and bodies that is the dance floor, my memories fall away. Music is the best medicine. It blasts away all the thoughts in your head if it’s loud enough, and keeps them away if it’s a good enough song. I don’t ridiculous dance like I did with Wren, but I don’t dance seriously. Can you even dance seriously? Whatever, that’s a question for some tap-dance or jazz snobs. I just dance. Wildly. I throw my arms up and jump and twirl, the orange-and-black of the lights mixing with the alcohol in a pleasant haze. I can observe, however blurrily, the party from the inside out. Someone’s throwing cooked spaghetti at a wall and watching it stick. Knife-guy snuck his way in, dressed up as a serial killer in a blood-spattered apron and a fake cleaver, and he’s talking excitedly with a guy dressed up as a samurai about the fake katana he’s got. Wren’s flitting nervously around Kayla, who’s showing him all the framed baby pictures of Avery tucked behind the fridge so no one could see how embarrassingly fat and bald she used to be. Avery herself is grinding on some tall, dark guy from the swim team. A green alien costume guy slides down the banister on his belly and crashes into a wall, jumps up, and runs up the stairs to do it all over again. And Jack’s looking at me. The music changes to some slowish hip-hop and the party rages on and Avery and the guy are kissing and Kayla and Wren have disappeared and I lean back, into someone’s chest, and I don’t care whose because I’m so tired and so drunk, and I hear the clinking of beads and look up and it’s Jack.
“Shit!” I stumble away, tripping over a couple. The three of us fall in a tangle of limbs and wounded egos, and Jack pulls me up and holds my hand, tight.
“Try not to kill everyone, idiot.”
“Let go of my hand, before I scratch your eyes out.”
“You’re drunk. You’re going to fall over again.”
“I’m perfectly capable of balancing on my own!”
I wobble, and to keep myself from eating vomit-and-glitter-stained carpet, I grab Jack’s arm. The shirt is soft and white under my fingers, but his muscle is taut and smooth.
“Either you go sit down –” Jack says warningly.
“No! I want to stay here with the music!”
“Or you use me as balance. But you’re a little too drunk to dance with any sort of coordination anymore, and I don’t think anyone else wants you grabbing all over them.”
“Screw you,” I snap. “You’re just…you’re just trying to smother me!”
“Yes. In your sleep. So you’ll stop living and Kayla will be all mine,” He deadpans.
I can’t help the laugh that escapes. I sigh and lean back into his chest again. We stand like that, and he stays still, but I sway gently and he starts mimicking me.
“It’s nice not to fall,” I murmur.
“Generally speaking,” He agrees. The music changes, and it’s loud and annoying, and I pull away and go away. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere soft and quiet. I open guest bedroom doors until I find one that doesn’t have a writhing couple on the bed, and close and lock the door behind me. I flop on the soft comforter. Fancy down comforter. Fancy glass lamps twisted like sea kelp. Fancy pictures of the ocean and fancy pillows that smell like lavender. I suck it in and try to make the room stop spinning. The music still thumps below. A weight is sitting on the bed to my side. Jack. I frown and squint up at him.
“Why did you follow me?”
“You dragged me with you.”
I slump into the pillows again, my voice muffled. “Oh.”
I watch him take off his hat, his normal golden-brown hair sticking up slightly.
“You look better without the dumb dreads,” I mumble.
“I thought you liked Johnny Depp?”
“Is that why you dressed up as him? Because I like him?”
Jack makes a show of standing quickly and putting his hat on the farthest chair. “No. Of course not. It was just what I had in my closet from last year.”
“There’s a price tag on your vest.”
The tiniest of cringes passes through him, but he hides it well and turns back to me, eyes all cold and dangerous-looking.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“It’s okay,” I sigh into the pillow. “You don’t have to get all defensive. If you did it for me that’s okay. Weird, but okay.”
The coldness fades from his eyes, and he comes back and sits on the bed.
“You’re so conceited. Like I would ever pick a costume just for you,” He scoffs.
“I know. I was kidding. I know you’d rather…rather throw me in a pit than do something for me. I wouldn’t do anything for you, either.”
Liar.
I roll over, my cape cocooning me like a burrito. I pull my mask off and throw it over the bed.
“I drank too much.”