“I just don’t get it.” Lindsay’s pouting in the front seat, halfway down Kent’s driveway, where the line of cars ends. “How do you expect us to get
I sigh and explain it for the thousandth time. “I’ll get us a ride, okay?”
“Why don’t you just come in with us now?” Ally whines from the backseat, also for the thousandth time. “Just leave the damn car.”
“And let you drive home, Ms. Absolut World?” I twist around and stare pointedly at the vodka bottle she’s holding. She takes this as a cue to toss back another gulp.
“I’ll drive us home,” Lindsay insists. “Have you ever seen me drunk?”
“It doesn’t matter.” I roll my eyes. “You can’t even drive sober.”
Elody snorts and Lindsay wags a finger at her. “Watch out or you’ll be walking to school from now on,” she says.
“Come on, we’re missing the party.” Ally finger-combs her hair, ducking so she can check herself out in the rearview mirror.
“Give me fifteen minutes, tops,” I say. “I’ll be back before you even make it to the keg.”
“How will you get back here?” Lindsay’s still eyeing me suspiciously, but she opens the door.
“Don’t worry about it,” I say. “I hooked up a ride earlier.”
“I still don’t see why you can’t just drive us home later.” Lindsay’s grumbling, still unhappy about the arrangements, but she climbs out, and Ally and Elody follow. I don’t bother answering. I’ve already explained, and explained again, that I may be ducking out of the party early. I know all of them assume it’s because Rob will be there and I’m afraid I’ll freak or something, and I don’t correct them.
I’m planning to drop the car in Lindsay’s driveway, but after I pull out onto Route 9, I find that, without meaning to, I steer toward home. I’m feeling calm, blank, like all of the darkness outside has somehow seeped in and turned everything off inside me. It’s not an unpleasant feeling. It’s kind of like being in a pool and kicking up onto your back until you find the perfect balance where you can float without thinking about it.
Most of the lights are off at my house. Izzy’s gone to sleep several hours ago. There’s a faint blue light glowing in the den. My father must be watching TV. Upstairs a bright square of light marks the bathroom. Through the shades I can see a figure moving around, and I imagine my mom dotting Clinique moisturizer on her face, squinting without her contacts, the tattered arm of her bathrobe fluttering, a bird wing. As usual they’ve left the porch light on for me, so that when I come home I won’t have to fumble in my bag for my keys. They’ll be making plans for tomorrow, maybe wondering what to do for breakfast or whether to wake me up before noon, and for a moment grief for everything I am losing—have lost already, lost days ago in a split second of skidding and tearing where my life ripped away from its axis—overwhelms me, and I put my head down on the steering wheel and wait for the feeling to pass. It does. The pain ebbs away. My muscles relax, and once again I’m struck by the rightness of things.
As I’m driving back to Lindsay’s, I think about something I learned years ago in science class, that even when birds have been separated from their flock they will still migrate instinctively. They know where to go without ever having been shown the way. Everyone was talking about how amazing that was, but now it doesn’t seem so strange. That’s how I feel right now: as though I am in the air, all alone, but somehow I know exactly what to do.
A few miles before Lindsay’s driveway, I pull out my phone and punch in Kent’s number. It occurs to me that he may have thought I was kidding earlier today. Maybe he won’t pick up when he doesn’t recognize the phone number, or maybe he’ll be so busy trying to keep people from puking on his parents’ Oriental carpets he won’t hear it. I count the rings, getting more and more nervous. One, two, three.
On the fourth ring there’s the sound of fumbling. Then Kent’s voice, warm and reassuring: “Hunky Heroes, rescuing distressed women, captive princesses, and girls without wheels since 1684. How can I help you?”
“How did you know it was me?” I say.
There’s a surge in the music and the swelling of voices. Then I hear Kent cup his hand over the phone and yell, “Out!” A door shuts and the background noise is suddenly muffled.
“Who else would it be?” he says, his voice sarcastic.
“Everyone else is here.” He readjusts something and his voice becomes louder. He must be pressing right up to the phone. The thought of his lips is distracting. “So what’s up?”
“I hope your car’s not blocked in,” I say. “Because I’m in desperate need of a ride.”
On the way back to Kent’s, we’re mostly quiet. He doesn’t ask me why I was standing in the middle of Lindsay’s driveway, and he doesn’t press the issue of why I’ve chosen him to be my ride. I’m grateful for that, and happy just to sit in silence next to him, watching the rain and the dark brushstrokes of the trees against the sky. As we turn into his driveway, which by this point is almost completely packed with cars, I’m trying to decide exactly what the rain dancing in the headlights looks like. Not glitter, exactly.
Kent puts the car in park but leaves the engine on. “I still haven’t forgotten that you promised me a secret, by the way.” He turns to look at me. “Don’t think you’re getting off so easy.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” I unbuckle my seat belt and inch closer to him, still watching the rain out of the corner of my eye. Like dust, kind of, but only if dust were made of solid white light.
Kent folds his hands in his lap, staring at me expectantly, his mouth just curved into a smile. “So let’s hear it.”
I reach across Kent and pull the keys out of the ignition, cutting the lights. In the resulting darkness the sound of the rain seems much louder, washing all around us.
“Hey,” Kent says softly, his voice making my heart soar again, making my whole body light. “Now I can’t see you.”
His face and body are all shadow, darkness on darkness. I can just make out the lines of him, and, of course, feel the warmth from his skin. I lean forward, catching my chin on the roughness of his corduroy jacket, finding his ear, accidentally bumping it with my mouth. He inhales sharply and his whole body tenses. My heart is fluid, soaring. There’s no longer any space between heartbeats.
“The secret is,” I say, whispering right into his ear, “that yours was the best kiss I’ve ever had in my life.”
He pulls back a little so that he can look at me, but our lips are still just inches away. I can’t make out his expression in the dark, but I can tell that his eyes are searching my face again.
“But I’ve never kissed you,” he whispers back. Around us the rain sounds like falling glass. “Not since third grade, anyway.”
I smile, but I’m not sure if he can see it. “Better get started, then,” I say, “because I don’t have much time.”
He pauses for only a fraction of a second. Then he leans forward and presses his lips to mine, and the whole world powers off, the moon and the rain and the sky and the streets, and it’s just the two of us in the dark, alive, alive, alive.
I don’t know how long we’re kissing. It seems like hours, but somehow when he pulls away, breathing hard, both hands holding my face, the clock glowing dully on the dashboard has only inched forward a few minutes.
“Wow,” he says. I can feel his chest rising and falling quickly. We’re both out of breath. “What was that for?”
I force myself to pull away, find the handle in the dark and pop the door open. The cold air and the rain
Even in the dark I can see his eyes sparkling like a cat’s. I can hardly bring myself to look away. “You really saved my life tonight,” I say, my little joke, and then before he can stop me, and even though he calls my name, I jump out of the car and jog along the driveway toward the house, for the very last party of my life.
“You made it!” Lindsay squeals when I find her in the back room. As always the music and heat and smoke is impassable, a wall of people, perfume, and sound. “I totally thought you would flake.”
“I knew you’d show,” Ally says, reaching out and squeezing one of my hands. She drops her voice, which at
