“Yeah, just fucking do it.”
“Alright, kid, open up.”
He put the cold clamp down on my bottom lip and took out the big needle. “Deep breaths, all the way in, all the way out.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “Just relax.” I felt the needle go through with a tight pinch and Connor started cheering like I’d scored a touchdown.
“Yes! You did it, Jack!”
“Ow,” I said as the guy put in the ring.
“Just remember to use the cleaning stuff I gave you so it so it doesn’t get infected,” he said. After we paid him, he squinted hard at me and mumbled, “I’ll be damned if you’re a day over sixteen.” He shook his head and walked into the backroom, thumbing his fat cash tip from Connor.
Connor took my hand, and we went outside into the bright sunlight, taking in the smell of greasy fast food cooking next door. “So, what are you gonna tell your Dad?”
“That a rattlesnake bit me and this was the only way to stop the bleeding.”
“Nice. I just got a text from Jason Xiang—you know him, right?—about this party. His parents are out of town for the weekend. He lives on Cypress Road, across the street from the pawn shop. You want to head over there?”
Jason Xiang? Was he in our grade? How did Connor know all these people? “Nah, not really.”
“He’s got four ounces of weed,” he said, reading his phone. “And an eight ball.”
“Yeah, I guess we could stop by.”
“It would be rude to refuse,” Connor agreed, smiling at me. I kissed him with my swollen lip.
A car horn honked. I glanced up to see a beat-up Ford slowly driving past us, an old woman in the driver’s seat shaking her head and scowling in our direction.
Connor flipped her off and he pulled my face close to his, kissing me hard and heavy with tongue. She honked angrily, her shouts trailing behind her as her tires screeched against the concrete.
Connor just laughed with his head back. His arm had felt so good around my waist just moments earlier, and I’d felt so free, but now I pulled away. It was like that easy warmth between us had evaporated.
“Come on, Jack,” he murmured, pulling me closer to him, but I shrugged him off.
“Not now.”
“Jack,” he said. “Are we gonna do this forever?”
“Please,” I said. “Just not now.”
We walked to the bus stop in silence.
It was always strange going out into public spaces, a sphere where we couldn’t touch or smile at each other like we did when we were alone. Not without causing a nasty response. For a while it had been our unspoken agreement that everything between us only existed when we were back in the safety our bubble, away from anyone who might suspect us.
But lately he’d been getting increasingly annoyed with it. He’d been touching me out in public, acting bolder, more insistent that we just come out to everyone and let it be what it was.
“It’s not a big deal, Jack,” he’d said. “I know it’s scary, but once you’re honest with everyone and yourself, it’s so freeing. We don’t have to keep playing this game.”
But I would picture Riley, left naked and bruised and alone in that hallway. I saw him behind my eyelids whenever I tuned out in class, when I turned a sharp corner in the hallway, when I dreamed at night. His long face and crooked smile would find their way into my brain even in my most peaceful moments alone with Connor, reminding me, warning me. It had only been a month since he’d been beaten up, but for some reason, it felt strange to talk about, even with Connor.
I felt it on the bus that day, in the way Connor stared out the window and barely spoke to me, that it was bugging him too. I wish I could tell him about the dreams I’d been having, the ones where a million hands were clutching my throat and choking me to death, or how the thought of someone seeing us together made my chest turn icy cold, like all the air had been sucked out of my lungs. But it felt like speaking about it would only make it more real.
When we arrived at Jason’s, a red brick row house with a crumbling roof and creaky porch, a steady bass was pulsing through the walls. I rapped hard on the door and rang the bell three times, hearing yelling and excited screams inside.
The door opened and my mouth fell open.
“Jess?”
I barely recognized her. In the place of my best friend was a nineties grunge model. Her hair was messy and matted, pulled back into a bun on top of her head, dark roots bleeding through. Her lashes were thick with mascara, and her lips were painted bright red. She easily looked five years older, but tired under all the makeup. She stood there staring at me in mutual surprise, wearing ripped-up tights and a skintight black dress that hugged her thighs. Her automatic, friendly smile quickly fell into a grimace.
“Oh, hello, Jack,” she said coolly, eyeing Connor and me warily. “Come in, I guess.”
I stepped into a cloud of stale beer and cigarettes. “You know Jason?”
She just nodded and shrugged, sipping her drink. “Everyone knows Jason. He’s running for SGA president.”
“We have an SGA?” I was only half-kidding.
She tried to hide her smirk with her hand. “You want a beer? I’ll get you one. Oh, and Toby asked if you were coming. He said he’d be upstairs in a minute.” She walked off to the kitchen.
I was dumbfounded. I glanced over at Connor. “She’s hanging out with Toby, now?”
“I guess they’re friends now,” Connor said. We watched a sketchy-looking couple dry hump in the stairway that led to the basement, where the party was raging down below.
I thought back to the last party, the way he’d been leering at her, and my stomach turned. “Do you think she’s here
