Behind the noise I hear Sophie Miller crying, “You guys, you guys.” Whining.
“What did you think was going to happen when you invite the school to your house, honey?” Donnie says, slurring.
“You think we’d take it easy? Nooooo,” I say.
No one takes it easy on anyone.
ALI
People are hooting. They all want Sean Nessel’s attention. I take a big gulp of my beer. Stare at him until my eyes water.
I’m going to hypnotize you, Sean Nessel. I stare at him. Stare at him, stare at him. Until my powers get him to stare back at me. His hands. His arms. His faded turquoise T-shirt tight over his chest. His flushed cheeks, like a sunset. He’s a sunset. And I’m the beach. I stare away because I’m feeling so hot and I can hardly breathe. I duck my head into Sammi’s shoulder.
“You’re shaking,” she says.
I’m shaking. I have to lift my head back up. Just look one more time. Didn’t he want me here? He wanted me here. So I’m here. I did so much to get here! Look at me, Sean Nessel. Look at me.
And then it happens. Sean Nessel looks back at me. Once. Twice. It’s like a stream between us, a narrow and sweaty tunnel of love where everyone else in the room floats away.
Deep breath. If I can breathe. I can hardly breathe.
I’m going to be sick.
Sammi pinches me on the side of my leg, and I swat her.
With his eyes still on me, Sean nods his head to the left, over in the direction of a side door. An abundance of Jedi mind tricks have preceded this night. I am the girl you’ve been looking for.
BLYTHE
I watch Sean talking to Ali. Stupid girl. She’s so predictable, like the other girls. It’ll start innocently. He’ll go jogging with someone. Or he’ll get the hall pass with someone. Or he’ll hook up with some girl from another team at a soccer match like he did the first night of State Champs just a few weeks ago. But I think back to the Nationals in South Carolina last year, when Sean told Dev that after the game he went back to the hotel room with two girls. Two girls? Sounds like a porn, I told Dev. But then I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and every time I thought about it, there was that rush of heat between my thighs.
Dev’s nothing like Sean. Dev’s concerned when I talk about my mother. Dev actually listens. The way he treats everything I say like it’s the weight of the world.
If Dev is a Golden Retriever, Sean is a Siberian Husky, fierce and maybe on the edge of the wild.
Cate is trying to show me a picture of herself in a dress she wants to wear to the dance, which is two months away. It’s a washed-out lavender dress. Halter top with cutouts in the middle and back and a high-waist cigarette skirt. The skirt part is so tight that you’d have to peel it off her. I’m thinking about my own thighs and how I have some cellulite and how my mother called me out on it at the pool this summer. My mother is going to want to go dress shopping with me for the dance too. It’s our thing together. I say thing lightly.
“So what do you think about the dress, B?”
Donnie jumps in: “I think there’s entirely too much cleavage. It’s messy.”
Donnie’s the only person I don’t mind being less pretty than.
I pull the phone from Cate’s hand. The dress is awful. And I hate her for bringing it up and making me think about my mom, who I’m going to have to eventually go dress shopping with.
“I can’t help that I have boobs,” Cate says to Donnie, looking down at her chest. Her breasts have been that way since she was ten. It’s a sore spot.
“I thought you were going to try that leotard? To flatten you out?” Suki says, rubbing her hands across her chest. Suki is practically a pencil with her black leggings and big T-shirts. She calls herself a proud Jewish Chinese American. Celebrates the New Year three times: Rosh Hashanah, the Chinese New Year, and with the rest of the idiots on December 31st.
“You don’t flatten out a dress like that.”
“Go back on that no-carb diet. Last time you were on that, your boobs totally shrank,” I say.
“Or maybe she should try eating cotton balls filled with orange juice again,” Donnie says. Her quips are designed to kill.
“Wait, you really ate those cotton balls with the orange juice? I thought that was a joke. I thought you were just watching those girls on YouTube?” I say.
“You’re basically making fun of that time I had an eating disorder, and I don’t appreciate it,” Cate says. She’s serious now.
“Hold up. That time you had an eating disorder?” Suki says.
Donnie and I stare at each other with wide-open eyes. Oh, when Suki goes after Cate, it’s bad. We jump up and down, raising our hands in the air.
“It’s onnnnnn!”
But Suki is not having this. “Calm down, people. It is not on.” She pleads with me, then grits her teeth. She turns to Cate. Those two are tight. Like Donnie and I are tight. You don’t go over that line about eating disorders; you keep that shit silent, buried deep—but Suki did. “Cate, you know it is not on.”
Donnie makes fun of Suki, drawing out her words, teasing her. “There is nothing ON about this.”
“It is so clearly off. It’s like, ‘lights out, bitch,’” I say.
Cate’s eyes get big and teary. She lights a cigarette. Deep inhale. Cate with her big burly stance, her gold hoop earrings with her name blazing through them—CATE—it’s all a show. She’s the easiest to tease.
“I’m not laughing,” Cate says. Even though she’s smiling. She knows
