“I’ll be in my room,” Vixson says to Raven, kissing her on the cheek. “Text me when you want to head to the game.”
He waves bye as he leaves and closes the door behind him.
“What do you think?” Raven holds up a black bandage dress to her throat before swapping it with a vintage Led Zeppelin t-shirt cut to have fringe at the midriff and a plunging v-neck.
“How about this one?” I say, grabbing a sweater.
“It’s practically summer,” Raven says, shaking her head. “Must have grabbed that one by accident.”
She pulls a blush pink dress out of a garment bag and tosses it to me. “Let’s see it, girl.”
Crap. I am in shopping hell, only I can’t leave the store because the store doubles as my bedroom.
I duck behind the closet door to change, though Raven is already in her underwear, shoving herself into a jean miniskirt and her Led Zeppelin top.
I shove off my jeans and peel off my shirt. Then I step into the dress.
“Can you help zip it up?” I ask.
Raven steps behind the door without hesitation and zips me up. I turn around and she stares at me, her eyes going wide.
“That’s perfect,” she breathes, her voice uncharacteristically soft. I am dressed the polar opposite of her. She looks like a bohemian rock groupie while I feel like I’m dressed for church.
“It’s not too formal?” I ask with a frown.
She shakes her head and digs shamelessly through my jewelry box until she shoves about a dozen gold bangles on each of my wrists and drapes a quartz necklace on a singular gold chain around my neck. She fluffs my blonde hair and sits me down on my bed atop her clothes.
“Makeup time!” she squeals, digging through her tote bag until she unearths a smaller bag packed with glosses and blushes, foundation and brightener, and an array of brushes.
She gets to work as I sit there.
“We’re going to be late,” I say, laughing as she redoes my lip-gloss for the third time before swiping a line across my mouth.
“We’ll arrive just in time to give them a show,” she says, backing away from me and beaming. “All done. Go look.”
I step barefoot toward the mirror hanging on my closet door and stop. I stare at the girl I see there. I look pretty, my makeup understated and not over the top like I feared given how long Raven spent on it.
The dress isn’t too formal at all. It’s sleeveless and made of breathable cotton in a soft pink color that looks almost white until you look at my white-blonde hair and compare it. With the bangles and the crystal dipping into the sweetheart neckline, I look like I am ready for a day at the beach or at the park.
“The key,” Raven rests her head against my shoulder and winks at me in the mirror, “is to make them think you really aren’t trying at all.”
She walks over to my closet and unearths a pair of leather sandals. “The little piggies painted?”
“Last weekend,” I say.
She kneels to plop the sandals in front of me. I peel off my socks and slide my feet into the sandals.
I wave goodbye to Molly as we head out the door.
12
Harlow
Vixson meets us outside the dormitory, his thumb scrolling over his phone lazily. We walk across campus under a cloudless night sky, the grass soft under our feet. Students walk alongside us, laughing and chatting, the stifling pressure of school and mountains of homework forgotten.
The air is heavy and humid, but night brings a coolness to the heat. I rub my hands over the goosebumps that pepper my bare arms.
Raven grabs Vixson’s hand and brings his hand up to her lips to kiss his knuckles. She gazes at him wistfully, her free hand reaching up to knock a beat against her heart. He mirrors the movement, and my entire body grows heavy as my heart aches for what they have.
I peel my eyes away from them. We follow a steady line of students and faculty walking toward the football field. In daytime, the stadium is the place I associate with gym class and punishing sprints around the field. At night, the stadium lives and breathes through the crowd. Tall lights circle the bleachers, nearly blinding in their intensity. The place even smells different, the aroma of cooking meat and fried foods lingering in the air.
By the time we arrive, the crowd roars in the bleachers. The game has already begun. I don’t know much about football, but I know a lot about junk food. I load up with a basket of poutine, an assortment of candy, and a coke.
Raven and Vixson wait for me, but they don’t buy anything. They only have appetites for each other, devouring one another’s mouths and making gross smacking noises.
There’s something potent about the game with the crowd cheering, the music blaring, and the white lights shining down onto the impossibly green field. We find three seats open in front of the thirty-yard line. I sit there, entranced by the beauty and the brutality as it unfolds.
— Ian —
My fingers skim over the thread of the ball as Coach waves us onto the field. I brush the hair plastered to my forehead aside and strap my helmet back on, inhaling the scent of sweat and freshly cut grass embedded in the plastic. As I jog to my position, the cheerleaders start the crowd in a cheer.
“Let’s go, Vikings! Let’s go!”
Clap! Clap!
I hand the ball to the best damn centerback you’ve ever seen, Davenport, and take position behind him. I dial down the noise until all I hear is the steady push of my breath between my lips. I wink at Everett at my side. He winks right back. Cheeky bastard. The front line of the Ironfleet Prep. Commanders exchange concerned looks before the veil falls.
They have good reason to
