“Are you having fun?” Lauren asked, joining us.
“I guess,” I said, glancing at the door.
“You have to stop doing that!” she shouted at me.
“Doing what?”
“Watching the door,” Carina put in. “If he shows, he shows. But you’ll look much cooler if you’re not staring at the door when he does.”
Lauren lifted her hand and Carina high-fived her. I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. I’m not waiting for him. He’s not coming back. And even if he did, why would he come here? He can’t dance. If he even tried to step on the dance floor, he’d basically get killed.”
“Woo-hoo! It’s the hottest girls in the room!”
Lauren stopped dancing and shot a look over my shoulder, just as Damon wrapped his arms around me from behind. Just the scent of him—coffee and gum—made my stomach turn. I whirled around and shoved him away from me with both hands. He stumbled backward into a group of kids dancing behind him, and one girl squealed as she spilled her soda.
“Sorry!” I shouted to her, though I wasn’t sure if she heard me.
“What’s your problem, Tess?” Damon said. He was wearing an open-collared button-down shirt and pants that were too tight. His hair, normally back in a ponytail, hung long over his shoulders. It was longer than mine now. I didn’t like it down. It made him look much older and, weirdly, skeevier.
“My problem? What are you even doing here? My grandmother fired your ass!”
“So, I snuck in. So what?” he shot back, like he could not understand what the problem was. “Why are you freaking shoving me into people?”
“Are you seriously asking me that right now?” I turned my palms out. “Do you not even remember what happened last night?”
“Last night?” he said. “You mean when you and your stupid prank got me and all my friends dragged down to the police station? And then I got in trouble with my aunt and uncle, and Tarek told on me to Loretta as punishment. Yeah, I remember that. That was awesome. But I forgive you.”
My jaw hung open, my face heating up as I realized we were starting to draw attention. The people dancing closest to us had stopped and turned around to stare. A couple of them were even filming on their phones. Carina took a few steps back, and I knew it was because she didn’t want to get caught on social media in the middle of a melee. My sister, though, stepped up right behind me.
“You shoved me to the floor the second the cops showed up and basically let me get trampled,” I said. Okay, I was exaggerating, but just a little. That was how it had felt at the time. “And then you blamed the whole thing on me.”
“It was your idea!” he blurted out.
“Yes, it was my idea. But you said it was fine! You got Chase’s okay, you bought the toilet paper, you helped us do it.” I shook my head. “But you know what, forget all of that. You also purposely knocked my friend off the slopes and broke his leg. Do you think I’d really want to talk to you after that?”
“Not likely!” Lauren chimed in.
“I don’t like you, Damon,” I added, crossing my arms over my chest. “And I’d appreciate it if you would go away.”
Damon took a breath. He looked like he was about to say something else, but then he glanced around at our audience, at their phones, and something shifted on his face.
“Whatever. You’re not worth it, anyway,” he said to a chorus of “Oooooh” and “Burn!” Then he turned and walked away.
“All right, everyone. Show’s over. Go back to what you were doing,” Lauren said to the crowd, adding a shooing motion with both hands. Carina rejoined us as everyone went back to dancing, and I felt my shoulders relax.
“That was awesome,” Carina said.
I glanced at the door again. Couldn’t help it. But there was no Christopher. Is it wrong that a little part of me was hoping he had seen that? That he’d arrived at the exact right moment to witness me telling off Damon?
My sister reached out and squeezed my hand. “Maybe it’s for the better that he’s not here,” she told me. “You don’t want to kick off the year with someone who’s not for real.”
I couldn’t argue with her logic. I had really liked Christopher for those first few days. But this whole ghosting thing he was doing now? It wasn’t right. I didn’t deserve to be treated this way. I deserved to surround myself with people who cared about me.
“I’m glad you guys are here,” I told Lauren and Carina.
They both hugged me, one from each side, mushing me between them.
“We are, too,” Lauren said, releasing me.
Carina threw her arms in the air. “Now let’s dance!”
* * *
• • •
And we danced. But then we got tired. Or at least I did. It had been a long few days, not to mention an exhausting twenty-four hours. At this time last night I was being hauled off in a police car for the very first time. I guess the stress of that and then sitting in the police station for hours and then getting into a fight with my grandmother, getting up early for breakfast, and having my hair lopped off had taken a lot out of me. With a few minutes left until midnight, I was sitting at a table, slumped so low in the chair my butt was hanging of the edge, and I really didn’t feel like celebrating. Lauren and Carina were still on the dance floor, taking selfies with props they’d stolen from the photo booth—huge sunglasses, paper crowns, fake moustaches—and I saw the opportunity to make my escape.
With their backs to me, I got up and slipped toward the perimeter of the room, sliding past raucous dancers and edging my way by the dessert table.
“Only eight minutes left until the new year!” the DJ announced, and everyone cheered. He’d been doing that every sixty seconds for the past half hour, and it was making me tense. I got to the door and could taste my freedom, feel my pajamas on my skin, when a hand wrapped around my wrist and stopped me short.
“Carina!” I cried.
“You are not leaving this party before midnight,” she admonished me.
I glanced past her for Lauren, but she was still on the dance floor, wearing her crown, dancing with Tarek. At least they weren’t teaming up on me. Carina, I could handle.
“Come on! Is this all because of that list!? So, figure out something else to do!”
“Like what?” I asked.
Her eyes went wide, incredulous.
“There must be loads of things you’ve never done before.” She looked around the room as if the answer was going to pop up in front of her. “I don’t know…moon a party? Do ten cartwheels in a row? Go streaking?”