I blinked, shocked.
Hate and calculation settled on her face.
“You drugged me,” I said again. My words were slurred. I turned back toward Hugh. “She… I don’t feel good.”
“Oh? Did I?” Lindsay taunted. “Or did you take it all by yourself and now you’re too afraid to admit you’re as weak as your mommy?”
I shook my head, trying to regain some semblance of normalcy, but everything danced, and psychedelic patterns burst from the edge of my vision in too-bright colors.
I needed Aya. I needed…
As if I’d conjured her, my body vibrated as her perfume drifted to my nose, and in my head, George Harrison crooned his song of love.
Aya. She was here. She could make it better.
I couldn’t think…
“I need some water, a…a room.”
“I’ll be right there with you, honey,” Lindsay purred.
I shook my head, and songs burst through my mind. Glorious music. My breath hitched as the notes pelted my brain. “Go away. I need…”
“We’ll go get it,” Lindsay said, her voice still silky. “I’ll make you feel all better.” She led me toward the stairs.
“No,” I shook my head. “I don’t want you. I want water. Steve.” He was outside. I’d refused to let him come in, refused to talk to him today. He was giving me space. “Not Aya. Don’t want her now…”
Lindsay laughed at that. “You hear him, Stef? He doesn’t want Aya.”
I paused on the tread. Why was she doing this? She ran her hands up and down my chest as I stood there, head pulsing, eyes aching.
“All right, honey. You don’t have to talk to Aya again if you don’t want her.”
I turned and there she was. Aya. Her eyes were filled with tears, just like my father’s. Wait…not my father. Brad. Asshole. I shook my head. My mother was an addict.
“I don’t want you,” I yelled, stumbling away from Lindsay. I wanted Aya.
Somehow, I fell toward Lindsay, my face smashing into her ample chest. Her tits were all wrong—too big and they smelled musky. Not like sunshine and some intriguing spice I loved to lick but never could quite place.
“Why, Nash, this is quite the forward way to show your interest,” Lindsay said with a laugh.
“Nash,” Aya whispered, her voice filled with anguish.
“Go away, you stupid bitch,” I shouted into Lindsay’s chest.
Lindsay giggled, gripping my head tighter. My hands settled on her hips as I swayed.
For the second time tonight, everything went to silence. The music stopped. I managed to push Lindsay away, and I blinked, searching for Aya. A dull red had crept over her face.
“You heard him, Aya,” Lindsay practically sang. “Go away, you stupid bitch.”
No. That wasn’t what I meant. I struggled upward, out of Lindsay’s cushy tits, long enough to catch Aya’s gaze.
She lifted her chin before she spun around and pushed through the throng of teens, excited voices following her out. Snippets of conversation drifted upward.
“He totally dumped her ass.”
“Rejected. So. Hard.”
Lindsay cackled. “You did what I hadn’t been able to.”
I started back down the steps, but I collapsed, my head spinning. I needed to get up. Aya couldn’t leave. She…she seemed upset. Mad at me.
Fucking Lindsay.
Hugh blocked me. I tried to dodge him but ended up falling. He gripped my shirt, held me close to him so our noses were inches apart. Did he want to kiss me?
“Aya…”
“You’re blacking out, man. I called Steve. You need to get help. Stay with me, Nash.” He shook me, hard. My head bounced on my neck.
The colors blended in a sick, streaky array. My stomach heaved. Music burst into my head. So much of it—glorious—pushing away the weirdness, pushing away Aya’s eyes. My grief and anger. I sighed, closing my eyes, relaxing into the music.
“Oh, leave him alone. He’s fine,” Lindsay said, her voice sounding far away. “Finally got rid of the stupid goody-two-shoes, thanks to Nash, so now we can cut loose and really part-ay.” She finished on a shriek.
“Her mother just died and you drugged him to—what? Try to make Aya jealous? To hurt her feelings? Her mother’s dead,” Hugh roared.
I flinched. Hugh’s voice was too loud. He was pulling me out of the music. If I could just sink back… Mrs. Didri-Aldringham is dead? “No,” I mumbled. That couldn’t be right. I needed to comfort Aya. Why hadn’t she told me?
Did I even have my phone? Oh, right… I was avoiding further calls from Pop Syad and my mother.
Hugh shook me, and I slid down the banister, once again seated on my ass.
“Don’t feel good,” I mumbled.
“You are the worst excuse for a person I’ve ever met,” Hugh yelled. “We’re through. Get out of my house and don’t ever talk to me or to Nash again.”
His volume made my head pound, and the music dissipated…whiffs of smoke on the breeze. My head seemed to be trying to split open. I wobbled, the hit finally slamming into my brain and exploding—not with ecstasy, like I’d been told, but with more pain.
Aya’s eyes. Her beautiful, violet eyes, raised up toward me in defiance and anguish. My dad’s eyes—no, Brad’s—filled with anger and grief.
I blinked. Steve’s face loomed before me, his eyes filled with worry and frustration.
“Drugged,” I managed to slur. “Aya… Need her.”
Then it all went black.
27
Aya
Seeing Nash in Lindsay’s arms had brought up every one of my insecurities. She was blond, poised, gorgeous. She loved parties, whereas I liked to stand in the background. She was the exact type of girl everyone expected Nash to go for. Everything I wasn’t. The Holyoke seniors had invited me to parties begrudgingly, mostly so Nash would come. If he was with Lindsay, one of the glamor girls, there’d be more parties, more chances for those kids to get close to him and his rising fame.
But more than that, I never had fit in. I loved science and worked as a math tutor—superstars didn’t date the smart girls. Even Cam, nice as he was, seemed to go for the sleek exterior instead of depth of character. I wouldn’t even know how to walk in a short, skin-tight dress.
Those fears, present since before my first day at Holyoke, now choked me. I’d never understood why Nash chose to hang out with me.
Up until yesterday, Nash had never even glanced at Lindsay. And he’d clearly been trashed last night, which was also unusual for him, as far as I knew. I squeezed my hands into fists. Clearly, there were parts of Nash he’d kept hidden.
Just like my mother. She’d omitted that she was dying. That’s why we’d come back to the United States. Except I never knew.
And I’d never seen how into Lindsay Nash must have been all this time. Why wouldn’t he be? She was the girl who made sense for him, the one who wanted to live the rock-star life.
I closed my eyes, but all I could see was Nash with his head in her breasts—his favorite body part—in front of me, in front of our entire class at Hugh’s party.