“We’re okay?” Andrew asks.
She smiles, tilting her head at him in a way that’s clearly flirtatious—like even after all this, she’s hoping deep down somewhere she still has a chance. Even if she knows better.
“You’re getting off easy,” she says. “If you had slept with me and then pulled this, I’d pour my beer on you.”
“We could always remedy that,” he says, grinning.
Her words catch me off guard. If you had slept with me—if, like it’s never happened. But that’s impossible. They were hooking up for months, weren’t they?
“Don’t test me.” She holds the beer up over his head, laughing, and he ducks out of the way, his smile matching hers.
“Do it. I’ll get you another one. Promise.” He looks up at her and then shuts his eyes, scrunching his nose in anticipation. Without hesitation, she pours the beer over his head, shrieking like she can feel the cold liquid down the back of her neck instead of his.
He shakes his head, beer sprinkling off his hair and onto her, and she screams and jumps off the railing onto the deck to get away. She’s coming straight at me, so I run back into the house, not wanting either of them to find me spying. I can hear them both laughing still as I run back through the hallway, like they’re the best of friends.
Danielle won’t let Andrew get away with things like this. She’s stronger than Cecilia. That’s her superpower—always being able to say what she means to say when she means to say it. But even Danielle isn’t completely fearless—she still hangs out with Ryder and flirts with Chase, like everything between them is completely okay. In that way, she’s just like Cecilia, just like most girls: flirting because it’s easier to flirt and forgive than to get mad, because as girls we’ve been trained our whole lives to give boys what they want, to say “sorry” when what we really want to say is “fuck you.”
I can smell the nachos from the kitchen—burnt cheese, warm and smoky. But nobody is eating them. A crowd is gathering in the den, where something more interesting seems to be happening. And then I see it: Danielle holding an empty bottle of tequila, a wicked smile on her face.
“Who wants to play spin the bottle?” She shakes the bottle back and forth, taunting us.
“Come on,” Ava says. “We’re not in eighth grade anymore. We don’t need a game to make out with each other.” She tugs at her tank top, pulling it down so her boobs are dangerously close to making an appearance.
“Maybe you don’t need a game to help you make out with someone, but not all of us are so . . . talented.” Danielle raises an eyebrow and turns away from Ava, setting the bottle down on the floor. “Everyone get in here!”
Jason Ryder bounds down the stairs and into the room, whooping. “Fuck yeah!” There’s a beer in his hand and a bit of it spills onto the floor. I see Susie creep down the stairs behind him. A trail of guys comes in from the garage, leaving their game of beer pong abandoned. Sophie Piznarski and Molly Moye, who have been whispering to each other in the corner, both nod their heads and come forward to join. I hear a noise behind me and see that Cecilia and Andrew have emerged from the back porch. His hair is dripping beer.
This is my nightmare. There isn’t anyone in school I want to kiss. And I certainly don’t want to watch as the bottle spins from Andrew to any of the girls he’s hooked up with. Which would be worse? Cecilia? Sophie? Danielle?
Hannah comes up behind me and slings an arm over my shoulder.
“This is your favorite game, right?” She pulls away and sticks her tongue out to show she’s kidding. She must have stopped drinking, because she seems a lot more collected than the last time I saw her, her cheeks less flushed. Or maybe we’ve just switched places. Maybe now I’m the drunk one. I try to laugh along with her, but mostly I just feel queasy. The room blurs slightly and I shake my head, trying to clear the tequila from my system.
“I don’t think I’m going to play,” I say, trying to back out of the circle.
“You’re here,” Andrew says, coming up next to me. His arm brushes against mine, and it’s wet from when Cecilia dumped her beer on him. I shift slightly so we’re not touching. “I’ve been looking for you.” He’s smiling and it kills me because I know it’s a lie. Was he looking for me when Danielle was draped over him in the living room? When Cecilia was flirting with him out on the porch? It’s a line he’s always used on girls at parties, and now he’s using it on me. I turn my head away and don’t respond to him.
“Hey, Chase, come play!” Danielle shouts. “Brosner, get your ass in here!” And because she’s ordered it, Chase appears, ambling over to us, his hands full of nachos. Why does she want him to play?
Danielle takes a seat and everyone follows her lead, spreading out into a big circle on the wood floor. Somehow I find myself sitting too.
“Ava! You’re the pro.” She hands the bottle to Ava, who sets it down gently in the middle of the circle.
“Alcohol please,” Ava says, holding her empty palm out. Chase hands her another bottle of tequila, this one only halfway gone, and she takes a showy sip, smacking her lips and shaking her head, shuddering as she swallows. “Thanks, Chase.” She pats him gently on the cheek, letting her fingers stay there for just a little too long. Then she reaches out and gives the bottle a spin. We all watch it, moving our heads around and around, back and forth, the possibilities and combinations running through our minds.
It lands on Jason Ryder. Everyone cheers and Ryder raises an arm up to fist pump, spilling a little beer on his shirt in the process. Next to him, Susie’s forehead creases a little, but the smile stays on her face. We all know that the rules of high school mean she can’t act like she cares.
“Aw, no fun,” Ava says, pouting. “We’ve already made out.”
But she leans forward and kisses him anyway. Ryder pulls away with a smack, and then reaches a hand up to squeeze her boob. Everyone cheers, and I force a laugh, even though I don’t think it’s funny, even though I see the frown on Ava’s face for a fraction of a second. I wonder if the other girls in the circle know it’s wrong too, if they’re all forcing laughs because the guys are laughing, if they’re cheering because it’s Ava and that makes it okay.
And then Ava is laughing too.
“Not in front of everyone, Ryder,” she says, sitting back down on her side of the circle. “Behave.”
Now it’s Ryder’s turn. The bottle is spinning, spinning, spinning, and I pray it won’t land on me. The thought of Jason Ryder’s tongue in my mouth makes me want to vomit.
The bottle stops on Chase.
Everyone goes wild.