Heather had on a white dress that looked like it was meant more for a wedding than a prom.
“Nah,” she said. “I’m sick of that.” She took a flask out of her bra, unscrewed the cap, and handed it to me.
I took a sip, and whatever it was burned bad on the way down.
“So you’re actually saying your dad is Johnny Moon.”
“Yes,” I said. “My dad is Johnny Moon.”
“You’re shitting me,” she said, shoving my leg with hers.
I sighed. “Nope.”
I pulled the plane ticket out of my pocket—it was the only thing in there besides a pack of Sandra’s cigarettes. I handed it over.
“See?” I said. “He sent that to me.”
Heather leaned back against Bridget Murphy’s rusty Bronco—the closest car—holding the plane ticket up to her face. She handed it back.
“Wow,” she said. “You probably have about seven million half-siblings running around.”
I shot her a look. I hadn’t thought of that, but I knew she could be right.
“Think about it,” she said. “I’m just being honest. And there’s something else I need to be honest about.”
I waited for a long time for her to say something, and when she didn’t, I lit my cigarette.
“Spit it out, Flynn,” I said.
“I would totally make out with you,” she said.
“You’re drunk,” I said.
“No . . . I mean, yeah. I am. But I’ve always thought you were, like . . . I don’t know. I don’t want to like you, because you’re prettier than me . . . but there’s something that’s just kind of magical about you, like you aren’t real.”
“I’m not magical,” I said.
“Yes,” she said. “You are. And I’ve tried to stay away from you, but I can’t. And I get it. I know I’m just another person out of about seven billion other people who say this to you all the time.”
“Say what—that they would make out with me?”
“No, that they like you. Because I do. I think I like you. I like you.”
“What?”
This was the last thing I ever expected Heather to say to me.
She looked down, her shoulders slumping over. She wouldn’t look at me. Instead, she started chewing her nails, which, normally, she was morally opposed to. She slipped her feet out of her heels and, with her toes, pinched a few blades of grass that were growing out of the asphalt.
Images of Heather flashed through my head: Her in the air, getting basket-tossed at halftime, her spirit fingers stained with nicotine. Heather dressed as a dead beauty queen on Halloween in fifth grade, wearing wax-candy lips. Heather when she didn’t have time to put on makeup before work, when you could still see her freckles.
I reached over and touched the tulle of her dress, pressing down until I could feel her leg.
Heather pushed me away and waved her hand dismissively.
“It’s fine,” she said. “I know you’re in love with Susan and not with me. I don’t know what crushes even are anyway, but everyone says they’re not real.”
“A crush is a person who you always want around,” I said, “and when you see them, your stomach does a flip, and their eyelashes kind of make you want to cry.”
“What I don’t understand is,” Heather said, “why Susan?”
I didn’t say anything. I just drank more from the flask, and then I passed it to Heather.
She took a long sip.
“I used to think . . .” I stopped. “I guess I just . . . don’t really know anymore.”
“She’s not good enough for you, Taylor,” Heather said.
When I thought about it, Susan had never been interested in me as an actual person. She wasn’t even someone I could talk to. Suddenly, nothing made sense.
“Let’s drink it all,” I said. “I want to be sick.”
“So do I.”
We did drink it all, and we waited to be sick but weren’t.
Finally, Heather felt a little sick.
“Where’s your car?” she asked me. “I need to lie down. It’s all spinny.”
I pointed, and Heather walked over, weak-legged as a colt, opened the door, and sprawled herself across the back seat. I climbed in after her. We barely fit, and our faces were only an inch apart.
“Prove it,” I said, probably a little too loudly.
“Prove what?”
“That you would make out with me.”
Heather sighed and pressed her face into the door handle.
“I can’t,” she finally said.
“Why not?”
“It’ll either make me fall in love with you and then you’ll leave, or it’ll make me realize I’m just experimenting and then you’ll get hurt. And you’ll still leave.”
“Heather,” I said. “Didn’t you see what I did in there? I can’t stay here now.”
“Well,” she said. “Your plan worked out.”
“I guess so.”
“I’m not, like, gay,” she said, trying to clarify. “This is just a weird stage or something. Don’t we all go through stages like this?”
I thought of Heather’s entire demeanor, the way she wanted us to think she breathed sex and power. She had a perfectly curated character she presented to everyone, and she executed it well.
We all had secrets. We did our best to keep our own, and to keep each other’s.
“Come with me to California. I’m pretty sure I can convince Johnny Moon to let me stay with him, and you can live with us,” I said. “You don’t really want to stay here. What do you actually want to be?”
Heather sighed.
“Fuck if I know,” she said. A few moments passed, and then she said, “I want to be a makeup artist. Like, for famous people and models, okay?”
I felt brave, so I took Heather’s hand and squeezed it, then kept it. She didn’t take it away.
“You can be,” I said.
“Yeah, right,” Heather said. This close, I could see a small freckle on her ear, and the scar from a cartilage piercing that was now closed-up.
The streetlight shone directly on us, like a spotlight.