C-wing. Just me and Donnie. Smoke all around us. We’re going to choke in here one day. That or set off the smoke alarm.
“How does it feel?” she says.
“How does what feel?” I exhale.
“Betrayal?” She laughs, rolling her eyes. “You are an awful person, B. But this is nothing new.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong, Donnie. It was just a kiss.”
“I didn’t say you did anything wrong. In fact, I think I’ve been the one to encourage you to get out of that monogamous box you’re in with Dev.”
Donnie flicks her cigarette onto the floor. The ashes go flying. An ember bleeds off the paper.
“He’s different with me. He’s softer.”
“Of course he is, baby. Of course he is.”
25
ALI
Sammi shows up first. Her mom drops her off, and I see them hug in the front seat of the car. She’s wearing the dress from the store. With the cape. It flies behind her when she runs down the driveway. Here she comes to save the day. My eyes swollen. Welling up.
“You’re crying?” she says. “You’re supposed to be glad I’m here.”
“I am glad.”
“Then what?”
“You just look cute,” I say. “Really cute.” I hug her, so tightly.
* * *
* * *
Raj rides up in his parents’ station wagon. Black button-down shirt. Black tie. Black jeans. His hair swept up in a pompadour.
“That’s quite a limo,” Sammi says.
“My parents are out for dinner. They took the Mini Cooper.”
“Nice hair,” I say. “How’d you get it that way?”
“Hair spray,” he says, proud of himself.
Raj is smiling nervously, kind of looking away. He edges closer to me, on the porch, still not talking. He’s not used to me wearing a dress. He’s not used to me wearing black eyeliner. Silver glitter freckled over my eyelids. I can see it in his face, the way he keeps looking away.
“Why do you keep looking the other way?” I say.
“You look really pretty.”
I laugh. It’s nice. I like the attention. It’s the first time in a while that I actually feel safe. Like a taste of something normal. After all those weeks of pain, maybe for a second I could feel something good.
A text from Blythe.
On my way to Cates. U coming?
I make something up.
Pops won’t let me go. Too strict.
Wonder what that’s like?
“Who’s that?” Sammi says. “Your girlfriend?”
“She wants us to come to Cate’s party.”
“I’d rather eat glass,” Sammi says.
“Is that what you want, Ali? To go there?” Raj says.
“We can drop her off there on the way to the dance and she can punish herself,” Sammi says.
“It’s not like that.”
“Oh, why don’t you tell us what it’s like, then?”
“I don’t even want to go, so why don’t you both relax.”
But if I don’t go, what’s the alternative? Texts from Blythe? Sean Nessel, thinking he got the best of me. Not that he’s even thinking of me.
Not that he’s ever thought of me.
Not that he ever thought of me more than as this cute girl who he could mess with.
“We don’t have to go,” Raj says. That concerned look on his face. His voice real low and calm. “And that’s it. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. We don’t have to do anything. We don’t have to go to this dance.”
“No. That’s not it. I want to go,” I say. “I want to go with the two of you.”
Sammi needed to hear this. I see it in her eyes.
“Then let’s go,” Sammi says, her voice lighter than before. She reaches out and squeezes my hand. “We’re gonna go. And it’s going to be great.”
I kiss her hand. It’s deserved. What I’ve been putting her through, I should be kissing her toes.
She dashes into the house to pee.
I think about what Raj said too. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. It sends me away from this moment. I feel like I smell dirty. I feel like he’s going to smell it on me.
I inch closer to him and smack him in the arm. And then I hit him again—it sends him a step back. I want to push him so much farther back. I want to repel him. Get him away from me. He should run from me. Escape me. I’m filled with awful things, things he can’t imagine.
“What was that for?” he says, holding his arm.
I look away because I don’t want to cry.
“That’s for being such a nice guy.”
26
BLYTHE
Lights twinkle through the trees at Cate’s house. Dev kisses me, and we walk in. Cate’s mother passes out champagne on trays in the back under a tent. Everyone’s here. Dev. Sean. Suki. Plus Ray Pilcher, Chase Goldberg, and Harrison Cohen. I jump up and down in the grass, fist pumping. The guys follow because who can deny fist pumping. Me in my blush-pink, practically see-through dress and the boys in jackets and ties.
One by one, the boys form their own circle. The girls form another. I wobble in the lawn, my red heels. Cate in that purple dress. Big white sunglasses even though there’s no sun. Suki in this ice-blue maxi dress.
Donnie makes an entrance. She’s wearing this black flowy thing from the 1970s. The neckline plunges down her nonexistent chest and the back is open almost to her ass. Her arms are draped in sheer black wings that drip down to the floor. She looks like a cigarette with wings. Her curly hair long, the wildest I’ve seen it. The blue faded out. She covers her chest with the wings, like they have their own life.
“Let’s see what you have on under here, princess. Give us a show.”
She spins like Stevie Nicks, raising her arms in the air. The side of the dress exposes what I don’t want to see: her ribs. She’s so thin. She spins and spins and then stumbles. I ignore it. Go with moment. Twirl her again and we’re revved up. Bouncing up and down in the grass while our parents take photos. My pink dress in the breeze.
Sean, Dev, and Chase hop up on this long wooden bench and start dancing. Sean’s body bolder than I’ve seen it. The way he’s moving his hips. His shoulders. The way he stands on that bench, like he owns it.