Day 20
Sidney
I’m not sure how I turned into this girl, but it’s my third weekend in Riverton, and my second at a party.
Asher and I drove together as planned—no matching outfits this time—but as soon as we stepped through the front door we split off in separate directions.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and it’s a text from Kara.
My stomach sinks. An hour? I’m in the middle of the living room, standing by myself, and suddenly I feel like there’s a giant spotlight shining on me.
Attention partygoers, we have a lonely loner out-of-towner over here!
Yes, my aloneness is on full display. Making my way to the kitchen, I scan the room for anyone I know.
Anyone I’ve said even two words to in the past, or recognize from The Little Store or River Depot.
But all of the faces look new tonight. They don’t look unfriendly, or unwelcoming, just new.
And new looks like work—more work than I’m willing to put in tonight.
I stop in the kitchen and snag a red cup.
There’s no way I’m passing an hour without one.
And if I have to—even though Asher promised he wouldn’t drink tonight—I’ll call my parents to pick me up.
No questions asked is their motto, and while I’ve never tested it, I believe them.
Mom doesn’t want me to be featured in a viral video she’ll compulsively share on social media.
There’s a big blue cooler on the counter, and I put my glass under the spigot, letting a reddish brown juice fill it close to the brim.
I take a sip—wow, it’s strong—and walk toward the sliding glass door that leads into the backyard.
There’s a fire burning in one corner of the yard, but no one is sitting on the benches around it yet. Freedom.
The fire is glowing bright, and all that’s separating me from its flickering solitude is a small set of wooden stairs. I’m about to step down when the sound of my name stops me.
“Sid?” It’s Asher. Correction: it’s drunk Asher. I think. Only drunk Asher calls me Sid. Except we haven’t been here long enough for Asher to be drunk.
I turn slowly to find him standing a few feet behind me. He closes the small gap between us in just a few long steps, and I take a sip from my cup, trying to look natural.
“Where are you going?” He looks around me, like he’s looking for something. “Where’s Kara?” Not something … someone.
I let out a disgruntled sigh, blowing any chance I had of pulling off the relaxed-and-mingling look. “She’s late.” I glance back toward the yard. “I was going to sit by the fire.”
Asher’s face pinches up as his eyes dart from the fire to me. “By yourself?”
“No, with my invisible friend Roger, here.” I swing my arms out to my side, like I’m presenting someone to Asher. Though they’re down by my hips, so apparently my imaginary friend is tiny. Which is fine. Tiny things are awesome.
Asher smiles and rolls his eyes. “You’re such a little hermit.” He grabs my hand and pulls me along with him toward the house.
“What are you doing? Where are we going?”
“You’re coming with me.” His voice is firm, like he’s letting me know I don’t have a choice.
We’re crossing through the sliding door into the house.
Into the throngs of people, the little clusters of friends.
All of the strangers I was trying to avoid.
Asher isn’t like me, though. He gravitates toward people and they flock to him.
He’s the kind of person who can talk to anyone, without knowing a single thing about them.
I try to pull my hand away, but he holds it tight. “I don’t want to talk to people.” It sounds sort of pathetic when I hear it out loud, but it’s also true.
“Then just talk to me,” Asher says, not looking back at me. I stop pulling against him, and his hand loosens around mine as we enter the kitchen. He stops at the counter where bottles and cups are sitting in a jumbled mess, and looks down at my cup. “You gonna keep drinking that?”
I take a sip. “Sure. It’s actually pretty good.”
Asher eyes the cup and smiles. “I bet it is.” He pulls a red cup from a stack of them and sets it on the counter.
I eye the cup warily. “Should I stop drinking? I mean, I can call my parents, I guess, if I need to.”
“Relax.” Asher rolls his eyes. “I said I wasn’t drinking. And despite what you saw last time, I’m not a raging alcoholic.”
“You’re a midlevel alcoholic?” I try to school my smile but the punch is pushing it to the surface.
“I’m entry-level at best.” He picks up a bottle of Coke and fills his cup. “But I’m thirsty.” With his cup in his left hand, he grabs my hand with his right, and we’re back into the mess of people.
“You’re very pushy, you know,” I say, tugging on his hand.
He laughs. “I know, but if I don’t drag you somewhere better, you’ll just sit in the backyard like a mosquito buffet.” We’re pushing through the living room and Asher is smiling and nodding at people as we pass. “I’d have to help Kara identify your remains by the time she got here.”
It’s true, mosquitoes love me. “It’s because I’m so sweet,” I say mockingly. That’s what my mother always said, anyway, while I was slathering myself with cortisone cream, trying to soothe the welts after a hike or a particularly rough bonfire.
“You’re mocking yourself? How much of that punch have you had?”
“Just trying to pick up the slack.”
Asher stops and looks at me. “I don’t mock you.”
I put my one free hand on my hip, my other still trapped in his.
“When?” His voice is incredulous. “When have I mocked you?”
“How about every morning?” He looks at me blankly and I grab a piece of hair between my fingers. “‘Your hair looks really pretty today.’” I do my best impression of his mocking, singsong voice, and roll my eyes.
“I do think your hair looks pretty.”
“Whatever.”
“Okay, I did say it to annoy you. But that’s because I know you don’t like it. I think it’s really pretty.” He shrugs, like this is a totally normal thing to say to me. “I’m glad you’re not flattening it anymore.”
I can’t help but smile. “Straightening it.”
“Whatever.”
I don’t say anything, because life makes no sense anymore.
My brain might be broken by how little sense it all makes.
But while I’m contemplating the weirdness that is now my life as Asher’s ally, he continues to pull me across the room, until we hit a carpeted stairwell leading to a basement.
He lets go of me and we make our way down, single-file, barely squeezing past people making their way up.
The basement is one big long room with light green walls and a floor full of retro brown tiles.
At the bottom of the stairs there’s a cluster of chairs and couches to our left.
And beyond that, there’s a big round table in the corner.
It’s a game table, the kind that has a wooden lid, and usually hides a poker board inside.
As we approach I can make out a guy and two girls sitting in metal folding chairs around it.
Three more chairs sit empty, and Asher tugs me by the hand until we’re standing behind two of them.
“Hey,” Asher says, and the guy nods. The girl to his right smiles, and the girl on his left is …
Nadine’s daughter, Lindsay. A little wave of guilt washes over me when I think about the fact that we were lurking around in her yard not too long ago.
She’s smiling especially wide at Asher until her eyes meet mine, and then travel down to our hands.
I free my hand of Asher’s, having forgotten it was still there.
I suppose being dragged from room to room will do that to you. Like Stockholm syndrome for your hands.
I wave my previously captive hand at the group in front of us, trying to prove that I am not, in fact, a hermit.
“This is Sidney,” Asher says as he pulls a chair out for me. I look at him, shocked by the gesture, and he winks at me. “Pancakes,” he whispers, before turning back to the table. “This is Trevor, Hannah, and you know Lindsay.”
“Hi.” I sit down in the chair Asher still has a hand on, and he sits down next to me.
Asher looks past me to Lindsay. “I thought you were up at school for the summer.”
Lindsay sets a handful of cards on the table in front of her. “I am, but I’m home most weekends. Not many freshmen stay for the summer, so it’s pretty dead.”
I take another sip of my drink and remind myself that being at a table full of strangers and Lindsay is still better than wandering around in the house or sitting alone at the bonfire until Kara gets here. I take another big gulp of my punch.
In front of us, the table isn’t covered in the cards or other cliché drinking games I was expecting.
It’s a giant game board. An intricate map with mountains and lakes and rivers.
Little dotted lines to show borders. There are silver, gold, black, and bronze pieces scattered around the board, but I don’t know what any of them are.
I have no idea what game they’re playing, but anyone could tell what kind of game this is.
It’s a war game. I look at Asher and smile. Game on.
Asher
“Is it cool if we play as a team, since she’s new?” I ask, knowing no one is going to argue. Everyone at the table has played before, and also everyone is drinking, so it’s not the best time to introduce a virgin to the mix.
Sidney’s elbow pokes me in the side. Her voice is soft. “We’re going to start in the middle of the game? It looks like they already started.”
“Last weekend,” Trevor says, beating me to it. “We probably could have finished if this one”—he jabs a finger at me—“hadn’t decided to get trashed.”
“One time.” I shake my head at him. “I said I was sorry.”
He smiles. Trevor loves giving me crap. “I know, I know, you were having a rough night. You were having g—” I cough and pull Trevor out of his drunken ramble. He looks at Sidney and then me and finishes clumsily with, “We forgive you.”