13. Aeron
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
AERON
Carter’s car smells like gym bags and pine air freshener. The combination is so disgusting I have to roll down the window and stick my head out. I’m reminded why I avoid this car at all costs. I might puke, but I guess tonight it was worth it since I’m going to my first party.
No surprise, but I wasn’t popular in high school. I never had a girlfriend, never had any friends except the D&D group who let me eat lunch with them. I never lost my virginity, though I did kiss a girl once, but that was only because she wanted to make her ex jealous.
Obviously, I was never invited to parties that weren’t family related.
But I have friends now—Dorien and Carter—and I’ve smoked weed, which should classify me as having aura. It only makes sense I get to experience my first real party.
The streetlights along the county road strobe through the windshield in steady intervals, each one painting the dashboard bright and then letting it go dark, bright and dark. I’m watching the pattern, trying not to think about what Carter said five minutes ago.
“Cinna might be there tonight,” he’d said casually with his eyes on the road. The corner of his mouth pulled upward just a little bit, and I knew he was smirking at me.
He knows about my crush, somehow. He knows everything about everyone in our house. He’s never said it or asked me directly, but he knows.
I didn’t respond. I turned toward the passenger window, watching the farmland blur past. My nothing was so loud that Carter’s smirk got worse.
Now we’re fifteen minutes away from Hargrove and I’m having a crisis about my black shirt.
Is it too plain? Too wrinkled? There’s a crease across the stomach from where I was sitting hunched over my sketchbook earlier. It feels like that single crease will be the reason Cinna doesn’t talk to me.
I pull my hoodie off over my head and stuff it between my knees.
Carter gives me a side glance and smirks. “You look good, bro. Don’t worry.”
I stare out the windshield, refusing to admit I care or give him the satisfaction. My reflection in the passenger window stares back at me—dark hair that I should’ve done something with, and shoulders I’m holding way too high. I force them down. They creep back up.
No, it’s all good. The distressed jeans are fine. The black T-shirt is fine. I’m fine.
(I’m not fine.)
Carter pulls into a lot behind a massive three-story house.
The light from inside pours out of every window on every floor, turning the front lawn into a patchwork of gold rectangles on dark grass.
We step out of the car and start walking.
Music is thumping from somewhere deep in the house, and I can already feel the bass in the soles of my sneakers.
People are clustered on the porch and steps, spilling onto the lawn in groups of four or five.
Everyone is holding cups, laughing and talking loudly.
I stop Carter before we reach the porch.
“Hold on.” My hands are shaky as I pull the joint from my back pocket.
Dorien gave it to me yesterday and said it was “good shit.” I light it and take a slow puff.
The smoke curls up past the porch light above us.
The light catches it, turning it into a thin, twisting column of silver before it dissolves.
I offer the joint to Carter.
“Naw.” He waves it off. “You know I don’t like that crap. No offense.”
I take one more puff and stub it out against the porch railing. Honestly, I’m not sure I like it either. The looseness it gives my body is nice, but my thoughts are already too much, and the weed doesn’t help them.
We go inside.
The ground floor of the frat house is only bodies, which sounds like an awesome art piece: walls, floors, and ceiling made of people.
It’s not like that literally, but it feels like it.
People are crowded around us, and there’s the smell of spilled beer soaking into the carpet.
A strobe light in what used to be a living room turns everyone into a series of freeze-frames, caught mid-laugh, mid-drink, mid-stumble.
The second floor is visible through the open staircase, with people leaning over the railing and yelling down at friends below.
Third floor: I can see lights on up there but the staircase is roped off with a bungee cord, which means either someone lives up there or something happened up there that nobody wants to talk about.
The light is nauseating. Overhead fluorescents in the kitchen, colored bulbs in the main rooms, and the strobe cutting through everything. My eyes can’t focus anywhere because nothing stays lit long enough.
Carter seems completely unaffected and fits right in.
Within ten minutes he’s found a cluster of guys (bros) and eased himself into their circle so seamlessly that I’d think he’d been part of the conversation from the start.
The guys all have muscular physiques and backward caps.
I linger on the outskirts, listening to them talk about the swim team’s qualifying times.
Carter matches their energy, which is loose and easy, cracking jokes that everyone thinks are hilarious.
I wonder how my life might be different if I was more like my cousin?
I’d probably have a girlfriend by now, or I’d get to experience “playing the field” like Carter does.
I smile at him, or rather this new side I’m getting to witness. At home, he’s kind of like a sun, everyone quietly orbiting around him throughout the day. At Alaria, he’s the easygoing bridge between any problem, the one who diffuses tension before anyone notices there was a problem.
But here, at Hargrove, he’s one of the guys. He’s louder (as if that were possible), and his whole body takes up more space. He gets attention without commanding it, and two of the bros are nodding like he’s saying super insightful things about sports.
I admire his ability to belong everywhere. I think it’s awesome. It also drops my mood because I have never once fit somewhere so completely.
One of the guys turns to me, just realizing I exist. “You Carter’s friend?”
“Uh, cousin.”
“Cool, cool. You at Hargrove?”
“Alaria.”
He nods, says “Nice” in a way that means nothing, and turns back to the group. I shove my hands into my pockets and let my eyes drift across the party.
I don’t see her.
I tap Carter’s shoulder and he glances over.
“Beer?” I ask, then point at him.
He claps me on the shoulder, giving me a side-hug and a grin. “Yeah, thanks man.”
Good. It’ll give me a reason to walk away from this circle without looking like I’m fleeing, which I am.
I push through the bodies to the kitchen.
The kitchen is brighter, the overhead lights washing everything out the way bad gallery lighting washes out a painting.
The counter is covered in bottles, and there’s a keg in the corner surrounded by a puddle of foam.
I grab two red cups and fill them from the keg.
I’m turning to leave when a woman steps into my path. She stares at me without speaking, and I just stare back because she looks familiar. I’ve seen June talking to her a few times on campus, but I don’t know her name. She has platinum hair and red lips.
“You’re June’s brother,” she says.
“Yeah, Aeron.”
“I know.” She picks up a bottle of vodka, examines the label, and sets it back down. “Where’s your sister?”
“She’s not here.”
“You go out alone, huh?”
I frown. “What’s your name?”
“Vienna, but what do you care?”
Okay, I’m done with her. I try to push past and leave, but she grabs my arm.
“Hold on,” she says. “I know you don’t go to this school, so are you here with your cousin? His name’s Carter, right?”
“Yeah.” I yank free of her grasp. Is this normal behavior at a party? Why is she bugging me?
She crosses her arms and drums her nails along her arm. “Interesting. I didn’t know he ran with the Hargrove crowd.”
“He goes to school here.”
“I know that.” She grabs a bottle and pours herself a shot. After gulping it, she runs her tongue along her top teeth. “I meant the frat crowd. He doesn’t seem the type.”
I shrug because she’s right. Carter is here the same way I’m here: someone invited him and he said yes. The difference is Carter can make yes look like it was always the plan.
“Let’s bring him a drink,” she says, reaching for a clean shot glass.
I lift the Red Solo in my hand. “Right here. He only drinks beer.”
“Got it.” She takes the cup from me. “Lead the way, June’s brother.”
I groan because I want to get away from her, especially if she can’t even use my damn name.
But I lead her back through the bodies. When we reach the bro circle, Vienna’s eyes land on Carter and stay there.
She inserts herself into the group conversation while casually handing him the beer.
Within two minutes she’s talking to him directly, leaning in, laughing at his jokes, touching his arm.
Carter is into it. His posture shifts toward her, and he’s smiling at her differently than he did the bros. Over her shoulder, he gives me a wink, like thanking me for introducing them.
I roll my eyes.
Whatever.
At least now I can cleanly remove myself from this situation.
The party pulses like a living organism around me.
The living room strobe, the hallway that smells like someone spilled tequila and didn’t clean it up, the back porch where vapers cluster in the cold.
I spend a few minutes looking around for Cinna while trying to act like I’m not looking.
I even check upstairs, but don’t see her anywhere.
Maybe Carter was wrong, which is a relief (maybe I don’t look great) but also disappointing.
I end up outside, in the backyard, because the string lights are softer than anything else in this house. Music is still thumping.