2 #2
My brain might explode before we get arrested, and honestly that feels preferable right now.
Celeste squeezes my hand as if she can read my thoughts, her heated skin burning through most of my nerves.
Most, but not all of them. “It’s just like your games,” she shouts so I can hear.
“With eleven other girls on the court, you’re always the one in control. And do you know why?”
“No,” I try to shout back, but it comes out a half squeak.
“Because on the court, you don’t think. You just are.” She pushes a lock of my brown hair behind my ear, smoothing out the purple tangled within it. “Your body knows what to do. Stop letting your mind derail it and listen to your bones.”
She’s right. I don’t overthink on the court.
But out there, it’s just me and a ball. Obstacles in the shape of girls and a single net.
Here, it’s… well, there are the girls on my team who I desperately need to impress to win captain next year.
Max Cayden is supposedly here somewhere, and that makes me want to throw up a little—or a lot.
And everyone else… I don’t know. They just matter .
I care what they think of me, and how I’m perceived.
It’s that they haven’t decided yet; they haven’t chosen whether to swipe left or right, and that means there’s a chance they could like me, or, more realistically, I could screw it all up. Show them the worst parts of myself that I reserve solely for Celeste, and make them run away screaming.
“Not thinking might be easier said than done,” I tell Celeste.
“Yeah, sober.” She throws open a cooler, exposing a row of pink-colored liquor bottles.
Smirnoff Ice Strawberry, Pink Whitney, and Crema de Tequila.
They sound equally toxic. Celeste drags her finger across the labels, choosing our poison at random.
“This one.” She plucks up the Pink Whitney, finds a stack of plastic cups, and tops us off. “Drink.”
“But the police—”
“I promise, you’re not going to see your father tonight.” She presses the cup to my lips, and I know I look like a baby being fed a bottle. Know that others are probably thinking we’re a couple. I try so, so hard not to care. “No more thinking,” she warns. “Drink or dance. That’s it.”
I take the drink because I doubt I’ll be dancing without it. One swig, and it tastes like arsenic. Two swigs, and it tastes almost sweet. By three, I’m enjoying it enough to smile. Maybe I should’ve tried drinking on Wednesday—but then I remember I wouldn’t have been able to drive Celeste home.
So who’s going to drive us home today?
“That’s my girl.” Celeste throws her entire cup back, swallowing it down like a pro. When she’s done with her second cup, I’m halfway through my first, and she tugs me into the dancing throng. I find Sara Wu from volleyball, who sidles up real close.
“Sick party,” she screams. Her breath smells as if it could strip paint from the lighthouse.
Celeste pulls my hands up, twisting her hips in a way that forces mine into motion also.
“The best!” she agrees. Sara and Celeste—who have only ever spoken briefly after my games—laugh like the oldest of friends, and Celeste grabs Sara and drags her into what National Geographic would probably report as some kind of ancient mating ritual.
I try my best to keep up, forcing my hips and shoulders and feet to copy theirs.
Eventually Sara and Celeste both grab my waist and coax me into a more natural rhythm.
Liquor coats my belly. Hot compared to the icy water spilling at our feet. It shoots through my veins, straight to my heart, and then spirals out toward my muscles, until I’m warm and loose and lithe all over.
Suddenly, I feel good. As if the only problems I’ve ever had are damp sandals and wet toes. There is Celeste in front of me, cackling like a hyena as she shakes her ass, and Sara behind me, screaming about our last win. I hardly notice the rich kids still staring at us.
Let them watch.
I think I love parties. I laugh and pull Celeste’s hair. Tugging the velvet cerulean strands until they twine around my fingers, soft as ever.
“I love you,” I scream, because my mind and body tell me I have no choice.
She stands on her tiptoes and plants a wet kiss on my cheek. “Forever, bitch!”
We laugh more, and every reservation I had about tonight fades away. Wave after wave of warm liquor swallows the bad feelings in my gut, until I genuinely believe that there is no possibility of cops. No worries of being on the nightly news.
There’s just me and my friends. All sixty of them. Celeste was right. This is the best night ever.
Suddenly, Celeste screeches, and I turn.
Brooklyn Davies appears in a halo of golden phone light in front of us.
Tall, with jet-black braids and smooth, dark brown skin.
Easily the nicest boy in school. She cries his name as if she’s never said it before, and I smile as big and bright as I ever have. I knew she liked him.
“There you are!” she says, throwing her arms around his neck.
He laughs and sweeps her off her feet, pressing the sweetest kiss to her forehead.
Brooklyn has been following Celeste around for the last year, carrying her books to class, sharing his lunch, offering to change the oil in her mom’s car for free.
She couldn’t keep him at a distance forever, not with the way she always stares at him, her eyes a little wide as if she can’t quite believe he’s real.
As if she keeps waiting for him to vanish, or maybe for the facade to wear off and expose the rotten core beneath.
He doesn’t have one, though. And I think she’s starting to realize that.
She gapes at him now, but only for a second before she hugs him tight. Doesn’t let go.
He chuckles. “If I’d known you’d be this happy to see me, I’d have found you earlier. Still need a ride tonight?”
“Yes, please,” she shouts. The music has become a goddess, blessing every square inch of the beach with thundering reverberations. I can’t stop moving to it. Don’t want to stop. “I missed you!”
He sets her down, moving his lips near her ear. I don’t hear what he whispers, but I don’t need to in order to understand that they’re basically in love. I spin in the most dramatically gleeful circle, really feeling myself, and then—there he is. Standing right before me is Max Cayden.
Oh god. I can’t swallow anymore. I can’t even breathe.
He’s less than a foot away. Blond hair, blue eyes.
Skin like moonlight. I want to touch that hair.
His skin. What do I do? The liquor drains from my system in an instant, icy water snapping at my toes like a crab.
Waking me up from my beautiful daydream and throttling me back into my vicious reality.
I am at an illegal party, and the boy I’m obsessed with is right there .
Celeste pushes me into him with the force of a Category Five hurricane. I might actually hate her now.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” I hurry to say, words rushing together and almost incomprehensible as he catches me with two lean arms.
He laughs under his breath, and the sound travels all the way to my bones. “Don’t worry about it. My parties are known to be pretty crowded.”
“Yeah,” I say, dumbstruck. He helps me stand, but his touch remains firm on my skin. I stare at where his finger strokes my inner elbow and shiver.
His sapphire eyes crinkle as if he’s laughing inside. “Someone’s enjoying my sister’s stash.”
Stash. Stash? Oh , the liquor Celeste said she was bringing.
I nod once in answer, wishing that I could explain how I swallowed my tongue at the sight of him and will be unable to talk for the next seven to ten business days.
But I don’t need to, because Celeste still exists. And she’s clearly out for blood.
“This is Vanessa,” she says to Max for me, yanking Brooklyn up beside her. “Don’t you guys have math together?”
Max inches closer to me, and I swear I can taste my own heartbeat. “Hell, do we? Mr. Peters in fourth period?”
“Yes. I—um, I sit in the back.” I stare at him. He stares at me. It feels as if neither of us blinks, but finally he breaks the silence. I’m so glad, I could cry.
“Well, cool. I guess.”
Oh.
I tuck my hair behind my ears. Untuck it before he thinks my double-helix piercing is try-hard. I thought this conversation would be going differently. Maybe it’s not realistic for him to scoop me up and kiss me here and now, but shouldn’t there be more to say?
“You sit in the front,” I add. Celeste winces, and Brooklyn seems to be choking down laughter. Even Max isn’t making eye contact with me anymore. He waves to a blonde girl on my right, and then a redhead on my left. Shit. I am clearly ruining this.
Celeste told me to stop thinking. Told me to drink or dance. If I don’t want this night to be marked as the worst ever, I need to get it together. What would Celeste say? What would she do?
“Do you want to dance?” I blurt, the only thought left in my head: please please please please .
Max’s brows lift in surprise. He glances at the other girls and then shrugs. “Sure. Why not?”
But before we can dance—before he can wrap an arm around my waist and pull me into the romantic embrace of my dreams—someone shoves me, and I hit the ground. Hard.
This has officially become the worst night ever.