7. Stella and the Party
STELLA AND THE PARTY
Kayleigh
If you walk into a party wearing a dress so tight it feels like a second skin, you should at least pretend you belong in it. That’s what Stella tells me in the car, between sips of White Claw and reapplications of a lipstick so subtle that somehow, the dusty pink rose color screams “sex.”
“Own it,” she says, screwing the cap back on the tube and flashing me a grin that’s all incisors. “Even if you think you look like a sausage. Especially then. But you don’t look like a sausage, Kay. You look gorgeous, and guys won’t be able to get enough of you.”
I laugh, a nervous, helium balloon of sound.
I have to—my heart’s pounding in my ears and my hands are already damp on the steering wheel, even though we’re still a good ten minutes away.
Stella’s the one who’s a goddess tonight, blonde hair in effortless waves, eyes rimmed in shimmery turquoise, the navy blue mini she’s poured herself into revealing a pair of tanned legs that could kick in a locked bank vault.
Next to her, I look like a prize at a middle school raffle: pink dress, bandage-tight, not a single inch of bra or panty line, the kind of thing Cassie from Euphoria would wear to a cheer banquet and then wake up in three counties over. I pull my hem down again, then let go.
“Tell me again why we’re doing this,” I say, but it’s rhetorical. I know the answer. Because it’s Friday, and the night feels electric, and I want to prove something—to Stella, to Trevor, maybe just to myself.
Stella checks her reflection in the visor mirror, then turns to me. “To cause trouble,” she says, as if it’s obvious. “Also, Lila’s house has an indoor pool and her parents are on a yacht somewhere. You know what that means.”
“Naked swimming?”
She laughs. “At the very least.”
We pull up to the curb just as a Tesla edges out of the driveway, bass thumping through its reinforced glass.
The party’s already at critical mass; I can see bodies pressed against every window, a red-white flicker of strobe spilling onto the perfect, golf-course lawn.
Stella leads the way up the walk, both of us mincing in our sky-high heels, Stella already pulling down the décolletage of her mini to show more cleavage before the front door even opens.
Inside is chaos: a blast of heat and noise and sugar, bodies everywhere, every flat surface covered in cups or cans or a dozen types of alcohol, the air so thick with perfume and weed that I feel a little dizzy just breathing it in.
The ceilings are cathedral-high, with a cluster of low-hanging glass pendants like an explosion frozen midair.
Someone’s on the baby grand in the corner, pounding out the riff to “Chop Suey!” like a madman.
Someone else—a huge dude with a six pack—has stripped to his boxers and is climbing a marble statue in the foyer, the crowd egging him on with chants.
Stella’s already a star: she slips into the throng, pausing every four seconds to air-kiss, shriek, or accept a cup thrust into her hand.
“Mingle,” she commands over her shoulder.
I obey, or try to. The living room is a crush of faces I half recognize from school or Instagram: varsity football players with hair gelled into a European flow, sorority princesses with lashes like insect wings, nerds who’ve grown into their features and are clearly out for blood.
I skirt the edge of the room, picking my way to the bar (it’s a table covered with solo cups and a punch bowl the color of nuclear waste), and pour myself something that tastes like Sprite and battery acid. Then I feel a hand on my waist, and turn to see Stella, beaming.
“There you are!” she says. “I need you.”
The vivacious blonde grabs my free hand and tugs me onto the makeshift dance floor, where we’re instantly folded into a vortex of bodies.
The music is vibrating the floorboards—a remix of a song I only know from TikTok—but Stella moves like she’s in a world with no friction or judgment.
She closes her eyes, throws her hair over her shoulders, and loses herself in the bass, and for one dizzy second I try to do the same.
I let myself go. The dress stops feeling like a straightjacket and starts feeling like part of my body, sinuous and sexy.
My hips find the beat, my arms go up, and when the lights catch my hair in the mirror across the room, I don’t even look away.
Maybe it’s the alcohol. Maybe it’s the hunger in the air. I’m not invisible.
Stella leans in, shouting over the music.
“You’re killing it, Kay! you look hot!” she says, and I flush, but keep dancing.
We spin in and out of the crowd, each gyration making it easier, the heat rising off everyone until we’re slick with sweat.
I lose track of time. At some point a stranger in a mesh tank top offers us both shots—Stella downs hers, I pretend to sip and pour most of it into a potted plant.
Then, as if summoned by a change in barometric pressure, the atmosphere shifts: the air gets sharper, all the faces angling toward the foyer, where a new arrival is making her entrance.
She’s impossible not to notice. Redhead, statuesque, with lips the color of bruised cherries and a dress that’s hardly there.
Literally, a bikini would cover more, seeing how little fabric there is.
Her eyes are catlike, rimmed in black, and she moves through the room as if parting the Red Sea, every male gaze following in her wake.
She stops at the bottom of the stairs, scans the room once, and then lasers in on us—on Stella, specifically.
“Uh-oh,” my buddy mutters. Her smile goes porcelain-smooth, all weaponized calm.
The redhead crosses to us, heels stabbing the hardwood like she’s nailing down territory.
“Hi, Stella,” she says, speaking loudly enough to be heard over the music. Her voice sugar but with a rusty hook underneath. “Didn’t think I’d see you here.”
“Hi, Tammy,” says Stella, airily. “Didn’t know you were back in town.”
“I go to Century, remember?” Tammy leans in, resting a hand on her hip. Her fingernails are talons, painted the same venomous red as her mouth. “I’m a junior now.”
Stella shrugs. “Nobody told me. Or cared.”
Tammy’s gaze flicks to me, then back to Stella. “Where’s Boyd?”
The question hangs, loaded. Who’s Boyd? I literally have no idea.
Stella sips her drink, her expression cool. “How would I know?”
Tammy rolls her eyes. “Because he’s still obsessed with you. Even after what you did to him.”
“Pray tell, what did I do?” Stella asks, tone pure innocence. But her jaw is tight. “Did I steal his snack? Play with his toys? Or did I give him an orgasm that he’ll never forget?”
“You gave him chlamydia, for starters,” says Tammy, voice pitched loud enough to reach the inner circle of partygoers. There’s a twitch in the crowd—a cluster of sorority girls freeze mid-sip, and one guy’s laugh cuts off in midair. “Do you know what that is?”
Stella’s not even fazed. “You wish. I’m as clean as a whistle. Maybe you should check your own panties.”
Tammy’s face goes bright pink, but she holds her ground. “Funny, because I saw the test results. They said ‘recent sexual contact.’ Boyd only hooked up with you.”
Stella doesn’t answer. Instead, she lifts her chin, offering Tammy her profile, as if she’s bored. I feel the tension boiling off her.
Tammy leans in closer, voice dropping. “I just thought you should know because I’m getting treated. You might want to do the same.”
Stella finally turns, looking her dead in the eye. “I haven’t fucked Boyd in months. Maybe you want to get your timeline straight, Red, because maybe you’re the one who gave him chlamydia.”
Tammy sneers. “That’s not what he says. Boyd swears you have a dirty pussy that’s teeming with bacteria. He also told people you blew the entire swim team at Homecoming. You did, didn’t you? I could swear there were pictures of you slutting it up.”
Stella’s eyes go wide, her mouth snarling with rage. “You little bitch—”
And then it’s on. The crowd doesn’t so much back away as collapse inward, a ripple effect that clears a perfect ring around the two girls. I freeze, clutching my plastic cup, as the room goes airless and every phone lifts, recording.
This isn’t a fistfight, that’s for sure.
It’s all teeth and nails, with lots of scratching and hair-pulling.
Tammy lunges, shrieking, and Stella’s hands are in her hair, yanking the red mass backward so hard I hear individual follicles pop.
Someone’s drink goes flying, arcing blue punch across Tammy’s shoulder.
They’re locked together, tumbling sideways over a lucite coffee table, bare legs flashing, heels gouging the rug.
For a moment, I see Stella’s face, eyes wild but focused, jaw clenched like she’s in the finals of the hundred-meter dash.
The music is still going, but now the soundtrack is shrieks and the hysterical barking of the crowd.
Tammy gets a hand free, claws down Stella’s face, leaving four perfect lines.
Stella bites back a scream, then grabs the front of Tammy’s dress and yanks, hard, exposing one pink-capped breast to a circle of thirty drunken college kids.
Instead of recoiling, Tammy swings a punch—misses by a mile, but catches a fistful of my hair instead.
I yelp, ducking away, and almost trip over a goddamn dog, some tiny Pomeranian now howling at the violence. Where did the dog come from?