Zoe cut her hair, and my feelings escalated from a harmless crush to obsession. Sitting behind her in English class, I wanted to run my hand along the soft buzz cut from her neck to the crown of her head. The urge became impossible to ignore.
“I like your haircut,” I said after class. Zoe’s eyes, so bare and scrutinizing, reflected and absorbed my gaze.
“Thanks.” Her right hand drifted up to her neck. “My mom said I look like a dyke.”
A wrenching feeling twisted in my stomach. “You don’t look like a dyke,” I said.
She shrugged. “I’ll see you at lunch,” she said, then sped off in the direction of the stairwell. I stood briefly at the big glass windows that looked down into the student center, hoping to catch a glimpse of her.
At lunchtime, I joined our friends in the school’s main hallway. Diego, who’d started hanging out with us so he could flirt with Stephanie, brought a stereo from home, and we crowded around it like it was a fire, talking loudly over the music. Diego and his friends wore tracksuits, clean white tank tops, and sneakers buffed like new. He collapsed to the floor and began rotating himself expertly in circles, his legs and hips moving impossibly under his arms. I’d never seen anyone break-dance in real life; a crowd of students curiously watched him from a distance. We forced a bottleneck in the hallway, and students attempting to get by had to pass in single file.
Zoe arrived and sat down next to me, dropping a folded note into my lap.
“I drew you something,” she said. “It’s stupid.”
I unfolded the page and saw an inky sketch of abstract swirls and ornate letters. My skin hummed. “Thank you,” I said. “I’ll do one for you this afternoon.”
“Are you going to the rave on Saturday?”
“We’re still trying to convince our mom to let us.” That wasn’t true. She’d actually forbidden us from going. She didn’t understand that raves were the safest place for people like us. There were drugs, yes, but that fact produced none of the violence or risks she always warned we’d find there. Without gangs, or girls looking to start fights, or adults chasing us out into the cold, we could be ourselves. I loved those woozy nights of laughter and dancing, strange music that thrummed in my brain for days afterward. She couldn’t keep us away.
The bolder our lies, the more attuned to them she became. It didn’t help that she began speaking to our friends’ parents behind our backs. Our intentions spread like gossip, and she set a trap for us.
She agreed to let us sleep over at Naomi’s that next Saturday, asking us, “Just Naomi’s? Not the rave downtown?”
We shook our heads no, assuring her that we were just going to a sleepover. Maybe to Denny’s for coffee beforehand, or to listen to music at Stephanie’s.
“If I find out you went to the rave, I will ground you for the rest of your life,” she said one final time. Tegan and I pulled our backpacks over our shoulders and waved goodbye to her from the front door.
At curfew, Tegan called Mom to check in. She told Mom casually that we’d just finished a movie and might start a second. After she hung up the receiver, we waited for the return call, something Mom did from time to time, to check that we were where we said we were. Downstairs, Naomi promised her parents that our mom was well aware of our plan, and confirmed we’d be home at sunrise.
Spencer picked us up and drove us through the deserted streets downtown to an old hockey arena. Inside, a makeshift floor covered the ice rink. Drum and bass ricocheted off the domed ceiling. We’d spent time there as kids, watching Bruce playing goalie on Sunday mornings. When we were in junior high, he’d paid Tegan and me to run the scoreboard during weeknight games. We stuffed our bags and coats behind the penalty box and did a lap of the arena floor. Tegan and Spencer planted themselves in front of the subwoofer and smoked a joint, letting the vibration from the bass bounce their skulls violently against the boards. Naomi and I went looking for our friends.
“You made it!” Zoe said into my ear. She and Stephanie were dancing in a crowded locker room.
“Aren’t you hot?” Stephanie asked, tugging at my sleeve.
I tried to imagine removing the thick hoodie I was wearing but knew that in a T-shirt I’d feel too self-conscious to dance. I pushed up the arms of my sweater to my elbows and hoped that would suffice. Warm house music oozed from the speaker, a respite from the battery of sound in the arena. Dancing in that small space, a feeling I’d lost in adolescence returned to my body. I was exactly where I wanted to be; I was happy. It occurred to me then that other people in that room might have lied to their parents in order to be there, might have stolen from their wallets or pockets to pay the admission. These thoughts comforted me.
Later, I watched Naomi swallow down a speed pill in the dark, hoping the drug wouldn’t cause her to freak out the way she had after we’d shared a joint in her brother’s bed. But, after I was high, it was me who was stricken with paranoia. My crush on Zoe felt magnified. The compartments in which I kept my feelings became distressingly overlapped. I withdrew to the edges of the room and danced alone.
At 6:00 a.m., when the lights came on without warning, the floor was revealed to be black with footprints and debris. Naomi’s and Tegan’s skin appeared green under the fluorescent bulbs. Outside in the parking lot, headlights blinded us as we searched for Spencer’s car.
“I hope the battery’s not dead,” Spencer said as he sucked hard on a cigarette. We jogged to keep up. The cold air felt like glass in my lungs. In the back seat Naomi and I wrapped ourselves together, shivering.
“So cold, so cold, so cold, so cold,” Tegan said, her teeth chattering.
When the car was warm, I nodded off against the window.
In Naomi’s bedroom, I was too tired to even take off my coat. Tegan lay right on the white carpet at the foot of the bed, pulling the hood of her jacket over her head and face. Naomi’s habits were too hard to break, and she took a shower and brushed her teeth. I was already asleep when she crawled under the covers next to me.
We were woken up by knocking at the door. Naomi’s mom popped her head in. “Girls, your mom is on her way here to get you.”
I looked at the clock. Had we slept hours already? It was only 8:00 a.m.
Tegan rose from the carpet.
“Shit.” I pulled the covers over my head.
In the Jeep on the way home, my head felt swollen and my ears rang. In the daylight I still felt stoned, the drug jerking at my limbs and playing tricks with my eyes. Mom’s silence unnerved me. I expected yelling, or an interrogation. She hadn’t yet said a word to either of us.
As we turned onto our street, I saw the reason for her silence, the true symbol of our punishment. Dad’s truck was parked in front of the house. His own father had died when Dad was only a child; he’d been driving while intoxicated. Dad had once made us sign a contract promising we’d never use drugs or drink. He kept it in an envelope on his coffee table. I couldn’t bear to look at Tegan, too afraid to see my fear reflected.
Inside the house, Dad was sitting in the living room, his winter jacket unzipped. No one said a word, but once our shoes were off, we knew to sit across from him on the couch. Raves were a big part of the reason we’d stopped going to Dad’s on Saturday nights. It was clear to me then that our deceit had hurt him, too.
“Do you want to tell your dad what you did?”
“We went to a rave last night,” Tegan said. It looked like she was trying not to smile.
“Weren’t you told that you were absolutely not allowed to go to raves? So, you lied to me and went anyhow?” she said.
“Yes, but—”
“There is no ‘but.’ You lied. You stayed out all night, you made Naomi lie—her mom is furious, by the way.”
“Everyone we know is allowed to go to them!” I said.
“You’re not everyone!”
“But they’re safe. There isn’t even alcohol!”
“Do you think we’re stupid?”
We both stared back at her blankly.
“Do. You. Think. We’re. Stupid.”
“No, we don’t think you’re stupid,” Tegan said.
“We know they don’t sell alcohol there, but there are plenty of drugs to shove in your face.”
“Nice,” Dad said sharply. My blood ran cold.
Before Mom could respond I said, “It’s not about drugs; we like the music. Dancing with our friends.”
“I don’t care what you like about it. Your father and I are not comfortable with you two lying and staying out all night.”
“I’m very disappointed in both of you,” Dad said, pulling the zipper on his coat up to his throat.
I felt ashamed, but defiant. Like we’d been tricked into doing the very thing they knew we would do.
“You’re both grounded. For a month, at least,” Mom paused. “And no phone, no allowance, no guitar, no stereo, no TV. And you’re not going to bed. I’m not having you sleep all day.”
“What are we supposed to do, just stare at a wall?” I asked.
She lifted her hand and pointed behind us. “Do your job.”
Our “job” was a flier route that earned us each eleven dollars a month. We usually dumped the bundles in bins or hid stacks in our closets or in Tegan’s bench seat in her bedroom. But on that hellish morning, we completed the route for the very first time, delivering a rolled bundle to every mailbox in the neighborhood. The rhythm and sound of our shoes cutting fresh prints through the snow in our neighbors’ yards put me back into a trance. When the load lightened, I found myself slowing down, prolonging the punishment I deserved.