Chapter Eight

Before

10/8

Dear Diary,

Dar thinks she looks like a sad, boobless puppet. We’re in Mel’s room and she’s trying on Mel’s blue bandage dress, which is definitely at least a size too big. I’m sort of annoyed with both her and Mel. Dar, because she looks great in everything and she’s just being extra sullen lately. Mel because she’s been harassing me literally all during the homecoming game today about why I haven’t made moves on Boyd yet. As if I have all these opportunities for privacy with him. Also, she’s threatening to try to get Patrick to notice her by making out with someone else to make him jealous. It’s like she’s gotten sex-crazed lately, and I can’t figure out what triggered it. Gone is the Mel of seventh grade who had never been kissed, who thought a blow job had something to do with dead leaves in autumn.

Anyway, this is just annoying, backward logic and so typical of Mel. I know she’s going to end up kissing Dusty, who is weird and kind of gross, even for a band guy, though admittedly since we don’t really hang out with his crowd I don’t really know him. It’s just, like, he became Mel’s go-to sometime last year, for when nothing else is working. Her fallback boy. The whole thing is such a giant whatever.

Anyway, the dance is tonight and I need to straighten my hair/possibly set fire to all of Mel’s teddy bears. Be warned, I am armed and dangerous, and it’s Mel’s fault for letting me use her hair iron.

However, Diary: despite my best friends being brats and losers, I do love them. And I am super excited for the dance tonight because, uh, Boyd will be there (!!!!) and so maybe in addition to getting Mel off my back for once, I will also get his solo attention, which would be nice. Maybe he’ll dance with me.

Oh my god, my sisters would lose their minds! YES!!!!!!!!

Anyway, I should go because I’m still not dressed, Dar is sending me death glares that I’m guessing are code for something but I don’t know what, and also, Mel is insisting that she has a “plan.” As we all know, when Mel has a plan . . .

GTG—more later!

“No, seriously. I have a solution to all our problems,” Mel announced as Lilly shoved her diary into her bag. She gestured for Dar and Lilly to gather around her bed, handing Dar the flask they’d been passing around. Then she lifted the mattress and drew out a small velvet change purse. She unclasped it and held it open so the girls could see. In it sat a small, squiggly stack of plastic squares—at first Lilly thought they were individually wrapped candies.

“Ew!” Dar squealed, backing up. “Really, Mel?”

Mel rolled her eyes. “Yes, really. We need to be prepared!”

That was when Lilly realized they were not candies, they were condoms.

“Don’t you think that’s a little premature?” Dar looked like she was about to spit out her last sip of Fireball.

Lilly looked between her two friends. “I thought the plan was to pair off, not . . .”

“What do you think pairing off involves? Let’s face it, sex is on the horizon. It’s probably going to happen for one of us, sooner than we even think. I’m just saying, if we’re prepared in advance, then when the opportunity comes along, we’ll be sure not to miss it.”

A startled feeling settled over the bedroom, like when everyone’s been gossiping before the bell rings and then the teacher enters the classroom and they all go silent at once. Sex hadn’t been part of the promise. At least not explicitly.

Mel’s eyes darted back and forth between Lilly and Dar. If Lilly’s expression looked anything like Dar’s, she was sure her cheeks were on fire. Dar passed her the flask. She took a sip, letting its sweet spiciness sting her throat, heating up her chest.

Mel put her hands on her hips. “I feel like you guys aren’t taking our plan seriously.”

A loud clamor in the hallway shattered their condom-induced trance just as Mel’s bedroom door burst open. Her brother Jared practically flew through the doorway and landed sprawled on the carpet, laughing.

“Dude!” Mel shouted, hastily stuffing the coin purse under her pillow. “Can you guys stop shoving each other around for a single second? Ever heard of knocking?”

Her other brother, John, stood in the doorway. He and Jared were twins and both football players, which sometimes made Lilly’s head swim. It was a lot of muscle and maleness at a time in one space. “You look kinda ho-ish in that,” he said.

Mel pushed him backward into the hall. “It’s brand-new, and it’s from Lupine!” She tugged the hem of her dress down with one hand.

Jared got up off the floor. “Well, good luck leaving the house.”

All three girls rolled their eyes as they succeeded in kicking the boys back out of the room.

“Just wear a cardigan over the cutouts in the back until we get there,” Dar advised.

“You’re so lucky you don’t have to live with brutes,” Mel said to both of them.

Dar shrugged. “Kinda sucks having no one my age around.”

Mel threw her arm around Dar. “Boo-hoo. You have us! Right, Lil?”

“Right.”

The three of them finished up the last touches on their outfits and grabbed their purses, then Mel carefully doled out one condom each. Lilly tucked hers surreptitiously into the inner pocket of her bag like it was a tracking device or an alarm that might start blaring at random, thinking that maybe Mel was right—they weren’t kids anymore.

They managed to bypass the concerned questions of Mel’s parents and then, together with her two best friends, Lilly headed out of the Knoxes’ house, and into the brisk night.

While the former-abbey section of Devil’s Lake High stood regal and gothic against the moonlight, partially enclosing the courtyard, the modern side of the building sat low and squat, half unfinished, surrounded on two sides by parking lots, crawling with tall weeds and a few hunched stoners. Lilly spotted Boyd’s pickup as they approached.

She got in line behind Dar, waiting for Mr. Hasenkamp to let them through the front entrance one by one, and clutched her shoulder bag to her chest, praying silently that the condom would not come unloosed from its spot at the bottom of the inside zipper pocket. Behind him, Mr. Green, the Advanced English teacher, held a stack of flyers about appropriate dance behavior—no touching below the waist (yeah, right) and that sort of thing. He was unsuccessfully trying to get everyone to take a copy on their way in. He would learn eventually. He was one of a handful of the younger teachers on staff, along with yes-that’s-really-her-name Miss Gay, and Mr. Ruckerford.

“Ugh, ugh, ugh,” Mel was saying, shifting from foot to foot. “It’s so freezing out here. Why won’t they let us in already?”

Lilly kept scanning for signs of Boyd, who was usually easy to spot because of his height and his favorite weirdo hunting hat—red and black with floppy ears. He was probably inside already. She didn’t exactly have a plan, other than to make sure he noticed her.

This line was taking forever, though. Ever since Katy Delillio had to get her stomach pumped after downing a bottle of Smirnoff at the prom two years ago, the school administration had gotten stricter about checking everybody’s bags.

Still, they always found ways. Chuck Brody brought a few water balloons full of rum to the spring dance last year, and rumors had been flying that Adelia Naslow had plans to show up tonight with powdered alcohol she’d ordered online. Apparently you just mixed it with soda, and voilà.

Lilly could still taste the cinnamon burn of their shared whiskey on her tongue, felt it warming her stomach as they entered the building.

“There’s your sister,” Dar pointed out as soon as they were inside.

Lilly followed her gaze. The standard method of mood lighting for school dances involved putting on just a single fluorescent overhead at each end of the gym, leaving all the rest off. As a result, everyone danced in the darkest part of the floor—the center—while the chaperones hung around guarding the overly lit banquet-style snack tables, where giant bowls of Doritos were consumed slowly and steadily by grubby-handed freshmen boys, as though the offensive-smelling chips would somehow speed up their growth spurts.

Sure enough, across the room, Tessa was lounging on the indoor risers, wearing ripped jeans and a black tank top, pale hair piled into a messy bun on top of her head. She seemed to think it created the illusion she was taller. Nearby were a couple of junior boys—Greg Heiser, who Lilly recognized as one of Boyd’s friends from band, and some other guy, Nate something, whose hair frizzed out like he’d stuck his fingers in an electric socket.

Lilly was overcome with disappointment and annoyance. First of all, why did Tessa always surround herself with freaks? Her one job was to show up with Boyd and Kit. And more importantly, where was Boyd?

She’d been imagining a more magical entrance. He’d turn and see her in the short, silky green dress that showed off her legs and accented her ginger hair—worn down, of course, practically reaching her butt. He’d make his way through the throngs of sweaty dancers and approach, raising his eyebrows, telling her she looked nice—stammering a little, maybe, to show that he really meant it, and that she made him nervous.

Instead, he was . . . nowhere.

Jenny Albot and Toma Ramirez showed up, though, talking about the big game earlier today and how cute Mel’s brothers looked on the field, and how hard the world history quiz had been and how amazing everyone looked in their dresses, except for Toma, who was wearing a pantsuit with a plunging V-neck and had therefore surpassed “amazing” and been promoted to “shocking.”

Jenny told Lilly that Fred Perovoccio—junior class perv—was staring at her again and Lilly told Dar that yes, Mel’s old dress was flattering on her and then Toma chimed in to say that Dar was too skinny and Dar rolled her eyes and Mel whisper-shouted something to Jenny that caused her to snarf her punch, which was unsurprising because Mel was always causing people to snarf liquids.

Jenny sidled up to Mel, on the other side of Lilly. “So, where’s hottie Donovan?”

Lilly snorted. “I bet he won’t even show up.”

Mel glared at her before turning to Jenny. “I don’t know; I haven’t seen him yet.”

“Well,” Toma chimed in. “You did have to pick the hardest-to-get guy in our grade.”

Jenny nodded. “He may not be worth it, Mel.”

“Thank you!” Lilly shouted. “Finally, someone else sees the light. I’ve been trying to tell Mel he’s a jerk forever.”

“He’s not a jerk, Lilly. He’s just, like . . . tortured. Which is, as you know, my type.”

A great song came on and they all forgot about Patrick and instead started screaming and jumping in place with their arms in the air, the bass thumping along the floor and up through their legs, and Jenny’s punch splashed on Toma’s pantsuit but she shouted that it was okay because it was black, and they were spouting the lyrics now, and Mel was shaking her butt at Lilly and soon everyone was wiggling their butts, and now it was a crowd, and the boys were gathering, and everyone was laughing, and that last shot of Fireball had gone to her head, making Lilly feel just the right amount of warm and fuzzy and soft at the edges, and it was a dance finally, the actual act of it and not just the buildup or the letdown but the heart of the thing itself.

Rohan Reddy was behind her, then, wrapping his hands around her waist—not grinding or anything, more like steering her hips as though she were a shopping cart. Even though their kiss last year had been underwhelming, Lilly hadn’t ruled him out completely. He was on student council, which meant he must be decently intelligent and well liked. He had really dark hair, light brown skin, and a sharp chin.

He was short, though. Possibly too short.

And he was not Boyd.

He came around to dance beside her, squeezing in between her and Dar.

“Why do you dance like that?” he shouted into her ear after a few minutes.

“Like what?” she asked, still dancing.

Rohan scrunched his eyebrows together. “A parallelogram.”

“What?”

He moved closer. “A parallelogram!”

Embarrassed, Lilly pulled her arms in at her sides. Her heart hammered, from dancing, from being talked to by a boy, from wondering whether this was a flirtation or an insult. She remembered their kiss. Sloppy. But heated. Hesitant.

“How does a parallelogram dance?” she shouted.

Rohan paused for a moment, like he was thinking. Which was sort of funny, in the context of all these people dancing around him. “Like you,” he answered.

For a second she thought he’d said he liked her.

She shrugged. Parallelogram hadn’t been what she was going for, even though it was nice to be studied that closely. She looked over at Mel. Dustin Schantz was, sure enough, swaying next to her, doing some sort of goofy arm movement—not geometric at all, more like an octopus. Dusty wasn’t cute by standard definitions, but he was hilarious, she had to admit.

She caught Mel’s eyes, and they both burst out laughing again. Dar took each of their hands and pulled them away from Rohan and Dusty and now they were leaping up and down again, shimmying in a vaguely synchronized way, but for as much fun as Lilly was having, she felt empty inside.

She looked for Boyd’s red hunting hat in the crowd—she could swear she had seen a flash of it earlier, but once again she couldn’t find any sign of him.

“I gotta pee!” she shouted.

“Want us to come with?” Dar asked. The next song was slower. People were starting to mill about. The circle was breaking up.

“No, it’s okay,” Lilly said. “Be right back.”

Tessa was still at the risers when Lilly made her way there—a larger group had gathered around the top three rows, including Adelia Naslow, who kept fiddling with her bra.

“What’s the deal?” Lilly asked Tessa, who was lounging with her legs stretched along the wooden riser.

“Adelia’s doling out Pal.” She sat up, responding to Lilly’s blank expression. “Palcohol. The powdered stuff. It’s in little baggies in her bra.”

“Is it any good?”

“Of course not, it’s disgusting.”

“So where’s . . .” Boyd? “Kit? Didn’t she come with you guys?”

Tessa shrugged. “She said she left her Spanish text in the language lab.”

Lilly rolled her eyes. “She has to get it now?”

“You know Kit,” Tessa responded as Greg Heiser flicked her bun and handed her a plastic cup. “Quit it!” She swatted him away but took a sip from the cup, wincing. Turning back to Lilly, she said, “Yup, it’s gross. Wanna try?” She paused. “Just don’t tell Mom.”

Lilly huffed. “Really, Tess?”

“What?” She made an innocent face—eyebrows raised like “What did I say?”

Lilly sighed. “Forget it.” As if she was going to tattle on them. There had been that one time, but it was sixth grade. And it was only because Tessa got so stoned with kids from her track team that she came home and broke one of their mom’s favorite wineglasses trying to get it out of the dishwasher. Their mom said it was fine and Lilly blurted out, “She was smoking the weeds!” Because, yes, she thought that was how you say it. She was eleven. Come on. Tessa hadn’t even gotten grounded for that long.

In any case, she wasn’t interested now in spending more time with Tessa and Team Freaks. “Did Boyd go after her?” Lilly asked, trying to sound subtle, not really curious.

Tessa shrugged. “How should I know? He said he needed air.”

“Well I’m gonna go look for her.” (Him.)

Tessa leaned forward. “Have you noticed it, too?”

“Noticed what?”

“Oh, never mind.”

“No, what?”

Tessa shrugged again. “She’s just been acting kind of . . . weird. Boyd’s been acting funny too. Maybe there’s something going around.”

“Maybe.” This conversation was wriggling through her mind, making her a little nauseous. It was a dance. She was here to flirt and be noticed and maybe something more. She thought again of the condom; she was so conscious of its presence in her bag that it might as well have singed a hole through the fabric.

But now, curiosity had wrapped its grip around her guts and she had to know where Boyd had gone. And where Kit had gone.

And, she thought with a small taste of dread, whether the answer to both questions was the same.

The halls were quiet as she passed rows of abandoned lockers, their silver locks glinting like knuckles in the dim glimmer of emergency lights along the ceiling. Around the bend from B hall into C, the faint thud of the dance music faded. She jiggled the handle to the language lab door. It was locked. Peering in, she could see that the room was dark and empty.

Lilly turned, starting to feel both frustrated and intrigued. She had always been drawn to mysteries—who really did eat the last of the strawberry ice cream? Where did the remote control go, and how did it possibly get there? Why were so-and-so and so-and-so whispering in the bathroom?

Now her oldest sister and Boyd had both disappeared. . . . Even if the answer was simply that they were raiding the upstairs vending machines, she had to know. However, just as she passed the art classroom and rounded back onto B hall, a suspicious clicking sound interrupted the quiet, and she turned just in time to see, only about twenty feet away, Patrick Donovan, carefully closing a locker door.

She could swear, even from here, that it was locker 172.

Dar’s locker.

She froze just as he looked up, locking eyes with her in the darkened hallway. Even in the dim light, his eyes looked sharp and bright. He took a step toward her. The movement sent a jolt of energy through her legs, and suddenly she was turning and running the other way, down toward the stairwell that led to the library, the principal’s office, and the exit onto the courtyard. She burst through the double doors into the night, now chilly, carrying a warning, a harshness, and the smell of something fragile, like dried leaves. She had to find her friends—and tell Dar.

“Hey.”

She turned. Patrick had followed her out onto the courtyard. He was not as big as Boyd, or as broad shouldered, but he was still pretty tall. The night made him seem less boyish than before, more dangerous. His brow was furrowed.

“What do you want?” she said, keeping her voice steady.

He stared at her. “Nothing.”

“Then you should probably not be sneaking into my friend’s locker, which is exactly what you were just doing, isn’t it?” A breeze lifted the edges of her dress and she shivered.

“No,” Patrick answered.

“You’re saying you were not just opening locker 172 when I came down the hall?”

“I’m saying I wasn’t sneaking.” He stuffed both hands into his pockets.

“I don’t get it,” Lilly said, heat rising to her face.

Patrick shifted his weight. “You don’t need to.”

She stared at him. The moon hit his cheekbones, making his face seem more angular, whiting out his freckles even from only three feet away. He was looking back at her intently, holding her gaze, as though daring her to question his motives further. He seemed so confident in his actions, she began to wonder if maybe she was hallucinating, or if it had become totally normal to break into people’s lockers during the school dance.

“Listen.” She let out a breath. “I really don’t get what your deal is, but just leave me and my friends alone. Okay?”

Maddeningly, he didn’t say anything.

She wanted to slap him or shake him or something. For saying she doesn’t “need to know” what he was doing in the hall, when Dar was her friend and he hardly knew anyone at this school. For refusing to give her a straight answer, about anything, ever. For making her feel like the crazy one, when he was the one who had been skulking around in an abandoned hallway doing who knows what.

He stepped toward her again.

This time she didn’t bolt.

“You look cold,” he said, taking off his jacket and handing it to her.

She stared at it for a second, her arms wrapped around herself to keep warm. Finally she reached out and took it. “Um. Thank you.” She put it on. It smelled like cedar, and the lining was warm where it had been against his skin.

They stood there for another minute, just looking at each other.

“I’m going back to the dance,” she said at last. She started to back up—just a small step.

He walked forward and reached out for her. His hands were big and wrapped all the way around the slender part of her wrist. “Don’t.”

She tried to swallow. “Don’t what?” She could see their breath faintly clouding the air, mingling together in between them. She swallowed again. “I have to go,” she said. It was practically a whisper.

And just like that, her wrist was cold, where he was no longer touching her. He watched as she turned, and she felt his gaze on her the whole way back to the parking lot, where she was forced to wait in line again to reenter the gym. Part of her hoped, or at least considered, that he might follow her.

She was so distracted by the whole event, she barely registered that Janey Mackenzie was throwing up by the dumpsters. She hardly heard when a new song came on, blasting through the open doors—one of her and Melissa and Dar’s favorites. She almost couldn’t recall what it was she’d been trying to figure out before—Kit and Boyd, where they’d gone. She was still curious, but the curiosity had dimmed, like a flame wavering, easily blown out. In its smoke hovered Patrick Donovan’s face, mysteriously still, handsome and unreadable, stark against the cold October night.