Maneuvering my way through a crowd of hundreds of people heading in the opposite direction was as hard as the four miles I just swam.
The football game just ended, and as everyone celebrated another win on their walk to the parking lot, I ran against the current of spectators to where my twin brother said he would meet me after the game. Liam and I were forced to share the Camry, and my parents gave me the rights during the week because of my strict swimming schedule for the world championships in ten months. This was more of an inconvenience for Liam than it was impressive because that meant he couldn’t get the car until the weekend, and if anything infringed on his Camry time, he turned into a petulant child.
And my being late meant that he would turn into a bratty seven-year-old whose toy was taken away from him.
So I sprinted faster to avoid his wrath.
When I finally emerged from the crowd, I spotted Liam with two of his friends, Gabriel Báez and Tom Felix. All three of them tall, built, and wearing their emerald green letterman jackets: a symbol of their popularity and top spot on the high school totem pole. Liam and Tom stood with tight crossed arms, and I knew then that it didn’t matter how fast I ran through a crowd moving at a sloth’s pace, it still wasn’t fast enough for Liam. His pissed-off scowl was detailed on his face.
“There’s my favorite mermaid,” Gabriel said and flashed me the warm smile he always gave me.
“Gabriel, I just swam a bajillion miles,” I said. “Carry me to the Camry, my prince.”
“Yes, my queen.”
His six-two self squatted down to my five-nine height. Taking a deep breath of the wonderful smell of his freshly used body wash, I jumped on his back, and he caught me by the hamstrings.
“Onward!” I said with a direct point to the parking lot.
Liam and Gabriel had been best friends since kindergarten. He lived a few blocks down the street from us. Even though Liam and Gabriel were way more popular than I was, he remained the levelheaded jock who was always loyal to his longtime friends, no matter how late I was at meeting them at the stadium gates. He was my platonic boyfriend, we’d both declared sophomore year. He was the only boy I knew I would ever love.
Platonically, that is. Let’s not get too carried away now.
“Really, Quinn? Fifteen minutes late?” Liam said, breaking the moment I had with my pseudo-boyfriend. His voice was sharp and pissy.
“I’m sorry! Practice ran a little over—”
“Let me guess: Hot Lifeguard was working again?”
I hesitated. “No…”
“Okay, so we’re all late to our party because you had to talk to Hot Lifeguard?”
“Hey, I was on my way out, and she came up to me, twirling her hair and everything. I was just an innocent bystander—”
“Nice,” Gabriel said and put a fist up in the air for me to bump it. Of course, I accepted. I was proud of the progress I just made with Hot Lifeguard. She’d been working at the pool since the summer, and now it was the second week in October, and she finally had a conversation with me. While twirling her hair. A college girl was twirling her hair over me. That was an important detail. With this monumental step, I could probably find out her name by next week.
“I told Cassandra we were gonna be there with the booze at nine sharp.” Liam continued his conniption. “Now we don’t have time to drive you home.”
“I’m not going to that party if that’s what you’re trying to imply.”
No part of me wanted to go to Cassandra Jones’s house. She was the meanest girl in our class, which apparently was the only qualification you needed to become captain of the soccer team. She was especially mean to me for reasons I couldn’t even tell you, and for whatever reason, she was Liam’s upcoming homecoming date. Men and their thing for snarky girls.
“Should have sprinted faster then, Miss Olympics,” Tom said in his douchey tone.
“You should too, then; maybe you’d actually start for once,” I said.
Gabriel let out his contagious cackle that made me smile, and Tom flipped me off. Tom was Liam’s worst friend. He loved rubbing in the fact that I missed qualifying for the Olympics by three seconds any time the opportunity presented itself. Popular people loved making others feel less than they really were. That was why I couldn’t go to that party. Tom wasn’t even the worst person in Liam’s friend group. The girls’ soccer team was a whole team of Toms.
“Liam, I’m sorry,” I continued. “But I can’t go to her party. That’s basically asking to be picked on the whole night. Can you drive me home, please, and I’ll pay for gas next time? I promise.”
I hopped off Gabriel’s back and threw my swimming bag in the trunk when we reached the Camry.
“You get the car four days out of the week,” he said. “I only get the weekend, so no, I’m not gonna cater to you and ruin my time with the car. If you don’t wanna come, then go get Hot Lifeguard to drive you home. The world doesn’t revolve around you just because you’re training.”
“It will literally take you ten minutes to drop me off.”
“Nope. It’s out of the way. Not driving you home.”
“I’m not even dressed for a party. My hair is wet, and I smell like pool.”
I was also in my swimming nationals T-shirt I got from the year before, black Nike track shorts, and flip-flops. My hair was in a damp messy bun, and my skin reeked of fresh chlorine. The kids Liam associated with were all deeply rooted in Aspen Grove’s affluent suburban lifestyle of designer clothes, luxury cars, and snooty attitudes. The party would be comprised of the girls’ soccer team plus the football guys.
Like hell I was going to that party.
“I’ve been up since four thirty. I’m so tired and—”
“Sounds like a personal problem to me.”
He got in the car without giving me a chance to argue back.
Liam was either a really cool twin brother or a major douche. He was hanging out with the soccer team and his football friends way too much. It didn’t help that he was super popular, and I was that freak at school with chlorine-dried hair and skin and who dedicated all my free time to training rather than socializing with my friends like a normal high school kid. I really hated seeing my brother turn into a prick just so he could impress his friends and girls. I was always the one who got the brunt of it.
“I’ll punch anyone who gives you a hard time,” Gabriel whispered to me. “And even smelling like pool, you’ll still be the prettiest girl at the ball.”
Gabriel gave me a wink, and we both slipped into the back of the car.
It was the first time I’d ever been to Cassandra Jones’s house; I could have gone my whole life never stepping foot inside it and died a completely happy woman. But at least I finally understood why Liam and his friends were always over there. Cassandra’s parents were both doctors who worked at the hospital. Oftentimes they worked nights, and as a result, their daughter threw house parties. Poor Mr. and Mrs. Jones. As they were saving lives, their house turned into a haven for the high schoolers.
The house was gorgeous. Big. Beautiful. Open floor plan. All hardwood floors. Decorated with furniture Mrs. Jones collected from all over the world. Their precious daughter converted the mahogany dining room table into a beer pong table because “it’s the perfect length,” Gabriel said. Liam told me that the couch in the family room was made of Spanish leather. As we walked through the living room, I found the whole soccer team on that couch, decked out in their green Aspen Grove varsity soccer T-shirts with green and yellow Mardi Gras beads around their necks and school colors in different designs on their faces. Their hair and makeup were decked out even more than the school day because a weekend outing was practically like going to a gala. Each girl had a drink in her hand, and every one of them eyed me carefully as I trailed a few paces behind my brother.
They knew I didn’t belong in this house. And I agreed with them.
“What the hell is she wearing?” I’m almost positive I heard one girl whisper.
“Gabriel and Liam probably dragged her,” a second voice said.
“Right out of the pool?”
“Talk about a fish out of water,” Cassandra’s very distinct voice said.
I wanted Gabriel to hurry up with his beer so I could cling to him and hope all the banter about me would end. No one would make any comments with him right next to me because all those girls had crushes on him and would swallow their opinions about me rather than lose a chance at dating him.
But I currently had to wait for my bodyguard to finish shot-gunning his beer with seven other senior guys in the kitchen. The beer dripped down their faces and onto their shirts as the three of them chugged whole cans. A group of guys chanted like frat brothers for the three to drink faster. Gabriel was the first to finish, and a few soccer girls cheered for him from the fancy leather couch. Complete suck-ups.
Watching all those guys attempt to be masculine by chugging crappy Bud Light was the most unappealing thing my eyes had seen in a while. And then Tom let out a loud belch, and that was a done deal. Sold to Aspen Grove High’s tight end who didn’t know the difference between there, their, and they’re. Tom’s whole being won the award for the most unappealing thing my eyes had ever seen. The amount of disgust I felt was strong enough to probably clear my skin for the rest of senior year.
I never felt gayer until that exact moment.
“Quinn, let’s play beer pong,” Gabriel said, attempting to give me his heartwarming, dark brown puppy eyes for extra convincing. “You and Liam versus me and Tom. Show this loser how athletic you are and pulverize him to a pulp.”
“I don’t think the athletic skills I have contribute that much to beer pong.”
“Yeah, Quinn!” Liam said. “One game. I always wanted to dominate beer pong with my twin.”
“Why should I be your partner when you threw a hissy fit a half hour ago? You don’t even care that your homecoming date is out to get me.”
He waved her off as if her bark was worse than her bite, but he didn’t even hear the comments she’d already made. “She won’t bother you.”
“If I play, then we leave in an hour. Sharp. All debts paid.”
He groaned. “Fine! If it gets you to shut up about it.”
“Wow, you’re seriously going to have a beer?” Gabriel said, suddenly even more excited. “Damn! This is, like, the first time I’ve ever seen you drink.”
“Two summers ago, she puked in Lana Banner’s pool,” Liam said.
I slapped him hard on the arm, and he let out a yelp. “I didn’t puke in her pool. I puked in her bushes, and that was the first and only time I’ve been drunk, and it was because I was mourning the fact that I missed the Olympics.”
“I’m still excited for this,” Gabriel said, “and honored I get to be a part of it.”
As Liam and Tom set up the red Solo cups on the table, I already regretted the alcohol I had yet to consume. Two years ago, as a fifteen-year-old, I made it to the finals of the Olympic trials in the 200-meter and the 400-meter freestyle. I took sixth place and eighth place, respectively. Only the top two advanced to the Olympics. I was absolutely heartbroken I’d come so close and then missed the games by three seconds. It felt like a breakup. I sulked for two weeks in my room, refused to watch any of the London Olympics, and cried, bitched, then cried some more.
Then it hit me, I wasn’t accomplishing anything during those two weeks I pitied myself. If anything, the more I stayed in bed, the more out of shape I became. So, by the end of the London Olympics, I came up with a plan. I had to go all in and exert all the time, energy, and dedication in order to accomplish my dream. That meant sacrificing parts of my social life: being the one friend in the group who missed a lot of the weekend hangouts, especially in the summer. I needed to really give it my all and let nothing get in the way because in order for me to make it to the Olympics, I’m pretty sure there was a quota for blood, sweat, and tears. It seemed to work because the following summer—right after sophomore year—I went to my first ever world championships in Barcelona, placing seventh overall in my 400-free. Just a month and a half ago, I was in Australia, finishing fourth in my 200-free at the Pan Pacific Games, and now, I was all in for winning my first medal at the world champs in Russia in ten months.
So, that meant anything that would get me arrested or mess me up physically, emotionally, or mentally was absolutely forbidden. No high impact activities. No getting into any serious relationships with a girl (but a fling or a quick hookup with Hot Lifeguard was completely okay). And that meant no drinking.
But I was stuck in the house of a girl who hated my guts, I got weird stares and whispers from the whole soccer team, and I was going to humiliate myself by playing beer pong for the first time ever with all the popular kids who could make it to the Beer Pong Olympics.
Yup. I needed a beer. Just one beer.
I quickly learned that if you sucked at beer pong, you didn’t just have one beer, and you didn’t just casually sip on it. Liam and I lost the game in ten minutes because we sucked that badly. Tom and Gabriel made at least one cup each round. Liam had about a 30 percent conversion rate, and I hit the rim every time and didn’t make a single cup. Insert many failed Olympic jokes and many butt sex jokes by Tom and a few spectators. I was supposed to drink three of those cups, per the rules of beer pong, but I only drank one and gave Liam the other two. Someone had to drive, right? Maybe I can use this moment of irresponsibility as a reason to get the car next week for homecoming. Liam didn’t seem to mind at all about drinking my beers, but Tom sure did. He called me vanilla, which garnered a few laughs from the people watching us, specifically Cassandra.
“If you’re not even gonna drink, then go away so others can play,” she said to me but directed it at her friends.
She was lucky I never aimed the ping-pong ball at her face.
After the game and all the mocking, I took that as my cue to just leave the scene altogether and find the bathroom and hide there until midnight. The first-floor bathroom door was closed, but light seeped through the crack into the long, quiet hallway. I expected someone to say they were in there when I knocked on the door. But just like I hoped for, I heard nothing but silence. So, I opened the door, eager just to sit, pee out all the beer, and play on my phone to pass some time alone. But when I flung the door open, I discovered Kennedy Reed resting her back against the wall, sitting with her knees tucked into her chest next to the toilet. Her dark green soccer shirt enhanced her bright green eyes, and green and yellow paint faintly colored her pale face and triangle-shaped jaw. Through her glazed eyes, she looked right at me, giving me a look as if I was the monster who’d haunted her nightmares.
And maybe I was because Kennedy Reed used to haunt mine.
I slammed the door shut.
She was a stranger who knew everything about me. Yet we hadn’t looked each other in the eye in four years. Until that moment in Cassandra Jones’s bathroom.
Once my heart went back to normal beating speed, I slowly opened the door. A burning pain in my stomach intensified when I noticed her giving me the same shocked look back. I couldn’t tell you why I was so surprised to see her. In the back of my mind, I knew she would be at the party since she was the goalie for the soccer team. Maybe I was more shocked because she actually looked me straight in the eyes.
“Are, uh, are you all right?” I said while trying to swallow the lump that rapidly grew in my throat.
All the memories we shared—some we wished we’d forgotten—sucked up all the moisture in my mouth. But I really had to pee, and she was the only thing preventing me from doing that, so I had to fight through the lump to get her out of there.
Her eyes drifted off me to the tops of her knees. “Yeah, um, I’m fine. I think,” Kennedy said softly.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
A pause.
“Okay, because I need to pee really badly.”
“Right.”
The second she got out of the bathroom, I ran in, locked the door, and peed out the whole beer pong game. Right as I pulled out my phone to distract myself from the party, there was a knock on the door.
“I think I need to go back in there,” Kennedy said on the other side.
I could hear another round of vomit brewing inside her.
An annoyed sigh seeped out of me as I pulled up my pants to acquiesce to her urgent needs. Right as I stepped out of the bathroom, she swept by me so quickly, I couldn’t even catch sight of her face before the door shut.
Just go back to the party, I thought, my heart still rapidly pounding. You don’t owe her anything.
Except I did the exact opposite of what my brain told me to do. I fetched her some cold water instead. She kind of needed the help. Any kind of help, really. Her friends didn’t seem to notice she’d been missing for quite some time, ever since I got to the party at least. Which wasn’t a surprise because most of her friends were assholes.
So, I got her that cup of water.
I knocked on the door, and seconds later, Kennedy opened it. She flinched at the sight of me again. I guess I was still the same monster she saw minutes before.
“Water?” I said, flaunting the red Solo cup in my hand.
I couldn’t be a monster if I had cold water for a drunk girl, right?
Still without meeting my eyes, she snatched the cup and chugged it as if she hadn’t had water in three days.
“You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said sharply.
Disengage. She’s grown an attitude.
And on that note, I left.
“Quinn! Quinn, take this beer. We’re playing Never Have I Ever,” Liam said in his excited drunk voice when I pushed myself into the circle. He handed me a red cup filled with Bud Light.
The party now took the shape of a circle. Everyone had both hands raised. Some had more fingers up than the others. Liam only had six, Tom had four, and Gabriel had five. I was so curious to find out what they’d done to knock down those fingers. I knew Liam would tell me when he decided to be cool again.
“No, Liam, I wanna go—”
“Kennedy! There you are,” Cassandra said when her best friend squeezed into the circle. Although Kennedy’s face was still pale with very little remaining of the face paint, her face radiated beauty. Her defined jawline and her beautiful ash-brown hair. Even after throwing up, she was the most beautiful girl at the party—hell, she was the most beautiful girl at Aspen Grove High School.
You can’t think she’s pretty. She doesn’t even like you enough to acknowledge you.
I could only dream of looking that beautiful after puking up alcohol. Could that be a new life goal?
She sipped on the water I gave her and avoided eye contact with me. Even though I could tell by the way she tried too hard to pretend as if I wasn’t directly across the circle from her, I knew that her peripherals focused all on me. Because I did the same thing, and I could feel our awkwardness toward each other dancing around in the empty space between us.
“Ten fingers up,” Cassandra demanded. “Now, say something you’ve never done. I wanna prove to Tom and Gabriel that I can win a game.”
Cassandra only had three fingers left. Kennedy let out a sigh and put ten fingers up. Her friends cheered as if the game was about to get a million times more interesting, as if they already knew all the apparently crazy things Kennedy Reed was ready to reveal.
“Never have I ever cheated on a test,” she said.
Yeah, so worth the dramatic buildup, I thought with an eye roll.
Cassandra slapped her best friend on the arm and put down a finger like every single person in the circle. She was now down to two fingers.
“That was a waste of a turn,” Cassandra said. “You were supposed to help me out.”
“Well, maybe you should stop cheating,” Kennedy said.
“Quinn, your turn,” Liam said with a nudge to the arm. “Noobs gotta catch up.”
The whole party stared at me as if I had a third eye in the middle of my forehead. Everyone except for Kennedy, who looked down at her cup as if a bug had fallen into it, and she was watching it swim.
“Never have I ever,” I said and studied the faces in the circle. I knew plenty of things to knock out almost half the party. Liam: never have I ever wet the bed after I was eight. Gabriel: never have I ever gotten a boner in gym class. Cassandra Jones: never have I ever hooked up in the school elevator. Melanie Krugel: never have I ever puked in a pool…during a raging pool party. Jennifer Stewart: never have I ever had a crush on a teacher who was over forty. Tom: never have I ever lied about having sex when I really was a virgin.
And then there was Kennedy Reed. But her secret was one I’d done. It’s just that nobody at the party knew about it. If she could barely look me in the eye, then I knew for a fact her new friends didn’t know about this secret at all.
Since she had just puked up her small intestine, I decided not to target her, and there was no way I would target Liam or Gabriel so that meant…
“Oh my God, just say something,” Cassandra whined. “It’s really not that hard.”
Okay, well, that solves my problem.
“Never have I ever hooked up in the school elevator,” I said.
The majority of the party laughed in shock. I hated admitting it, but having those people smirking because of my calling out a not-so-friendly girl did make me feel good. Mean girls deserved karma.
Then, just as quickly as I became popular for four seconds, I went back down on the totem pole of high school popularity.
“Never have I ever kissed anyone of the same sex!”
Just as a few people dropped their mouths in excitement of possible drama, I rolled my eyes because of course someone like Cassandra Jones said this.
Being straight didn’t define straight people. Why did being gay define me? Some people clung so tightly to the fact that I was gay more than the fact I was going to the world championships. And why did people have to describe me as their “gay friend” instead of just “friend”? No, cousin Sabrina, my being gay has nothing to do with the story you’re telling your friends about the time we flushed Aunt Karen’s cigarettes down the toilet when we were fourteen. So, stop starting the story with, “So, my gay cousin and I…”
And now, Cassandra Jones tried using that gay label as the jab to end all jabs because apparently, if you couldn’t find a clever insult, just use the trump card of someone’s non-heterosexuality.
Well, too bad it didn’t work for her…because it was 20Gayteen, and she was a moron.
“Yeah, okay, nice one,” I said. “And the sky is blue, and the grass is green. Glad we’re going around naming the obvious. Nice try, though.”
Liam and Gabriel cackled beside me, their glances and laughs directed at Cassandra. And just like that, her proud smirk washed away. I came out the year before. I had a girlfriend since then that I took to my junior year homecoming. Literally everyone at school knew I was a lesbian, so it was like shouting to the world that Gabriel was Puerto Rican and Liam had a twin sister, expecting a huge reaction as if those two truths uncovered the most dramatic plot twist.
Nice try, Cassandra. You even failed at what you do best: being Regina George.
But what pissed me off a lot more than Cassandra’s failed attempt at an insult was when I found that Kennedy’s eyes lost interest in the invisible bug in her cup and found their way to me, finally willing to acknowledge my presence in her circle of fellow, top tier, Aspen Grove totem pole people. All ten of her fingers were up with no plans on moving.
Now I was pissed.
And then the blood began to boil inside me.
“Oh, okay, fine then,” Cassandra said to me, this time with a more threatening scowl on her face. “Never have I ever dreamed of going to the Olympics and then failed at it.”
And there you have it. Cassandra Jones won. Even if Tom was the only one who was gutsy enough to laugh, she still managed to find a way to break me down into nothing.
Everyone else either pretended as if she didn’t say that by looking away (like Kennedy) or stared at me, eager to hear my second comeback. I really hoped my brother was going to be my savior in this conversation, knowing how much getting so close to the Olympic team devastated me. Knowing how much I worked to get to the Olympic trials only to miss it by three seconds. But he didn’t say anything. He just took a sip of his beer to fill the silence. I wondered if it was because he was going to homecoming with her next weekend and didn’t want to ruin his chances of getting laid. I really didn’t know.
I could have started crying at that point, but I wasn’t going to let Cassandra get that satisfaction.
“She made it to the finals of the Olympic trials,” Gabriel said with a sharp crease in his dark eyebrows. God, I loved that guy so much. “She’s been to the world championships. All over the sports section of the newspapers, traveled the world to swim. Where has soccer gotten you? To Buffalo for a state semifinal? Congratulations.”
Every girl that comprised the Aspen Grove High School girls’ soccer team directed their snooty glares at Gabriel. For the first time in that house, my back straightened, and I felt the most confident I’d probably ever feel around that group.
“Well, thanks for insulting all of us, Gabe,” Melanie Krugel said, still in peak glare.
I had a million other things I could have said to Cassandra to knock down her last finger, but it didn’t really matter at that point. I was already berated in front of all the popular kids. Some laughed at me, others—like my twin brother—just stood there silently. But even given my humiliation and Cassandra’s ever growing sneer, I refused to let myself get all the way down to her pathetic level.
“I’m leaving,” I told Liam and Gabriel and then snatched the Camry keys out of Liam’s back pocket. “I think you lost these rights for a while.”
“Yeah, please do,” Cassandra said. “Go back in the pool and train for something you’ll never achieve.”
“Okay, Cassie, we get it. Lay off,” Liam said harshly. “I’ll come with you, Quinn.”
“Me too,” Gabriel said, wrapping his arm around me as he guided me to the front door. He was always protecting me.
I got a glimpse into the world of the popular kids. Nothing about that party made me want to stay. It was a galaxy I hoped I never had to visit again.