Her heart felt very heavy as she stood by herself, while the others laughed, chattered, and flew about like gauzy butterflies.
—Little Women
At eight forty-five, also known as fifteen minutes before the time I generally liked to be in bed with my laptop and the lights off, to discourage visits from my family, Hudson showed up. Meg gave directions to Grant’s house with the ease of someone who’d been there many times before, an impression that was confirmed when she strolled through the front door without knocking. Two girls I thought of as Ashley and Not Ashley, because they were the same height, styled their hair in identical beachy waves, and appeared to share both a closet and a social calendar, were waiting inside. They latched on to my sister, whispering as the three of them headed for a tiled staircase with a wrought-iron railing.
Hudson smiled at me, and I tried to shake off the mild sense of What am I doing here? and get my head in the game. It was fine. We were still hanging out, at night, away from our mothers. Somewhere ahead there was laughter and guttural chanting, which . . . sounded like a party. Or a prison riot, depending on your perspective.
I led the way down the hall. It wasn’t one of those call the cops disasters where bodies are packed so tight that property destruction is inevitable. But it wasn’t just Meg’s friends, either. The football team had shown up, though a quick glance around the kitchen suggested it was mostly varsity starters—including Laurie.
“Huds!” Laurie’s shouted greeting sent every eye in our direction.
Hudson leaned closer to me, like he might need protection. “Is that . . . a gallon of chocolate milk?”
“Yep.”
“Bold choice.”
“Laurie’s all about bone density.” I would have been willing to bet that (a) most of the people in this room preferred the taste of chocolate milk to whatever cheap beer they were swilling and (b) Laurie could be sipping a glass of MiraLAX and people would still think he was cool.
“What up?” Laurie spread his arms wide, still holding his bottle of TruMoo, before wrapping Hudson in an embrace. “Come on, man. You gotta meet my squad.”
I got a barely detectable chin thrust before Laurie led my date away. Hudson’s shrug said, What can I do?
Well. Time to recalibrate my vision for the evening. I must have read too much into our late-night texts. It made sense Hudson would ask me to take him out, like a tour guide. I was the closest thing he had to a friend around here.
I wandered through the rest of the first floor, nodding at people but not stopping to talk. Most of them seemed to be having a good time, or at least doing an okay job of faking it. Spotting a set of sliding glass doors, I headed for the backyard, where at least I could be alone in peace. Like most houses in the neighborhood, this one bordered a golf course. A man-made pond marked the edge of the property. There was even a small deck with patio furniture, in case you wanted to stare at a body of water the size of a kiddie pool. Or maybe the entertainment was watching people drive past in golf carts?
I was halfway across the lawn before I realized one of the Adirondack chairs was occupied. The person turned, probably at the sound of my shoes shuffling through the grass, and I spotted a faint yellow glow. Surprise washed over me, followed by relief.
“Uh, David? Did you bring a book light to a party?”
“I also have a book. If that makes it less weird.”
“Depends on the book. Like if you’re out here reading The Serial Killer’s Guide to Small Talk, then no.”
He switched the light off, but not before I caught the flicker of a smile. “I prefer the sequel, How to Get Rid of a Body in Five Easy Steps. Do you want to sit?”
“Why not?” I made a move toward the unoccupied chair.
“That one’s broken. Jacob McCready thought it was a bouncy castle.” David started to stand. “Take this one. I’ll sit on the ground.”
“Excuse you, my butt is not that big.” It took a couple of tries and some lower body contortions (to the point that we probably looked like two people who had never used a chair before), but I eventually managed to wedge myself in beside him. That didn’t solve the problem of where to put our arms. We seemed to have at least one too many.
“Here.” He worked his left arm free and threaded it behind my neck. “Is this okay?”
“Sure.” It was maybe not the best idea I’d ever had to sandwich myself against my sister’s ex when I was supposed to be at this party with another guy, but it was too late now. We’d probably need to grease ourselves to get free. “This would have worked better when we were kids.”
“You could have stacked four of me in here. And a bag of chips.”
I smiled at the memory of scrawny David and the many, many quarters I’d won off him at arm wrestling. “Remember when you had that massive growth spurt and I started calling you Spaghetti Arms, because I’m such a sensitive person?”
“It felt like my bones were going to crack.” He shuddered. “Six inches in one summer.”
“They seem normal now.” I gave his forearm an experimental squeeze.
“Hopefully? I haven’t x-rayed myself.”
“You have more padding, so it’s hard to tell.” I prodded the leg of his jeans. “They used to be closer to the surface.”
“I’m not sure that’s how bodies work.”
We were sitting so close I felt the laughter he was trying to contain. “You know what I mean.”
In the silence, I became increasingly aware that the side of my boob was smooshed against his rib cage. “So what are you doing here?” I asked super casually.
“At the party, or in the backyard?”
“I don’t know, Professor Plum. Either. Both.”
“Short version? I lost the push-up challenge at practice.”
“And your punishment was to show up here?”
“I’m Nathan’s driver.”
“Ah. He’s in there getting wrecked, and you get to babysit?”
“I told him I wasn’t cleaning up puke.” David frowned at the barely there sleeves of my top. “Aren’t you cold?”
“How could I be cold when I’m wearing you like a skin suit?”
“Or Luke Skywalker inside the tauntaun.”
“Okay, but obviously I’m Han Solo, so, you know.”
“I have to be Luke?”
I couldn’t really shrug, but he must have felt the slight motion of my shoulder. I’d always been the bossy one in our games, down to feeding him his lines. My theory was that David secretly liked not having to decide everything for himself. Looking back, I had a twinge of AITA?
“You can be Han,” I sighed. “If you want.”
He pressed his palm to my forehead. “You don’t feel feverish.”
“Ha-ha.” I shoved his arm off me. “I can be nice.”
“Spoken like a true Solo.”
My attempt to punch him in the gut accomplished very little beyond giving me a feel for the tautness of his abdominal muscles. “You should eat more junk food.”
“Why? Is there a vending machine inside?”
“If only. I don’t think people come to these things for the food.”
“Why are you here?”
“Hudson wanted to check it out.” My head filled with things I needed to not say, like It was supposed to be a date and Meg’s here too.
David glanced behind us, like he was expecting Hudson to appear.
“He’s off with Laurie and those guys.” I tried to sound like I didn’t care.
“Did they put a sign on their tree house? ‘No Girls Allowed’?”
“They’re probably doing something stupid.”
“Like getting wrecked?”
“What else is there to do?” Show up, show off, drink too much, make out with people you may or may not ever want to speak to again . . . that was pretty much it, in my experience. The party scene.
“Hence the book.” He lifted a warped paperback from the armrest. The cover featured some kind of ice fortress.
“Always thinking ahead.”
“I figured it would be less awkward this way.”
I tapped my chin, pretending to think it over. “Reading your nerd book alone at a party?”
“I knew Meg would be here, and I didn’t want it to look like I was following her, considering.”
I thought of myself as a better-than-average mind reader when it came to David, but I was drawing a blank. “Considering what? Your non-relationship has been over since Christmas. You’re allowed to show your face in public.”
“I think this was part of the problem.” He waved the book at himself, indicating what—his face? The stretched-out sweatshirt? Literacy? “For Meg and me. She didn’t come right out and say it, but that’s the impression I got.”
“What impression?”
“That I was bringing her down. I don’t fit in with her friends. Not ‘cool’ enough.”
“What does that even mean? Who decides what’s ‘cool’?”
“I think it’s one of those situations where if you don’t know the answer, it’s already too late.”
“Like if you have to ask how much something costs, you probably can’t afford it?”
“Basically.”
“That sucks.” What I really meant was She sucks. “I’m sorry.”
“That your hip bone is puncturing my spleen?”
“Didn’t realize you were such a delicate flower.” I lifted my legs and plopped them across his lap. “Happy now?”
An owl hooted in the distance, and the pond grasses rustled in the evening breeze. “Yeah,” he said quietly.
I took a deep breath, feeling my side expand against David’s. The chill was starting to nip at the exposed bits of my skin, but it was still nicer than being inside.
“How’s your existential crisis going?” He wrapped a warm hand around my bare upper arm and began rubbing lightly.
“Back-burnered for now.” I used his shoulder to shove the hair out of my face. “I’ll schedule another freak-out for after I survive the school tours. If I survive the school tours.”
My shiver was only partly because of the temperature, but David contorted his shoulders to pull off his sweatshirt, one arm at a time. He draped it over us like a blanket.
“Better?”
“Mmmph,” I said into his sleeve.
Whether it was the cold or the long week or the social stress of not partying at this stupid party, exhaustion hit me like a train. Once or twice the back door opened and noise spilled out into the night, but no one ever lingered, or came looking for us. We could have been on a canoe, drifting in the middle of a lake.
Weird that I was here with David, feeling the curves and angles of his familiar/not-familiar body, when I’d imagined tonight bringing me closer to Hudson, in every way. Not that you could cram seven years’ worth of knowing someone into a few hours.
I felt the weight of time pressing down on me like a physical object. There was either too little of it, or way too much. Would I still be here in seven years? If I left, would this part of my life be lost? Were there people who stayed close for decades, until they were old, or did you have to find all new friends when you grew up, no matter what?
“Jo?”
I looked down at my hands, which were kneading David’s forearm like it was a piece of wet laundry. “Sorry.” I smoothed his arm hair. “Just thinking.”
“What about?”
“Time, I guess. Change. Death.”
“Existential crisis, part deux?”
“This is why I go to bed early. Less time to freak yourself out.” I yawned, settling more securely against him. “You can read your book if you want.”
His cheek came to rest on top of my head. “I’m good.”