“What are you guys doing?” Rana says, peering into my eyes and I wonder if I look high even though I’m not feeling anything yet.
“Shrooms.” I look for Kate, but she’s disappeared into the crowd. It’s no fun being high with someone who’s not — all you do is worry the whole time about being too high.
“Can I have some?” Rana asks.
The TV explodes in pulpy blood. “Dead!” one of the kids shouts, fist-pumping and punching his friend in the leg. “Next level!”
“Elgin gave them to me,” I say.
“I’ll find him.” Rana gets up from the couch and weaves through a bunch of kids crammed around the stereo. I sink further between the cushions, watching the guys twist the video controls and grimace with concentration. Their faces are a weird combination of slack and serious, and I can’t tell if they’re stoned or just really into their game. I’m so caught up watching them, I barely notice Elgin slide in beside me on the couch. He has to tap me on the shoulder to ask me if I feel anything yet, and I say no. “Rana was looking for you,” I say.
“Who?” Elgin lights a joint and passes it to me.
“No one,” I say, taking a puff. “Forget it.”
The voices in the room grow louder and I start going sh, shh, shhh, but no one seems to want to listen to me. Elgin looks over at me and starts laughing. “Now do you feel it?” he says, and I say, “Ah!” and let out a whole bunch of phony laughter even though I’m terrified.
“Cunt!” One of the kids has beaten the other and they wrestle on the couch. I move onto the armrest to get out of their way and Elgin disappears into the kitchen, coming back with a beer to finish watching the fight from a safe distance. One kid has the other in a headlock asking, You had enough, pussy, and the other one keeps saying cunt, cunt.
Last week in science class someone wrote whore on my desk in purple pen. There was a large, dripping penis under the word. I tried wiping it off with my hand, but it was permanent. When Max walked into class, he looked at me for the first time in a while. He looked really sad and it made me feel a whole hell of a lot worse. I poured Liquid Paper on the desk, and the teacher sent me to Paul, the school counsellor/drama teacher, who starts his classes with a circle massage. “Why vandalize?” He sat in a chair with his elbows on his desk, his hands cupping his chin, making an exaggerated sad face. It was ridiculous. He looked like a five-year-old. I didn’t even answer him.
“I’m fucked.” Elgin’s in a ball on the couch, rubbing his knees. Someone grabs the joint out of my hand and goes running out onto the porch, saying, “Guys, you can’t smoke in here.”
“Why’d you give away my joint?” Elgin says. He’s stopped giggling.
“Sorry.” I scrunch my eyebrows together and concentrate on him. “Why are you angry at me?”
“Cause you gave away my joint.” He lies back on the couch. “Now there’s nothing to do.”
We sit together for a while without speaking, staring at the blue TV screen, and when I turn to ask Elgin how long mushrooms last, he’s gone and in his place are two kids kissing. I walk around the house looking for Kate, catching glimpses of her, but by the time I get anywhere she’s already gone. I start to worry she’s doing it on purpose, and once I start worrying about Kate, I start worrying about a lot of other things. I think about the dripping penis and STDs. I wonder if Max was the one who told the entire school what we did at the bush party or if it was Kate because she likes to talk. The thought is on the verge of making me sick when I almost knock Kate over in the kitchen. She’s leaning against the wall, shoulder to shoulder in deep conversation with Adrienne. My stomach flops and I catch her by the arm, Adrienne sneering at me as I pull Kate into the hallway. “Are you telling people things?” My body is so relaxed, I’ve lost control of my face. I feel like it’s melting right down the front of my shirt, but then I realize I’m crying. My tear ducts become a problem when I’m messed up. They have a high probability of malfunctioning.
“Telling people what?” Kate’s smile is twisting like a snake’s tail.
“I think I’m having a bad trip.”
“No you’re not, you’re definitely fine,” she says, grabbing me by the shoulders. She shakes me. “You’re fine.”
“Yeah, keep shaking me. That feels good.”
Kate walks me outside to the backyard where kids stand around in large groups or hang out in the tents, hot-boxing or making out. Max is walking around the yard making fireballs with hairspray and a lighter and pissing everyone off. Every time he gets close to us I grab Kate’s arm. “Get lost,” Kate says, shooing him as he passes us. He takes a step closer to me and without meaning to I scream. The noise frightens all of us. “I said fuck off,” Kate says, stepping between us. “Can’t you see how afraid she is of you?” He looks high out of his tree. “Let’s go somewhere else,” Kate whispers, wrapping her arm around me protectively and leading me along the side of the house. The front yard is empty, with only a few small groups of people chatting on the street. With the wide vacant yard and the stars flowing like streamers over my head, everything feels much better. Elgin’s sitting on the porch alone, looking sad, so Kate hands him a joint and we all smoke a bit together and then everyone cheers up. “See, it all works out,” I say, before spinning off across the lawn. Kate joins me, grabbing my hands so we can twirl together, but we fall so often that eventually we just lie in the grass.
“I can taste the moon,” I say.
“What’s it like?” Kate asks. She opens her mouth.
“Kind of acidic.” I rub the back of my hand over my tongue. “It’s horrible.”
Max comes stumbling out the front door and trips down the porch steps, ignoring all of us. He wanders down the street away from the party and I feel happier than I ever thought possible. “I’m so much better now,” I say to Kate.
We climb onto the stone planters beside the front steps and throw ourselves onto the grass, saying over and over, It doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t hurt. Elgin stretches out on the steps and closes his eyes. Without him watching us, things don’t seem as much fun, so Kate and I sit in the grass side by side and stare at the house. It looks so boring from the outside, with the curtains drawn and the porch light flickering. A group of kids stream out the front door, down the steps, and into the street. A couple people say hi to Kate as they go by and Adrienne is with them, trailing at the back. She smiles at me and mouths the word whore. “You’re the whore,” I yell at her as she walks by, but she doesn’t turn around. There’s something about the way Kate sits in the grass — really still, focused on the tan stucco — that makes me feel so sad. “Why don’t we hang out anymore?” I say, after all the kids have disappeared up the street.