and told me I had to work in the resource center every day during lunch for a month.
I can’t wait to see the look on her face when I tell her I want to keep doing it. Maybe I’ll even say she’s inspired me. She’ll probably explode.
Anyway, Caro came up to me in the hall after physics and said, “Can you come over after school?”
while people—meaning Beth—were watching. That’s when I knew something huge was going on.
Caro didn’t want to go to the party. What Mel had said to her made Beth so furious that she’d stopped talking to Caro.
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“Which explains why you actually spoke to me at school,” I said as we were sitting in her bedroom. I was lying on her bed and Caro was pacing around eating an ice cream bar. Her mom always buys the kind I like best now. I didn’t think I was over here that much, but I guess I am.
Caro looked at me and then tossed her wrapper in the trash. “Yeah, I guess it does. I sort of suck, don’t I? Why do you even talk to me?”
“Free ice cream. And besides, if I were you, I wouldn’t talk to me at all.”
“You would too.”
I rolled my eyes at her. “You’re the worst liar in the whole world.”
She flopped down on her bed and nudged me with one foot. “Fine. I’m too freaked out to argue with you. What am I going to do?”
“Go to the party and talk to Mel.”
“But Beth will—”
“What? Make you cry during lunch? Get you so upset you ask someone even the honors losers—sorry, but it’s true, you guys suck—avoid to come over after school in front of everyone?”
She sighed. “I know. But I can’t go.”
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“Okay, don’t go.”
“But . . . I kind of want to go.”
“Duh.”
Then she surprised me. “So will you come with me?”
And that’s how I ended up at the party. I told Mom and Dad I was spending the night at Caro’s. I fi gured that and the fact that they hadn’t had to come pick me up after school was enough excitement for them. Mentioning a party would just be too much.
And besides, I didn’t think I’d actually go. I just . . . I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t see myself at one without Julia. I figured I’d wait outside or something. Be alone.
That, I could see.
Caro and I went over her “plan” on the way there. She was going to go in and talk to Mel, then leave. I was supposed to stay with her the whole time.
“Seriously, you can’t leave my side,” she said.
“Seriously, you’ve already said that. But you don’t need me there.”
“I do too.”
“Fine,” I said, just to humor her. “But remember, you promised that even if Mel declares eternal love we won’t be there more than—”
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“Ten minutes, tops. I know. We’ll go in, he’ll be with Beth, we’ll leave. I don’t even know why I’m doing this.”
“Yeah, you do,” I said, and tried not to think about the fact that I was going to a party and that the last one I went to was with Julia. It didn’t work, and by the time Caro and I walked inside Mel’s house, I was feeling really bad. Just walking through the door made me dizzy.
And inside, my stomach hurt, my hands were sweaty and shaking, and I could tell people knew I didn’t belong.
I’ve always felt like that at parties. It’s why I started drinking before J and I got there, so that walking inside wouldn’t be so hard. I needed that escape from myself.
I turned to Caro, ready to tell her I needed to leave, that I had to leave, when Mel showed up. He looked as freaked as I felt and like he was trying to hide from someone.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” he told Caro, and that’s when I knew Beth was out there, in the crowd of people around us, newly single and extremely unhappy about it.
“Can we go somewhere and talk?”
Caro looked at me and I knew the ten-minute, we-stick-together plan was gone. I don’t know why I even fell for it in the fi rst place. How many times did I agree to it 261
when Julia and I went to parties where Kevin was going to be and end up alone?
“I can’t,” she said. “Amy and I can only stay for a few minutes.”
“Oh,” Mel said, and looked at me. “I didn’t know you were coming.”
Classy. “Nice to see you too.”
“That’s not what I meant. Sorry.” He ran a hand through his hair, looked out at everyone carefully pretending they weren’t watching, and then looked back at Caro. “Just a few minutes. Please.”
“Are you feeling okay? Do we need to go?”
I looked at Caro and realized she was talking to me.
I realized she was going to tell Mel she couldn’t talk and that we had to go. Not because she didn’t want to talk to him, but because she’d realized I was freaked out and was willing to leave so I could get out of there.
I know she was terrified of running into Beth too. But she did mean it because when I said, “No, go talk to him,”
she shook her head and whispered, “I’m sorry. I should have realized—this must be so hard for you.”
“Go,” I said, and plastered what I hoped was a smile on my face.
“Ten minutes,” Caro said, and then she and Mel disappeared into the crowd. I forced myself to look around 262
even though my hands were shaking. Even though all of me was shaking.
This was what I saw:
People were dancing. People were making out. People were drinking. People were talking.
That was it. That’s all there was to see.
Just people having fun, and I knew it was stupid to worry about being there. It was stupid to be scared.
But I was scared. I wanted to get out of there.
But more than that, I wanted a drink.
And since I was at a party, I knew I could get one.
There was a keg and a bunch of bottles on a make-shift bar not too far away, in the corner of the room.
Twenty steps, maybe. All I had to do was walk over there.
I couldn’t.
I couldn’t because if the people were less lame and the music was louder and the room a little darker, I could have been at the last party I went to. I could have been with Julia.
I walked away, tottering in my flat-soled sneakers like they were a pair of those monster shoes Julia would strap herself into, the ones with the stacked heels that made me so tall I smacked my head into her bedroom door the time she dared me to try them on.
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I walked away, but I didn’t leave. I wanted that drink, I wanted to forget, and I’d been to enough parties to know where to look for the parental liquor stash, for those bottles that had been hidden because they’re the ones that are monitored.
Even wobbling and sweating, J’s face at that last party all I could see, I found it in less than five minutes. Mel’s parents had a very nice liquor cabinet, with a tricky lock, but when I got it open it was empty.
Mel might have been dating Beth, but he’s still pretty smart.
I could have left then. Probably should have. But I knew where to look next, though, and headed upstairs, pretended not to see the bedrooms with their closed doors, pretended J’s face wasn’t all around me, and went straight for the bathroom.
I found the liquor cabinet stash and a set of mono-grammed glasses in the bathroom hamper, under a pile of dirty and wet towels. There was scotch, bourbon, and a nice bottle of vodka, the kind that’s good enough to come in glass, not plastic.
My hands were shaking when I opened the vodka, but not because I was scared. No, I wasn’t scared anymore. I wanted a drink, I wanted that escape from my thoughts.
From everything. God, I wanted it.
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I poured myself a cup and then put the bottles back, my sweet little secret.
I was never labeled an alcoholic. Not even at Pinewood.
Why? Because I didn’t drink all the time. I drank too much, too often, but I didn’t drink every day. I could stop, and had.