Next stop: the kitchen. Nearly every brand and type of liquor imaginable is spread out on the granite counters—some uncapped, some half empty, and others completely untouched, like the monstrous bottle of butterscotch schnapps. The door at the back of the room opens out to a terrace, where people are gathered around three kegs. Music pulsates through the house at such a deafening volume that even the bottles clink to the beat.
Phil and Sara-Kate go outside to check on the keg situation while I peruse my options on the counter. I’m inspecting the label on a bottle of vodka when Klein walks in. He hasn’t changed much since we used to hang out. He shaved off his curls so that his hair is nothing more than black prickles, but it only accentuates his remarkable bone structure.
He stands so close to me, I can smell the soap from his shower. And the liquor on his breath. Better than cologne, I guess.
“Legs. You made it.”
I smile and say hello. I guess I’ll always be grateful to Klein in some way. He’s not my type, but he’s exactly what I needed two years ago. He made me forget what had happened to Donovan and also those months at Juniper Hill. But most importantly, he made me forget about Trent.
Trent, who was five years older, eighteen to my thirteen. Trent Miller, who told me he loved me and wanted to be with me and made me believe every word he said about us. Trent Ryan Miller, who just up and left one day, who was never to be heard from again, who the shrinks decided was a big part of the reason I ended up at Juniper Hill in the first place. That is, when they weren’t busy blaming ballet.
Klein was sloppy, but he was sweet and always treated me like I was the best-looking girl in the room. He still does, so long as his girlfriend’s not around. As if she knows I’m thinking about her, Trisha wanders in a few moments later, all glassy eyes and fashionably unbrushed hair. Trisha is tall and thin, but not the type of thin that makes people want to send you away.
“Hi, Theo,” she says in this faraway voice. “It’s really amazing about Donovan. I sat behind him in fourth grade. Remember? We did that science fair project with the rain gauge.”
I don’t, but I nod and start backing up, slowly so she won’t notice I’m trying to get away.
But Klein sees everything.
“Wait.” He pulls a red cup from one of the upside-down stacks, all lined up like those hats the Shriners wear. “Let me make you a drink.”
“No, thanks.” I point toward the patio. “Beer.”
“Okay.” He wraps an arm around Trisha’s teeny waist. “Well, we’re gonna roll later. You in?”
I choke down a “no fucking way” and say that I have to be up early for ballet tomorrow. Which is true. But also? Doing E with Klein Anderson and his girlfriend is about the last thing to check off of my list tonight. They hooked up with Mallory Frank at a pool party last summer. I wasn’t there but I’d believe it even if there hadn’t been witnesses. Mallory is on the fringe, one of those girls who will do anything to make her way into the circle.
He looks at me now and shrugs. “Your choice. Hey, if you see Hosea out there, tell him I’m looking for him. Dude has no fucking concept of time.”
He and Trisha start fumbling with a bottle of rum and a two-liter of Coke and that’s my cue to leave. My friends are no longer on the patio, but the kegs are getting plenty of action from the fringe people—like Mallory. People who are cool enough to be invited, but awkward enough to feel like they have to kiss everyone’s ass for their next invitation. I don’t know if anyone would call me, Sara-Kate, and Phil popular, but we’re cool with the people who do hold most of the power in our class—particularly the two messy people I just left in the kitchen.
“You look like you could use a beer,” says a friendly voice to my left.
Eddie Corteen. We’ve gone to school together our whole lives but I don’t know anything about him. He shows up to class every day, he comes to all the parties, and he’s so nice, it seems like an act until you realize no one could keep that up for so long. But I can’t remember having an actual conversation with him, nothing more than hello in passing or asking him for his notes if I missed English class.
“I could use a beer,” I say since he’s already pumping the keg. “Thanks, Eddie.”
“No problem,” he says, sort of ducking his head as he reaches into a plastic bag near the base of the keg and fills a red cup. “So how’s it going? I’ve been thinking about you.” Eddie flushes so quickly, I wonder how his mind had time to communicate with his body. His white-blond eyebrows get lost in his pinkened skin. “I mean, not like that. I just—Donovan. You know?”
Right. He knew him, too.
He hands me the cup and I sip. Ice-cold, hasn’t gone flat, and hardly any head. Normally I’d forgo the beer on a Friday night since I have ballet early the next morning, but after the past couple of days I deserve this. Except . . . thinking about Donovan mars the perfection of this beer.
“I feel like I shouldn’t be out right now,” I say, spilling my fears to the person I probably know the least at this party, as if that makes any kind of sense. The words are out before I can stop them. “Like it’s wrong because he’s at home with his mom . . . recovering.”
Recovering. Such a crap word, but I don’t know what else to say. He was hurt and suffering and now he’s home and trying to heal. Maybe he can’t close his eyes without launching a thousand nightmares.
So what am I doing? It never occurred to me to skip Klein’s party until now, but guilt coats my insides as I think of Donovan while I stand on the terrace, holding a beer and talking to people who used to be his classmates.
“You can’t think about it that way,” Eddie says in a careful voice. “I used to sit behind you guys on the bus sometimes and you . . . well, you two seemed real tight. You were a good friend to him when he was here, Theo.”
“Thanks, Eddie,” I say, staring down at the toes of my black riding boots. Surprised that he remembers how we used to be.
But four years apart have turned Donovan’s life upside down, and now even the familiar pieces of his former existence—his mother, his house, his bedroom—must seem so far removed from who he is today.
“Try not to think about it,” Eddie says, his hair winking silvery blond in the bright lights shining over the patio. “We’re gonna get a game of flip cup going later, if you’re up for it. You could be on my team.”
He gives me a smile so wide and genuine, I smile, too. And for a moment, it makes me feel a little less stupid for confiding in him.
“Maybe,” I say, glancing behind him, where the two guys I always see him with are hanging back, watching us. I don’t know their names. They turn their heads as soon as I make eye contact. I look at Eddie again. “But thank you.”
“Anytime, Theo.” He tips an imaginary hat to me in such a nerdily endearing way, I can practically hear his friends teasing him already.
I turn toward the lawn and start across the perfectly manicured grass toward the Andersons’ gazebo. I navigate my way up the steps and sit cross-legged on the floor. I sip my beer and close my eyes but I can’t shake this. Him. Donovan.
Footsteps are crossing the yard, crackling through the layers of fallen leaves. I open my eyes to Hosea Roth’s dark figure silhouetted against the autumn night sky. I stand, hold carefully to my beer.
He stops.
“Oh. I didn’t know anyone was out here. Sorry.”
“Wait,” I say. “It’s Theo.”
I step out of the shadows; he squints up at me.
“Well. I guess it is.” He pushes a few loose strands of hair behind his ear. “Twice in one day.”