Harper, her eyes open, locked on Miranda. Her smile.
Harper turning away, kissing him again.
Miranda sat down where she’d been standing, Harper and Kane fading from view. All she could see now were people’s legs and feet, some walking, some dancing, some standing around, some wrapped up in others. She tried to catch her breath.
She’s drunk, Miranda told herself. Self-destructive. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.
But Harper had stopped. Looked at Miranda. Smiled and turned away. She knew exactly what she was doing.
Miranda suddenly felt completely sober and clear. But she couldn’t have been, or she wouldn’t have stood up and walked purposefully off toward the crops of Joshua trees, where she’d seen half the basketball team breaking bottles and doing keg stands. If she wasn’t drunk, where did she get the nerve to wrap her arms around Adam and whisper in his ear, “I need you, now”?
She didn’t think about the consequences or fear humiliation. She just acted, tugging him away from the group, deeper into the trees. She didn’t need to think. She’d come to this party to give in to her desires. At the time, those had been: longing, lust, hope.
Now they’d been replaced with one: revenge. She didn’t pause to acknowledge that to herself or explain it to Adam. She didn’t even need to take a deep breath before kissing him. And she had to admit that Harper had been right. The chiseled face and perfect body was a definite turn-on. As was the prospect of smashing Harper’s heart to pieces.
“Miranda?” Adam was out of it, completely, his face slack and his words thick. “Whuh?”
“This doesn’t have to mean anything,” she said, stripping off her shirt. “It’s just for fun.” She tugged at the edge of his shirt and stumbled against him. “It’s a party, right?”
Adam didn’t say anything. But he let her tug him down to the ground, and he didn’t resist as she ran her fingers through his hair. She didn’t know how to seduce someone, or how to follow up the first move with a second one. Harper would know.
Harper was probably doing it right now.
She lay down on her side, ignoring the sharp edges digging into her. “Come here,” she told Adam, hooking her finger into his collar and jerking him toward her. He toppled over with a grunt, then rolled to face her. “Miranda, I’m not really-”
“You waiting around for Harper?” she snapped, enjoying his wince. Suddenly it seemed like the whole world should share in her pain. See? I can be just like you, she told Harper silently. I can be cold, and I can take what you want. “She’s with Kane. Déjà vu all over again, right?”
“Shuddup.”
“Kane gets everything, and you get-”
“Shut up.” Louder this time.
“Make me,” Miranda challenged, jerking her face toward his. Their noses bumped, and then awkwardly but without hesitation, their lips met.
His face was stubbly and his hair too short. His breath was sour, his kiss was rough, angry, but at least she had acted. And her eyes were dry. He grunted like an animal, and she accidentally bit his tongue, and the rocks beneath them felt like they were drawing blood. But she persevered. She closed her eyes, kissed him harder, and tried not to pretend he was someone else.
Beth drew in a breath and tried not to cough out the smoke. “This is harder than it looks,” she sputtered, lying back against the sleeping bag.
“You’ll get the hang of it,” Reed assured her. He lay down next to her, and for a long time all she could hear was their breathing, and the whistling of the wind. “You feeling anything?” he asked.
“I don’t know…”The words sounded strange, and felt strange, as if her tongue had suddenly doubled in size. She stuck it out at him. “Does my tongue look weird?” (This came out sounding more like, “Doz ba tog look eered?”) She burst into giggles before he could answer.
“Yeah, you’re feeling it,” he said, satisfied.
Beth waved her hand in front of her face, marveling at the fact that it was too dark to see. Maybe I don’t have a hand anymore, she thought. Maybe I’m just a mind. The theory seemed startlingly profound, and she was about to explain it to Reed, but the words slipped away from her.
“I never knew why she was with me, you know?” His words seemed like they were dropping out of the sky, unconnected to either of them. “I mean, I’m… and she was… yeah. Like the way she talked. It was like everything she said came out of a book. Like…”
Beth zoned out, just listening to the pleasant rise and fall of his voice, tuning for scattered words and phrases- “never again”; “in the water”; “can’t stop”; “sundress”; “going crazy”; and, several times, “why”-but she couldn’t focus enough to draw them together into a single thread. Every time she tried, she would realize that the ground was hard and soft at the same time, or that the air tasted like peppermint, and she would wander off into her head.
Until it occurred to her: Maybe he was onto her. Maybe he knew her secret. He knew exactly what she’d done, and what she was hiding, and this was his way of torturing her. Beth jerked herself upright and curled her legs up to her chest, trying to catch her breath. He would pretend to be nice to her, and then, just when she felt safe, he would bring the cage down, trap her in her lies, and destroy her. Which was what she deserved. And of course he hated her. She tried to look at his expression, to see if she could find the hatred in his eyes, but it was too dark. She didn’t know what he was thinking, but what if he knew what she was thinking? The truth was so obvious, he must know. He must be waiting, biding his time, and then-
“Hey.” His hand was on her back. His voice didn’t sound angry. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” she said quickly, gasping for breath. Would he hear the lies in her voice? “I have to get out of here.” Away from him.
She tried to stand up, but he stopped her. “Chill. Wait,” he urged. “It’s not real, whatever it is. It’s just the weed. It’s just something that happens.” He rubbed her back, and she bent her head to her knees. “Deep breaths,” he advised, rubbing her back. “Slow, deep breaths.”
“I know you know,” she said feverishly. “I know you know I know you know you know you know…” She repeated the words so many times, they lost all meaning and became absurd, like a made-up language. “Owyoo no new oh,” she said experimentally. It suddenly seemed ridiculous that some noises had so much meaning and others were just noise. “New yo I you?” she asked, bursting into laughter as Reed gaped at her in confusion.
Words were so weird.
“Weird,” she said, testing out the sound. “Weeeeeeeeeird.”
Reed shook his head, bemused. “Yes, you are.”
She lay down again on her back, her breathing slowed and her mind clear. Just like the stars, which seemed so bright, like they were holes in the sky. The desert was cold, and empty, but she didn’t feel alone. Even though she couldn’t see him, she knew he was there.
The world seemed so huge, and so small at the same time, like she and Reed were the only things in existence. And wouldn’t everything be so much easier if that were true. The world felt fresh. The sharp wind against her face, the rough polyester beneath her. Reed’s hand brushing, just slightly, against hers-she’d never felt so there.
“Are you happy?” she asked.
“No. You?”
“No. But-” She searched for the words that described how she did feel, a certainty that she’d never be happy combined with a strange acceptance and even contentment, as if she was floating along and the current was strong but she could trust where it would take her, so she could just close her eyes, sink back, and relax. She felt like she understood everything at once, with a deep clarity- but when she tried to name it, assign words and sentences to the certainty, it flowed away. The closer she drew, the blurrier it got. So she gave up. “But it’s okay,” she concluded simply.