“That sounds like her,” Parker says, laughing.
I look away, taking another sip of beer. Standing this close to him, and looking at the familiar shape of his face—his nose, slightly crooked and still lined faintly with a scar, from where he ran smack into another guy’s elbow during a game of Ultimate; the planes of his cheeks, and his eyelashes, which are almost as long as a girl’s—makes my stomach hurt.
“Look.” Parker touches my elbow and I shift away, because if I don’t shift away I’ll only lean into him. “I’m really glad you came. We’ve never really talked, you know, about what happened.”
You broke my heart. I fell for you, and you broke my heart. Period, done, end of story.
I can feel my heart opening and closing in my chest, like a fist trying to get a grip around something. It was the bike ride. I’m still weak. “Not tonight, okay?” I force a smile. I don’t want to hear Parker apologize for not loving me back. That will be worse, even, than the fact that he doesn’t. “I’m just here to have a good time.”
Parker’s smile falters. “Yeah, okay,” he says. “I get it.” He touches his cup briefly to mine. “Then how about a refill?”
Across the circle, I see Aaron Lee, a guy Nick was with for a while before the accident: nice guy, decent body, hopeless nerd. His eyes light up and he waves, arm up, as if hailing a taxi. He must think I brought Nick with me.
“I’m good,” I say. The beer isn’t having its usual effect. Instead of feeling warm and loose and careless, I just feel queasy. I dump the rest of my beer onto the ground. Parker takes a quick step backward to avoid getting splashed. “I’m actually not feeling so hot. I might head home.”
Now his smile is all-the-way gone. He tugs on his left ear. Parker-speak for not happy. “You just got here.”
“Yeah, and I’m just leaving.” More and more people are swiveling in my direction, sneaking quick, curious looks before turning away again. My scars are burning, as if a flashlight has been shone on them. I imagine them glowing, too, so that everyone can see. “Is that okay with you, or do I need a hall pass?”
I know I’m being mean, but I can’t help it. Parker ditched me. He’s been avoiding me ever since the accident. He can’t parade back into my life and expect me to throw confetti at his feet.
“Wait.” For a moment, Parker’s fingers, ice-cold from touching the beer, graze the inside of my wrist.
Then I pull away, turning clumsily in the uneven grass, dodging areas lumpy with deteriorating stone, pushing through a crowd that parts for me easily, too easily. As if I’m contagious.
Colin Dacey’s trying to get a fire going in the pit, a blackened depression lined with gravel and nubs of stone. So far, he’s succeeded mostly in sending huge, stinking geysers of smoke toward the sky. Stupid. It’s already too hot, and cops are always patrolling in summertime. Girls back away from the fire, shrieking with laughter, fanning away the smoke. One of them, a sophomore whose name I can’t remember, comes down hard on my toe.
“I’m sooo sorry,” she says. Her breath smells like amaretto. And then Ariana, barely sidestepping me, smiling huge and fake and overly nice, like she’s a salesperson trying to douse me with perfume, says, “You’re leaving already?”
I don’t stop. And when I feel a hand close down on my arm, I spin around, shaking off the grip, and say, “What? What the hell do you want?”
Aaron Lee takes a quick step backward. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—sorry.”
My anger immediately sizzles down to nothing. I’ve always felt vaguely sympathetic toward Aaron, even though we’ve barely spoken. I know what it’s like to trot after Nick, to worship her from three steps behind. I’ve been doing it since I was born.
“That’s all right,” I say. “I was just leaving.”
“How’ve you been?” Aaron says, as if he hasn’t heard me. He’s nervous; that’s obvious. He’s holding his arms rigidly by his sides, like he’s waiting for me to order him on a march. Aaron is six-four, the tallest Chinese guy in school—the tallest Chinese guy I’ve ever met, actually—and in that moment he really looks it. Gangly and awkward, too, like he’s forgotten what his arms are for. Even before I can answer, he says, “You look good. I mean, you always looked good, but considering—”
Just then, someone screams.
“Cops!”
All at once, people are running, yelling, laughing, scattering down the hill and into the trees even as beams of light come cutting across the grass. The chant rises up on the night, swelling the way the crickets did when evening fell.
“Cops! Cops! Cops!”
Someone rockets into me, knocking me off my feet; Hailey Brooks, barefoot and laughing, disappears into the woods, her blond hair streaming behind her like a banner. I try to protect my wrist when I fall and wind up crashing down on my elbow instead. A cop has Colin Dacey bent over double, arms behind his back, crime show–style. Everyone is screaming and the cops are shouting and there’s a blur of bodies everywhere, silhouetted against the smoke and the sweep of flashlights. Suddenly there’s a moon-big glow directly in my eyes, dazzling.
“All right,” the cop—a woman—says. “Up you go.”
I roll away to my feet just as she gets a hand around the back of my sweatshirt, dropping her flashlight in the process.
“Gotcha.” But she’s breathing hard, and I know that even on damaged legs I’ll be able to outrun her.