by Cameron Lund
Ava is speaking again. “Am I allowed to take another sip of my drink?” She holds up her glass, tilting it forward so some of the liquid threatens to spill out and onto the table. “Or is that against your rules?”
“Do what you want,” Danielle snaps. “You’re already a train wreck.”
Ava sets her glass down with a thunk. Her expression looks hurt, eyes big and droopy like a puppy that’s just been kicked. Her bottom lip quivers again, like she’s holding back tears. And then she takes a breath, pressing her lips together in a hard line. Her eyes narrow, hurt flashing into anger. “I wrote everything.”
Danielle doesn’t move, doesn’t give any indication she’s heard Ava at all. But then I see her hand, the one resting on the table, clench into a fist. She turns to Ava slowly. “I need to talk to you. I need to talk to you outside so there won’t be any witnesses when I kill you.” She stands up, her knees knocking against the table, and grabs Ava by the arm.
“Ow!” Ava whines, trying to shake off Danielle’s hand, which has settled clawlike into the skin of her arm. They disappear through the side door. I look up at Hannah, hoping she’ll know what to do.
“I think she might really kill her,” I say. “Should we . . .”
She follows my gaze over to the door and then we both jump up and follow them. When we get outside, we almost run over Susie Palmer, who’s leaning against the wall, smoking. I know she’s probably hiding—from Ryder and Ava; from the fact that she was his first choice last night and now she’s not. It’s easier to hide than to act like you don’t care.
“They went down to the dock,” she says, motioning with her cigarette.
“Thanks,” Hannah says, and we head in the direction she pointed.
The light shining from the windows of the Walcott makes it difficult to see anything beyond, but I can just make out the shape of the lake, spread out huge and dark in front of us. We walk across the grass and over to a set of steps leading down to a wooden dock. I can hear Ava and Danielle before I can see them, their voices high and shrill. We walk closer and their fuzzy dark outlines come into view.
Hannah holds out an arm to stop me. “We should let them fight it out. They have a lot to resolve.”
“Did you know it was Ava?”
Hannah sighs. “I didn’t know for sure, but I guessed.”
I don’t know why it never occurred to me. I was so fixated on the guys, so sure that these ugly words were from them. But Ryder doesn’t have the finesse or the subtlety for a pain like this one—when guys hurt you they want the credit. Girls are best at the cuts beneath the surface, the bites you don’t see coming until you’re dragged underwater. And Ava has been taking those bites from Danielle for too long—it was only a matter of time before she bit back. Still, it breaks my heart to see their friendship turned into something so ugly. Danielle and Ava were each other’s everything once, and now they’ve ended up like this. I can’t let that happen with Hannah.
“I’m sorry about Charlie. What I said.” Hannah has always supported me—has always been such a wonderful, beautiful friend. I need to be the same for her.
“You’re right though,” Hannah says. Her voice is shaky. “I know I shouldn’t, but . . . I still have feelings for him. He stopped by my house this morning and said he wanted to take me to prom and I just couldn’t say no. I’m so weak.”
“You’re not weak. You’re in love.”
“Sometimes I think it’s the same thing.”
And then because Hannah is being so honest, I know I have to be too. “Turns out you were right too. About Andrew.” Even though saying it makes me sad, Hannah’s face lights up like I’ve given her the best news. I guess I just need to let her be happy about it.
We stop at the edge of the dock, but Danielle and Ava don’t notice us.
Ava is crying, one hand waving angrily in the air, the other holding up her dress. “All I ever did was try to be your friend—for eight years—I tried so hard, and you just knocked me down.” Her voice is shaky with tears.
“My friend, Ava?” Danielle says. “If you had a problem with me, you should have told me. Real friends talk shit to your face and not behind your back.”
“Real friends don’t talk shit at all, Danielle. That’s what you don’t get. You’re so mean to me. All the time. You stopped being my friend years ago. You’ve just become such . . . such a bitch!”
“Oh, so I’m a bitch now too? Why don’t you write that on a note.” Danielle digs through her champagne-sequined purse and pulls out a pen, throwing it at Ava. “Let’s see . . . I’m a bitch, a slut, what next? Come on, Ava. There’s no way to win, is there? You’re a slut if you do, a tease if you almost do, a prude if you don’t, and a bitch if you stand up for yourself. I’m sick of the name-calling. We should have each other’s backs.”
Ava clicks her tongue against her teeth and laughs. “Seriously? You’ve been calling me a slut for years.”
Danielle crosses her arms. “I don’t use that word.”
Ava raises her voice in an impression of Danielle. “Oh, Ava, what do you know about being a virgin? Oh, Ava, are you gonna fuck Ryder again? Stop humping everything that moves, Ava. You’re embarrassing yourself.”
“You’re embarrassing yourself now.”
“I don’t care anymore.” Ava’s voice is strained, like she’s fighting to speak and breathe at the same time. “I just couldn’t get through to you. You don’t see me as your equal. I’m not just your stupid sidekick. Sometimes it’s my story. Not yours.”
“Oh please,” Danielle says. “Don’t martyr yourself. If you felt like a stupid sidekick, you could have done something about it.”
“I did!” Ava shrieks. “I wrote those freaking notes!”
“And how did you think that would change things? What, you thought calling me a slut would miraculously make things better for you? You’re just making guys like Ryder think they’re right. You don’t get power by knocking other girls down.”
Ava shrieks, a high animal sound, like someone has just stepped on her tail. “You’re such a hypocrite! That’s totally how you get your power. You’ve always gotten off on knocking me down. You’re like a social vampire.” She wipes at her cheeks. Her hair has come down from its chignon, and there are bobby pins sticking out at weird angles around the base of her neck. She starts yanking them out and throwing them onto the ground. “I like Chase. I’ve liked him for years. You knew that. But then suddenly you decided you had to have him, and that was more important. You slept with him at that stupid party, and you didn’t even like him! You dropped him right after you finally got what you wanted. How do you think that made me feel?”
Danielle sighed. “I didn’t . . . drop him because I was done with him. I dropped him because he was done with me. He fucked me and then told everybody about it! And then I’m supposed to wait around for him to tell me he’s done? Please don’t tell me all of this”—she motions back and forth between herself and Ava—“is about Chase, because he’s not worth it.”
“It’s not about Chase,” Ava says. “It’s about you taking something you knew I wanted because you knew you could. And you’re doing it all over again with Andrew! You’re only here with him because of Keely.” I flinch at her words.
Ava pulls out the final bobby pin and her hair tumbles over her shoulders in purple waves. She throws the pin at Danielle. “I’m surprised you never fucked Charlie. Hannah would have flipped and you would have loved it.”
Danielle lunges at her, grabbing hold of the necklace around Ava’s neck, and as she pulls away, beads fly everywhere— scattering and rolling across the dock in all directions. Ava grabs a strap of Danielle’s gown, pulling and ripping so that it tears, and Danielle shrieks.
“Stop!” I say, and Hannah and I rush toward them. We grab on to their arms, trying to pull them off each other. Ava turns to me and her eyes are wild, like
she’s gone mad. Her blue, glittery makeup has smeared down the side of her temples, and there are mascara tracks down her cheeks.
“I don’t need your help!” she wails. She shrugs my hands off, and I grab her again, trying to keep her steady, keep her calm, but she’s howling and flailing like a woman possessed. I try to grab for her but she’s tottering on her heels, and then suddenly she’s falling backward, tipping slowly away from me. Her arm shoots forward, reaching for something to hold, finding only air. And then she’s gone, over the side of the dock and into the water.
There’s a loud splash.
Danielle stops grappling with Hannah and turns. “Oh, come on,” she says. “I’ll get her.” And then she jumps in after Ava.
“I’ll go get a teacher,” I say, turning away from the lake and back toward the Walcott. I begin moving toward the other end of the dock, but I hear a gasp from behind me and turn back to the lake. Danielle and Ava have just burst through the surface, and Hannah is on her knees, pulling them up. The water is deep enough that only their heads are exposed, but it looks like they can stand. Hannah grabs Ava by the shoulders and Danielle hoists her from below up and onto the dock, where she sputters and coughs. Then Hannah grabs Danielle.
“Hannah!” A voice shouts from the top of the steps, and the figure of a girl appears, her silhouette dark against the bright windows. “Hannah!” she calls again, running down the steps toward us. As she gets closer I see that it’s Susie Palmer, her pale skin luminescent in the moonlight. She freezes when she sees the group of us, Danielle and Ava lying on the wet dock, their dresses like a puddle of melted ice cream. “Um, Hannah?” she says when she gets to us. “They’re looking for you inside. They called your name and no one could find you. You’re supposed to go dance with Chase.”
“What?” Hannah asks, confused. The front of her gown is wet where she pulled Ava from the water. Her braid is falling out, her bangs flattened to her forehead. I can tell she’s still buzzing from what’s happened and doesn’t understand what’s going on. But I know. It’s obvious, should have been obvious all along.
“You’re Prom Queen.”
THIRTY-ONE
SOMEHOW EVERYTHING has gone to shit.
After Chase and Hannah’s dance as King and Queen, after Danielle and Ava finally come back inside, leaving the floor so wet that Edwin Chang slips and falls, I find myself tired out, sitting back at the table and not really in the mood to dance. It’s getting late. Some of the cardboard waves have fallen off the walls, and one of the bubble machines has malfunctioned.
Dean is with Ryder somewhere, probably outside smoking, and I can’t be bothered to look for him. I sigh and stand up, heading over to get more punch. At this point, who cares if it’s spiked?
“Shitty prom, huh?” Chase says, coming up behind me.
“Yeah.” I scoop myself a cup of punch and then scoop one for him. “How’s Cecilia?”
He takes a sip of punch, leaving a thin red stain on his upper lip. “She’s nice,” he says, his voice flat.
“And that’s the problem?”
“I’m not really into nice.”
We both turn and look over to where Danielle and Ava are still being cleaned up and dried off by the chaperones.
“Where’s your date?” Chase asks.
“Who knows,” I say, taking another sip of punch. For some reason, I feel like being honest.
“You don’t like him that much,” Chase says, not a question.
“It’s nice to have someone to come with.”
“What do you mean?” Chase takes another sip. “You could have come with any of us.”
“As a friend,” I say. “I mean, it’s not like any of you guys ever . . . hit on me. I’m not a real girl. I don’t count.”
“Come on, Collins, you’re hot.” He says it so casually, catching me off guard.
“What?”
“That’s really why you think no guys ever hit on you?”
“Well, yeah,” I say. “I mean, you guys talk about all your weird bodily functions in front of me, so clearly you’re not—”
“No guys ever hit on you because you were with Reed.” I stiffen at his words. If only Chase knew how much I wish what he was saying were true.
“I’m not with Reed,” I say, running a frustrated hand through my hair. “You know he’s with Danielle. And like five million other girls.” My voice comes out in a hiss and I hate how jealous I sound. It was never supposed to be like this.
Chase just shakes his head. “Nah, I mean, I know you guys aren’t dating, but you go together. You’re a pair. Nobody wanted to get in the way of that. Besides, he’s territorial as shit.”
“What?” I set my cup of punch down on the table and a bit of it splashes over the edge of the plastic rim, leaving a little red stain on the cheap white tablecloth.
“This one time in sixth grade, Ryder said something about how you were ‘growing up nicely.’” He motions his hands in front of his chest to indicate Ryder’s real meaning. “Andrew punched him.”
I remember that, remember Andrew getting suspended for three days. He told me Ryder had pushed him first, an easy story to believe.
“That’s why Ryder always made a show of treating you like one of the guys,” Chase continues. “That’s why we all did, I guess. We all like Reed, so you were off-limits.” He downs the rest of his punch in one gulp and tosses the empty cup into the trash can beside us.
I can’t help the pressure that starts building in my chest, like I’m slowly expanding from the inside out, filling up with air. Chase’s words are repeating in my head. You go together. You’re a pair. You were off-limits. It has to mean something, doesn’t it? Why would Andrew warn other guys away from me if he didn’t have feelings, if some small part of him didn’t want me for himself?
I scan the crowd behind Chase’s head, looking for Andrew, but he’s not there. I turn around to look at the tables behind us, scanning all the seats quickly for a sandy-colored head, but he’s nowhere.
Could Andrew actually like me back?
“Looks like you found a date anyway though,” Chase says. “It just took a dude who doesn’t go to Prescott to scoop you up, someone who doesn’t know the rules.”
I pick my cup of punch back off the table and notice that my hand is shaking. “And what are the rules?”
Chase grins. “It’s the guy code.” He leans toward me and lowers his voice like he’s letting me in on a secret. “Never ditch your bros for a ho . . . sorry,” he says when I wince at the word. “Never let a guy get in a fight alone, and never go after another guy’s sister. You might not be his real sister, but in terms of the code, you definitely count.”
And there it is. Sister. The word crashes down on me; the balloon in my chest pops and deflates. Of course that’s what Chase meant. He’s still grinning at me, like he’s proud that he’s let me in on the code, like I should feel special and not like my entire world has shattered into a million different pieces, my hope exploding like the Death Star.
I crush the empty plastic cup in my hand and throw it into the trash can.
“I have to go,” I say, suddenly filled with anger, like my veins are crackling with electricity. It all makes sense. I might have met a guy earlier, might not have stayed a virgin for so long if Andrew hadn’t gotten in the way. And it’s not because he’s been jealous, because he loves me back. It’s just because I’m like his sister.
“I would have hit on you, you know,” Chase says. “Just for the record. You’re totally cute.” And then he smiles and heads over to Danielle and Ava, throwing his arms around both of them.
My hands are shaking. I need to find Andrew. I move to the edge of the room, pushing through crowds of people. The whole world is whirling color, shapes moving together in and out of focus, and it feels like I’m drunk. But it’s just the energy spreading through me like fire, b
lurring the edges of my vision. I can’t remember ever being so alert.
And then I see him coming out of the men’s bathroom and I’m struck by how much I want to hit him or kiss him or both, anything to just be touching him, to release some of this energy into him so that he can feel just as alive as I do.
I charge in his direction. When he notices me, his face breaks into an easy smile, but it soon disappears when I fly at him.
“You told guys not to hit on me?”
“What?” His forehead wrinkles and his hand immediately goes up into his hair like I knew it would, like it always does.
“What gives you the right, Drew? All this time I thought nobody liked me because of me, and all along it was because of you. All these parties you’ve been getting with girls and I’ve had to go sleep on the couch by myself, and I was so lonely and left out because everyone else was hooking up and getting boyfriends and having sex and I thought something was wrong with me, when it was all your fault!”
“Collins, what are you talking about?” he asks, leaning into me with his voice lowered. I’m vaguely aware we’re still in the ballroom, surrounded by people. Abby Feliciano is standing a few feet to our left, texting something on her phone, and when I look at her, she giggles and looks away. But I don’t care.
“You’re such a hypocrite!” I hit him on the shoulder. “You’re allowed to sleep with every girl on the planet and I’m not allowed to get with anyone? Is it because I’m a girl, Drew? I’m just a delicate freaking flower you have to look after? I don’t need you to protect me. I never stopped girls from getting with you. I was the best wingman!”
The Wingman and the Cockblock. We’re like a depressing superhero duo of doom.
“I know you’re not a delicate flower,” he says, reaching out to me. He puts a hand on my shoulder and I shrug it off. “Clearly. Come on, Collins, I just didn’t want you to get your heart broken.”
