I thought about what he'd said earlier, about wanting something different than Fiona. And in that moment, I wanted to say yes. He might be Haylee's crush, but he was also a guy, paying attention to me, touching me, wanting to spend time with me.
"Yeah," I said. "I'll be there."
Bradley waved as I closed the door, then waited for me to get in the front door before he sped off down the street.
I leaned against the front door, looking at the place in the living room where Nick had stood just hours before.
Two boys inviting me places in one day. And for one of them, it didn't seem to be all about Haylee.
Seven Months Before
In the last weeks of our freshman year, a rash of parties broke out. The seniors threw parties because they were graduating. The juniors celebrated because they were about to be seniors. The sophomores shadowed whichever upper-classmen they could attach themselves to, and the freshmen crashed when they could, thrilled that soon someone else would be the butt of the freshmen jokes.
But for the most part, I missed the scene entirely. Official softball season was over, but tournament season was just beginning, which meant I was off every weekend with Aaron and the tournament team.
I was free over Memorial Day weekend, though, and I spent all week prepping Haylee to crash Crystal Castro's party.
"Crystal's a sophomore," I told Haylee. "It won't be that crazy, or that big."
"It's just going to be a bunch of people getting drunk," Haylee said. "Why would you want to go?"
I shrugged. "Maybe it'll be funny to watch?"
Haylee eyed me warily. "Why don't you just go with your softball friends?" she asked.
"They're coming too," I said. "We can all ride over together."
Haylee rolled her eyes. She didn't like to hang out with my friends from the team, because she said all we talked about was sports. That wasn't entirely true—we also talked about boys—but that point never seemed to comfort Haylee.
"Fine," she said. "But I don't want to ride over with your friends. I'll walk."
"You might get there before us," I said.
"Yeah, so?"
"So I don't want you to be uncomfortable—"
She turned on me. "You're gone a lot, you know? And somehow I manage to breathe in and out all weekend long."
"Sorry," I said. "Obviously you can handle it."
Haylee slammed her locker closed. "And I don't need you to hold my hand."
"Noted," I said. "But you better show up."
Haylee didn't respond.
The night of the party, though, I ran a fever. My heartbeat pounded in my head. Mom took one look at me and sent me to bed.
"I'm meeting Haylee," I said.
"Call and cancel," Mom said. "You're not going anywhere."
Haylee didn't answer my texts, so I called her, but she didn't pick up. She wouldn't answer my phone calls for the rest of the weekend, and I kept picturing her hiding in a closet at the party, waiting to hear my voice so that she could come out. At school on Tuesday, I expected her to freak out at me, or pointedly ignore me, but when I caught her in the hall before first period, she just smiled. "Sorry you missed the party," she said. "I had a couple beers. Do you hate me?"
"Don't be stupid. You went without me?"
"Yeah," Haylee said. "You made me promise to show. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. A bunch of juniors showed up. One of them vomited all over Crystal's mom's velvet love seat, and he tried to clean it up with a cup of water that turned out to be orange soda. It was kinda hilarious."
I blinked at her.
She shrugged. "Maybe you had to be there."
I nodded. "You had fun?"
Haylee opened her locker and put a hand on her hip. "What? I'm not allowed to do that without you?"
"No, I mean—"
"It was awesome, actually. The beer tasted awful, but after the first one I stopped feeling stupid when I spoke, and I stopped worrying that everyone was staring at me. Or maybe they just stare less when they're drunk. I don't know."
"That's great," I said. "And you found people to talk to?"
"Not really people," Haylee said, shrugging.
Oh no. A cat? A dog? Crystal's pet goldfish?
Haylee flipped through her textbooks like nothing was out of the ordinary. "Jody Nguyen's cousin was there. He goes to SCU, you know?"
I didn't. "Oh?"
"And he hung out with me all night. Just me and him, chilling on the couch."
Haylee. Chilling with a college guy. "All night?"
"Sure," she said. "Well, until Crystal's uncle came by to check on her. Then we all had to clear out, so Wex drove me home."
"Wex?" I asked.
"That's what he goes by. It's short for something, but I don't remember what."
Wow. "Did your parents get mad?"
"Nah," Haylee said. "They weren't waiting up for me. I told them I was sleeping over at your house."
As she should have. If I'd known she was going to talk to a guy all by herself, I would have suggested it. "So do you think Wex is into you?"
Haylee shrugged. "Probably not. I mean, he's a college guy. They play by different rules, you know? He's probably forgotten me already."
"So nothing happened."
She gave me a look. "A lot of things happened, actually. I think I just told you about them."
I paused. She was dodging the question intentionally, to make me fish.
"Come on," I said. "Tell me what I missed."
"Not much," Haylee said. "Really. You wouldn't have liked the party. Everyone was drunk. Even me."
She brushed her hair out of her face, and I saw a fresh red line snaking down her wrist. This was a long one—three or four inches at least.
That's when I stopped pushing. Haylee might be giving me a happier version of the story than what actually happened, but if that's the story she needed to be okay, I wasn't going to be the one to take it from her.
Chapter Seven
I told Mom that Catherine's parents were going to be at the party, and thankfully she didn't call to check. And because Mom knew Catherine from my team, I didn't even have to mention that it was Bradley who'd asked me to come.
It took me an hour to decide what to wear. I avoided the issue at first, taking a shower to shave the cactus spines off my legs, and then stood in front of my closet, considering.
Normally if I was hanging out with a guy, I'd call Haylee to talk about wardrobe choices. Instead, I tried on half my wardrobe and finally settled on a pair of skinny jeans and a red, fitted sweater. I put on lipstick and French-braided my hair. Haylee had taught me how to do it myself by propping my elbows up on the headboard of my bed for support, but if she'd been there to do it for me, it would have looked classier. Then I went into the bathroom to look at myself in the full-length mirror.
Clearly I was trying too hard. Also, the braid puffed out over my ears, instead of lying down flat. I undid my hair and pulled it into a ponytail. Much more casual. Then I rubbed off half my makeup.
I stood, staring at myself in the mirror.
My neck prickled. The place behind me in the mirror was blank—nothing there but floor tiles and a fluffy pink towel. But I felt her all the same—Haylee's ghost. What are you doing, Kira? she asked. Do you like him?
"Of course not," I whispered to her.
I could feel Haylee's smirk even though I couldn't see her. She wasn't sure about that.
Neither was I.
I opened the bathroom door and rushed out, shutting myself back in my room, hoping she couldn't float through walls. If the real Haylee were here, I knew exactly what she'd say. She'd want me to go hang out with Bradley so she could savor every detail when I got home. She'd consider it dating-by-proxy. My hanging out with Bradley was the next best thing to seeing him herself.
So I wasn't betraying her. I wasn't.
If only I could convince her ghost of that.
I left for the party after dark. Mom offered me a
ride, but Catherine only lived six blocks away, and I didn't need Mom witnessing the total parental lack, so I told her I'd walk. I ducked out before she decided to give me a serious talk about rape safety or teen drug use.
When I got to Catherine's, I could hear the bass from the street. Stephanie Nye sat in the window seat with her back to me, leaning over so far that I could see her butt crack. The front door had a note saying to come in, probably because they couldn't hear the doorbell over the music.
I opened the door and wandered through the entryway toward the living room. I could hear people talking over the music, which at this volume meant the house had to be packed. In the living room, groups clustered around chairs, a few people sitting on them and the rest on the floor at their feet. Lexa Io draped herself over the back of a couch with her breasts hanging in Greg Anzano's face.
I was really surprised to see not only Stephanie but Fiona Gil and a couple other popular girls. Catherine was cool, but she was more of a floater, drifting between circles. That put her a lot higher on the popularity scale than someone like me, but not high enough to be really popular, like Stephanie and Fiona were.
Katie from the softball team leaned against the far wall with some other girls. She waved at me and I waved back like we were friends, but she was the one who had called me a dyke last season, so I wasn't eager to hang out.
Fiona and Stephanie were staring at me. Fiona leaned over to Steph—whose skirt couldn't have been more than eight inches long—and said something in her ear. I could imagine what she was saying: how can she be here when her best friend just died? Katie was staring at me, too, like I was some exhibit at a zoo. Next on our tour, Kira Turner, who recently lost her best friend. Any time now we should see tears; those are a normal stage of the grieving process.
Ugh. I was being just like Haylee, thinking everyone was talking about me because of Haylee's death, when they were probably just making fun of my outfit. Most people had stopped staring at me by now, but I was still standing awkwardly in the hall. Spencer Mann came up behind me and pulled me into the living room. He turned to me and opened his big mouth. The music was so loud in here that I was amazed I could hear him.
"Hey, Kira, glad you could make it. Have a seat." He was using his radio voice—the one he used when he wanted to hold the attention of the entire room, which for Spencer was practically all the time. He sat down next to Fiona, who looked at him like he was barely tolerable.
Stephanie pawed Spencer's arm. Every statement she made came out like a question. "I still can't believe you didn't bring the beer?" she said. "You so totally fail?"
"Hey, who made it my job?" Spencer asked. "I'm here to provide the entertainment!"
Stephanie rolled her eyes. "I said you were the beer man? You said it was no problem?"
I leaned in, trying to get into the conversation, but Fiona glared at me before I could open my mouth.
"Didn't your friend just die?" she asked.
The only way to shut Fiona up was to be as far in her face as she was in mine. I stared her right in the eyes. "She's the one who's dead," I said. "Not me."
Fiona's eyebrows shot up. She'd drawn one on darker than the other.
And she actually looked impressed.
"Hey, where's your boyfriend, Fiona?" Spencer asked.
Stephanie rolled her eyes "You mean her totally ex-boyfriend?"
"Shut up," Fiona said. I could tell by the look on her face that in her mind, he wasn't totally ex. I could bet she didn't know I'd gone out with Bradley the day before, and I wasn't going to be the one to tell her.
At that point I was sure I'd made the wrong decision about coming to the party. I should have walked out the door when I had the chance. If I went to the bathroom and climbed out the window, would anyone even notice I'd gone?
Then Bradley walked in the front door. My stomach fluttered. Jeez, Kira, I thought. He'll probably ignore you. He probably just asked you out of pity.
Fiona watched Bradley even closer than I did. She leaned forward in her chair and squeezed her shoulders together, so her breasts practically popped out of her tube top. I seriously thought Spencer was going to wet himself, but instead he crossed an arm over his crotch.
Bradley walked right over to our group, but he was looking at me, not Fiona. The fluttering in my stomach turned into a frantic crawl, and I wondered if some anxiety monster was going to crawl out of my chest like in that movie with the alien.
Bradley shouted at Spencer over the music: "Hey man, scoot down."
Away from me. He meant scoot down away from me.
He hadn't forgotten me.
Spencer moved over immediately, without complaint, and I moved slightly to my left so that Bradley could sit down between us. Bradley's thigh pressed up against mine, and Fiona gave me a look of death. Maybe she was the one who was going to sprout the alien. No doubt it would devour me on the spot.
Spencer turned to Bradley and said, "What's up?" He used a genuine tone with Bradley, because Bradley was so much more popular.
"Not much," Bradley shouted, putting his arm around my shoulders and squeezing me closer to him. I hadn't really expected that. I could feel both Fiona and Stephanie glaring, so I tried to avoid looking at them.
Catherine came around the corner. Her blond hair cascaded in tight, frizzy curls down her back. During softball season, she always kept it pulled up. She looked straight at me and skipped over to the stereo, turning it down. The subwoofer on the floor still pounded with the beat, but my ears rang a little with the sudden decrease in noise. "Kira!" she shouted. "You made it!"
Catherine hadn't ever looked so happy to see me in my life. She didn't seem to remember that she hadn't invited me. Did she feel sorry for me?
But then she sat down on the arm of the couch and gave Bradley this big, toothy smile.
No. She wasn't even thinking me. She was eyeing the guy with his arm around me. And somehow, inexplicably, some impulse in my gut shouted mine.
Bradley returned Catherine's smile. "Hey," he said. "Nice house."
"Thanks," Catherine said, as if she could take credit for it.
Now Stephanie turned her glare on Catherine, and Fiona stood and stalked off.
I couldn't say I was sad about that.
"So, have you started training for the season yet?" Catherine asked me.
I shrugged. "Sort of." One night of pitching didn't really amount to training, but I wasn't going to announce that I'd done nothing in front of Bradley.
Bradley smirked. "Yeah, you two better start early. The softball team needs as much practice as they can get."
"We could beat you any day," Catherine said.
"Please. You throw like a bunch of girls."
"We are a bunch of girls," I said. "So?"
Bradley had this wide grin, and he glanced in the direction Fiona had gone and started rubbing my arm.
Oh, no. Was this all about her? Had this always been all about her?
Catherine laughed. "Yeah, really. You wouldn't have a chance against us."
Mr. Varsity Freshman could probably play in circles around both of us, but I wasn't going to come to his defense.
Catherine started jabbering away to Bradley about playing first base, since they had that position in common. Stephanie got up to join Fiona in the hall. I could see the two of them glaring at me from the edge of my vision, but I wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of noticing they were there.
Bradley's hand felt like it was starting to wear the skin off my arm, since he was still rubbing the same spot. And then he said in my ear, "Do you think it's hot in here?"
I did, but I wasn't sure it had anything to do with the room. So I said, "Yeah, I guess."
And he said, a little louder but still clearly to me, "Let's go outside for a while."
The room got hotter.
I knew I shouldn't go. But I wanted out of there, away from Fiona and Stephanie, and Catherine, and the unrelenting beat of the music, which matched a growing poundi
ng in my head. I did want to go outside.
So I said, "Okay."
Bradley smiled.
I looked down at Catherine as we stood up. "We'll be back in a little while," I said.
Catherine looked confused, and maybe a little bit hurt, but I stepped right by her and headed for the door. Bradley followed me, and when I turned around to look at him he was turned around looking at Fiona, who was glaring like a rabid cat, fangs and all.
Bradley grabbed the door for me, which was really awkward since he was standing behind me and had to reach across me. We stepped out into the night.
No one had turned on the porch light, and the sky was overcast and dark. Here we were. Me and Bradley. Alone, with only the still-audible beat pulsing behind us.
My heart beat overtime to match. "Did you want to come out here to talk about Haylee?" I asked.
He shook his head, and reached his hand under my elbow, guiding me closer to him. "Not unless there was something else you wanted to say."
Every thought whisked out of my mind, and I couldn't think of a single thing. And that's when I knew for sure that I wasn't there for Haylee anymore.
Bradley steered me toward the shadowed porch swing. A breeze blew across the front of the house, and I shivered.
Bradley ran a hand up and down my arm, which sprouted goosebumps, more from his touch than from the wind.
"Hey, are you cold?" Bradley asked.
"A little," I said.
I expected him to give me his windbreaker, but instead pulled me to him. We stood under the canopy of the swing, with the seat brushing our knees as it swayed with the wind. Bradley wrapped my arms around his waist, which felt taut under his T-shirt. Our stomachs pressed together, and he zipped his jacket against my back, so it held us together.
He had to be able to feel my heartbeat. I couldn't feel his over the pounding of mine. Wrapped in that way, my forehead rested naturally against his collarbone. My body knew how to fold against him, even if my brain was ringing five alarms telling me to get out of there.
Everything's Fine Page 7
