I fixed her a plate when dinner was ready, but I never got the chance to bring it to her because she came and got it herself. She whispered her thanks as she sat down at the dining table, her back to me. “What did you work on today?” I asked, taking my place across from her.
She cut a piece of broccoli in half and poked her fork into it without looking at me. “Math and social studies.”
“Do you need help?” I asked. I pushed a piece of chicken into my mouth that was a tad larger than it should have been. I realized I was ravenous.
“No. I finished.”
I chewed for a long time so I could speak. “Alright,” I said, swallowing my food. Then I slipped my phone out of the pocket of my skirt and sent a text to Dani.
Me: Can’t go tonight. Parents aren’t going to be home and I can’t leave Grace. Sorry!
I wasn’t really sorry though. The last place I wanted to spend my Friday night was at Tyler Jenkins’ house. My phone dinged and I glanced at the screen.
Danika: You can’t be serious, May! I HAVE to go tonight! Please don’t abandon me!
“Oh my God, you’re such a drama queen,” I grumbled, turning my phone over to ignore it. It just kept dinging.
Danika: May, please! Can’t you find a babysitter?
“Hey, girls!” Dad announced. He stood in the front doorway, sunlight chasing him inside as he sat his briefcase down.
I shot myself with my imaginary gun as I typed another text.
Me: Looks like I’m coming after all.
Two
I HELD A COUPLE bobby pins between my teeth as I twisted my hair into a bun, pushing them into place to keep the unruly wisps in the front under control. I sighed at my appearance in the mirror. It wasn’t that I wanted to dress up for this stupid party; I just couldn’t remember the last time I wore something remotely pretty, and I wanted to make the best of it if I had to go. I spritzed my hair with hairspray and put the finishing touches on my lipstick before resting my hands on the waist of my simple green dress. The color made my red hair and green eyes pop.
“Going somewhere tonight?” Dad asked.
I slipped my feet into a pair of nude flats and looked at him. He was leaning against my bedroom door in his scrubs, his eyebrow cocked. “A board game party,” I explained tepidly. “Nothing exciting. I promised Danika I would go.”
“Will there be drinking at this board game party?”
“Nope.” I smiled stiffly. “It’s going to be pretty boring. No teenage drunkenness here, I promise.”
He pushed himself off of my door frame and nodded, narrowing his blue eyes at me. “Alright. Be home by eleven. No later.” He pointed at me with a stern look, but I knew him. Any time Dad was stern, it was a façade. Mom was the real rule enforcer.
“Eleven. Got it.” I sighed as I picked up my purse. After digging my keys out of it, I brushed by him. He still smelled like the hospital. “Honestly, I doubt I’ll make it that long.”
“Well, have fun.”
I glanced at my watch as I jogged down the stairs. It was already almost seven. I knew Danika would be squirming with anticipation and whining about my tardiness the moment I pulled up to her house, but she would live. I unlocked my Jeep and tossed my purse onto the passenger seat before slipping my key into the ignition. “You owe me, Dani,” I muttered. I then backed out of the driveway, ready to get my friend duty over with.
* * *
TEN MINUTES LATER I pulled to a stop by the curb in front of her home. Danika was already waiting there in a short skirt and red cardigan, her arms crossed as she approached the door to pull it open. “We’re going to be late,” she whined in dismay, shutting the door. She sat her Coach bag in her lap and buckled her seatbelt.
“But fashionably so,” I retorted, winking at her. “You look pretty, Dani.”
Her annoyance seemed to melt away a little as her shiny lips softened into a smirk. “So do you. It’s too bad Addison couldn’t come tonight.”
I doubt she would have wanted to, I thought. Addison and I were pretty likeminded on most things, including our distaste for juvenile social obligations. Just because people our age were expected to act like idiots, it didn’t mean we had to. But if this party was going to be as tame as Tyler promised, then maybe it wouldn’t be quite so bad. “She’ll be home soon.”
“I’m more than a little jealous of her, I have to say.” Danika sighed as we merged into the flow of traffic. “Italy in the fall? Is that even fair?”
“I wish I could be there too, but I would say it’s fair. She’s earned it. I mean, her parents didn’t give her a dime for this trip. It was all on her; all money she earned so she could go and explore the land of her heritage. I just hope she can make up her schoolwork.”
“Pssh, what is schoolwork compared to Italy? Besides, she wants to be a dance instructor. That doesn’t exactly require a 4.0.”
Danika could sound so shallow without even meaning to. I sighed, flipping on my blinker to turn into Tyler’s neighborhood. Everyone lived close together on this side of town. “It is if she wants to be accepted into her school of choice. By the way, where are you considering?”
“Cosmetology school,” she shrugged, but then a grin broke out onto her face when she saw my disbelieving expression.
“You’re kidding, right?” I gaped. “I mean, I have nothing against beauty school, but is that what you really want to do?”
“Of course not,” she snickered. “But sometimes that’s the only thing I think I would be good at.”
“What about interior design? You’ve been talking about that for months now.”
She flipped down the visor in front of her and smacked her lips in front of the mirror, fixing a minor smudge. “You have to be good at math.” She closed the visor and eyed me with a sigh of dismay. “And we both know I’m not.”
“You could be,” I challenged. “You just don’t try hard enough.”
Her mouth fell open.
“I’m serious, Dani!” I looked at her as we turned another corner, taking us higher up the hillside of fancy lofts. “Nobody will give it to you straight, and that’s why I do. Sometimes you play dumb and it’s not very becoming.”
“How do I play dumb? That’s so mean!”
I pulled the car to a stop after squinting at the number on the front of a two-story, cream-colored condo. We were late, as we expected, but I took this opportunity to build Danika up in a way that nobody else would. “Look. You’re beautiful—the most beautiful girl at Ocean View. And beautiful girls sometimes play dumb because that attracts attention from guys who think they can show them the ways of the world. But we both know you’re not dumb. And honestly? When you act that way, I kinda want to punch you in the face. What kind of guy do you want anyway? Someone who just wants to use you and move on? Or someone who’s attracted to that brain of yours, which we both know is fully capable of impressing without any effort?”
She blinked at me a couple of times and reached for the buckle of her seatbelt. “Whatever, May. I’m not a genius like you. And I’m sorry, but you won’t attract anyone either unless you start caring about the way you look. Have you considered wearing mascara now and then?” she scoffed. “Let’s just go inside, alright?” She pushed the door open and climbed out onto the sidewalk, slamming it behind her.
I pinched the bridge of my nose, stifling the urge to tell her how ridiculous she was being. I wasn’t a genius. School was a struggle for me too. But Danika wasn’t the type to listen to criticism in the moment. She would get angry, and then think about it later. I knew tomorrow she would be telling me I was right, so I turned off my car and got out to follow her inside. She was already halfway across the yard.
“Wait!” I called, but she didn’t listen. I was beginning to wonder why I even tried to maintain a friendship with her. The door to Tyler’s home was open and I could already hear the beat of thumping bass along with victorious shouts from a group of guy—probably over one of those board games Tyler had mentioned.
But when I stepped inside, I saw that that wasn’t it at all.
Jacob, a junior, was chugging down the foaming contents of a clear, plastic cup. A table was set between two groups, a short mesh net dividing it into two parts. I had seen this game in a movie one time: Beer Pong.
“Hey! You’re here!” Tyler exclaimed, squeezing me into his side with one arm.
I moved away from him and pointed at the table. “Is this what you call a board game?”
He laughed a little too loudly. I could smell liquor on his breath. “Naw. The board games are in here,” he said, steering me into the dining room with his hands on both of my shoulders. Sure enough, a few kids from school were holding up Apples to Apples cards, laughing hysterically. Shot glasses were strewn about, not a single one full. The whole place reeked. It smelled like a skunk had moseyed into the house.
“Where are your parents?” I asked.
“In Portland for the weekend! But don’t worry, my dad already approved.”
“Did you happen to mention the booze you would be serving?” I noticed a guy sitting at the table with a joint between his fingers. “And marijuana? Seriously, Tyler?”
He chuckled and draped his arm around me, holding his index finger and thumb very close together while he squinted at them. “I might have told a tiny lie about that part.”
I tried to move out from under his arm, but he held me tighter. “Come on, May! Loosen up! Here, have one of these.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a tiny white pill.
I stared him in the eye. “What is that?”
“Just a disco biscuit, O’Hara! Do you ever pull your panties out of your ass?”
I shoved him off of me. “You’re disgusting!” I snapped, looking in all directions for Danika. I exhaled in relief when I saw her.
“There you are!” Danika trilled. She stepped into the dining area then with her fist balled in front of her. Her eyes shifted from me to Tyler and instantly she lit up like a bundle of Christmas lights.
“What is in your hand?” I demanded.
“I found it on the floor. I thought maybe someone dropped their medication?”
I pried her fingers open and took the pill out of her palm, and then marched into the kitchen to toss it down the drain. When I returned, I was forced to pass through a cloud of pot, and Tyler was standing a lot closer to her than before. She had her bottom lip between her teeth, her eyelashes fluttering seductively. I grabbed her wrist and yanked her out of the dining room, but she put on the brakes. “What the hell are you doing?” she snapped, yanking her arm out of my grasp.
“That was ecstasy, Danika!” I hollered. At least, that was what I thought it was. I just knew it wasn’t medication. “I told you if this party was wild, we were leaving.”
“I don’t want to leave. You’re going to have to go without me.”
She was mad at me from earlier; I knew that was contributing to her stubbornness. But I had to get her out of here. “We could get arrested!” I said, hoping that would bait her.
She didn’t take it.
“Dani, please! Let’s just go!”
She flipped me the bird and disappeared back into the dining room to be with Tyler. I had two choices: leave and let her find a way home, knowing she could possibly be tricked into taking drugs or worse; or stay and try to endure this cesspool until she would agree to leave with me. In that moment, I hated her. “You’re such an idiot!” I screamed, only to see several people fall silent and turn to look at me. Another round of cheering ensued at the beer pong table and everything went back to normal.
I couldn’t leave her here. But when this party was over, she was dead meat.
Three
I LEANED AGAINST the wall in the corner of the dining area, doing my best to shrink out of sight so that I wouldn’t be bothered while I kept an eye on Danika. None of our friends were here—none except for a few that I had only talked about the weather with. I couldn’t ask anyone to help me shove her into my car kicking and screaming. I briefly wondered why Tyler had invited two of the most straight-laced girls from Ocean View, but then I saw him watching me from across the room. Something in the way his eyes smoldered made me shrink even further, and I hugged my arms tightly around my waist as I diverted my attention elsewhere.
Danika shrieked. “Hands off, jerk!”
My eyes darted to and fro until I saw her marching out of the room. I squeezed between two guys with vodka bottles in their hands and followed her, weaving through the chaos until I saw her jog up the stairs. “Dani, wait!” I called. But of course she didn’t.
“Leave me alone, May!” she spat, veering to the left and into a bedroom to lock herself inside.
I pounded on the door, but I could barely hear her over the noise from downstairs. “We need to get out of here. Come on! Let’s just go home!”
No answer. Exhaling loudly, I placed my back against the door and closed my eyes. This was a nightmare. I couldn’t believe I had let her talk me into this. More than that, I couldn’t believe she was acting this way. “You’re acting like a child!” I shouted through the door. “You’re such a spoiled brat! When are you going to think about someone other than yourself, Danika?”
“O’Hara, are you alright?” Tyler asked, landing on the top step. “I saw you guys run out of there.”
He didn’t seem as drunk anymore, but his pupils were still wide as saucers. “I’m just trying to get her out so we can leave.”
“Ah, don’t be ridiculous,” he grinned around the words, stepping closer to me to hold out his hand. “Let’s just go back downstairs and play some Sorry. No drinking. Scout’s honor.”
“Go to hell.”
I turned away from him and went into the next bedroom I could find, but there were bodies moving around under the floral duvet. Disgusted, I kept walking until I found an empty room. I closed myself inside and welcomed a moment alone, catching my breath as my ears hummed from the lack of noise. The bass still thumped below though, and it was enough to make the pictures on the walls rattle.
I went to one of them because it seemed like it could fall off at any time, fixing it because I had nothing better to do. It was a picture of Tyler as a child, and he was kneeling next to a baseball bat, dressed in a red uniform.
This was Tyler’s room.
I groaned, sinking down to the hardwood floor beside his bed. I placed my palms on the cold surface below me and relished the temperature. This whole place was like a furnace: a smelly, rotten, drunken furnace. “What did I get us into?” I mumbled, pushing my hands fist-deep into my hair to grab it by the roots.
The door opened and in stepped Tyler. “Enjoying my room?” he smirked, strolling towards me. The open doorway let in more noise and that panicked feeling started to overwhelm me once more.
“Did Danika come out?” I asked sharply.
“Nope.” He sat down beside me. “Honestly, it’s for the best. Roland Peterson was groping all over her.”
I hadn’t seen the altercation, but it didn’t surprise me when I heard his name. The guy was known for his womanizing tendencies, and he was only one of many. If only the school board knew the types of shenanigans its students frequently partook in. Each member would have had a coronary. Or maybe they did know, and they just didn’t care.
I started to get up, but Tyler put his hand on my shoulder. “Just hang out! What are you going to do, go back downstairs and be miserable? At least it’s quieter up here.”
“It would be quieter if you left.”
A grin spread across his face and he folded his arms over his bent knees. “I like you, May. You don’t pull any punches. It’s refreshing. And this is my room, you know.”
I glared at him. “There’s no point in being fake. So here’s some honesty, Tyler: you’re an asshole. Your party? It sucks. I would rather eat the crap of a worm-infested rhinoceros than endure another five minutes in this hellhole.” My nostrils flared after my rant.
Tyler clapped his hands, applauding me slowly,
yet emphatically. “Well said! And you’re not wrong. I am an asshole.”
“An enormous one.”
We looked at each other for a long moment as a smirk tugged at both of our lips. Try as I might, I couldn’t help it. This whole situation was just so absurd. And Tyler may have been an asshole, but at least he wasn’t trying to seduce me like he did with so many other girls.
“So what’s your favorite color?” he asked.
“What?” I scowled, confused.
“What’s your favorite color?” he asked again.
I shook my head. “No, I heard you. It’s just a weird question.”
“How is it weird? It’s a normal question: the kind of question you ask someone when you’re trying to get to know them.”
I rolled my eyes and crossed my legs in front of me. “I don’t care to get to know you, but it’s blue.”
“Blue.” He nodded. “Blue’s a good color.”
I smiled sarcastically and glanced around the room at his baseball trophy collection, still listening for Danika to come out of the room a few doors down. My fists were aching to strangle her.
“And what’s your favorite color, Tyler?” he said theatrically. “Thanks for asking, May! My favorite color is red.”
“You’re ridiculous,” I sighed.
“A little stoned, perhaps. But at least I’m entertaining you.”
“I don’t need your entertainment. I need this night to be over with.”
“Sorry my party is so disappointing.” He laced his fingers behind his head and rested back against the mattress. “What’s your favorite subject in school?”
I blinked slowly, trying not to grind my teeth hard enough to make them break. “Science.”
He didn’t say anything in response so I reluctantly peeked at his side profile and inhaled a deep sigh. “And yours?”
“English, I think.” His tone had turned serious, and he avoided looking at me. “I love poetry.”
I eyed him skeptically. “You like poetry?”
“Love,” he corrected. Then he went on to quote Shakespeare: “Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.”
Choice Page 2
