“No one could ever replace you.”
Kim gets off the bed and puts my crown on her head. Looking at our reflection in the mirror, I can’t believe we’re almost eighteen. I can see who she’ll be next year: college Kim, passing out flyers for the monthly women’s march on some prestigious campus, making out with an English major who has long hair and Converse shoes. But that guy will never be Cass. And the guy she marries will never be Cass, because the first person you fall in love with is always the first.
“You’ve never told me what happened that night,” Kim says, looking at me in the reflection.
“What night?”
“Aspen.” Kim pops her hip out.
I turn from the mirror and put on my dress. “Remember the first time you and Cass slept over?” I say.
Kim nods, adjusting the tiara to sit right on top of her head.
“I buried Paul,” she says in perfect imitation.
We stayed up all night listening to “Strawberry Fields Forever” by the Beatles over and over, just to hear the part at the end when John Lennon says, “I buried Paul.” Every time it happened, we’d scream like little kids in a haunted house. Then we fell asleep in my bed still fully clothed, three in a row. Ninny made at least a thousand jokes about me having a boy in my bed at age nine. But I never saw Cass as someone different from me, no matter the body parts. He’s always been my kindred spirit. Penis and all.
“What’s going to happen next year?” I ask.
Kim’s stance shifts. For the first time, I see fear in her eyes.
“I don’t know.” Kim puts the tiara back. “But I better have sex.” I elbow her and we both crack a smile. “You’d tell me if something is going on, right?” she asks, her eyes pleading. I don’t hesitate to nod. That fact makes my stomach sour.
“I still have the song, you know.” I scroll through the Beatles playlist on my iPod. Then Kim and I lie down on my bed, our heads touching. As the flute comes through the speakers and the Beatles’ voices spread across my room, it’s as if Kim and I are transported back to that night. Back to when a voice in a song was the scariest thing in the world and a boy and two girls sleeping in the same bed was innocent.
Right before Cass shows up, Ninny knocks on my door to check our progress.
“Is everybody decent?”
“When have you ever cared about that?” I smile at my mom.
“Aspen-tree, you look beautiful.” Ninny looks at Kim. “Kim, baby, you look like a mustard bottle.”
“Or a gothic banana.” I add.
Kim blushes, running her hands down the front of her yellow muumuu. “You guys are the best.”
“I almost forgot, baby. I made this for you.” Ninny holds out a bunch of baby’s breath flowers, their stems woven together to make a wreath. “Thought you might want to put it in your hair.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
When Ninny’s done fastening the wreath to my curls, she says, “There. Your look is complete, flower child.”
I run my fingers over the flowers. Tucked amongst so many curls, they almost get lost.
“My hair kind of resembles an untended garden,” I say.
“Flowers are meant to be wild, not pruned.” Ninny kisses my forehead and taps my butt. “Now will you two please help me with the pizza? If I burn it, we’re screwed.”
Cass shows up in a navy blue suit, two sizes too small. The pants land right above his ankles and the jacket sleeves are three-quarters length. The only thing that fits is the white button-down underneath and his red tie. His long hair is pulled back in a loose ponytail that hangs down his back.
“I had to borrow my dad’s stuff.” He shrugs.
“I like it. But where’s my corsage?”
“Shit. I forgot.”
“Well, now I really don’t have to put out for you.”
Once Jason shows up, Ninny snaps a few pictures with my phone before returning to the kitchen to watch the pizza. She takes it out a few minutes early so it doesn’t burn, leaving the crust a bit gummy. No one seems to care, especially not after Ninny sets out a bottle of red wine and tells us to “have at it.”
Cass stays mute for most of the dinner, taking big gulps of wine until his teeth are stained red. The only time he talks is when Jason gets sauce on his face.
“Dude, you have pizza sauce on your mustache.” Cass points at Jason’s upper lip.
“I don’t have a mustache.” Jason wipes his face with a napkin.
“That’s not what Kim said.” Cass smiles behind his glass.
“I’m about to go Dex Mayhem on your ass,” Kim bites back.
“What’s going on?” Jason asks, looking between the two of them.
“Nothing,” Kim and Cass respond together.
The conversation ends there. Ninny drives us all to the dance in her van, claiming she draws the line at drinking and driving.
“I was unaware you had a line,” I mock as we all climb into the car. Kim and I sit in the back on an actual seat, while Cass and Jason take the floor. Ninny looks like a proper chauffer with no one in shotgun next to her.
“What the hell is this?” Jason asks, pointing to the green stain in the upholstery.
“Dessert,” I say, my eyes fixed forward.
Colorful strobe lights keep the beat to the rap song playing inside the gym. It seeps past the door into the hallway. I grab Cass’s hand.
“Is it too early to leave?” I whisper.
“I don’t trust that douche.” Cass points at Jason, who’s bobbing his head to the beat. Jason puts his arm around Kim. She takes his hand off her shoulder.
“Touch me again and die.” She squints at him with her black-rimmed eyes and he backs up. “I need a drink of water.”
“I’ll wait for you in there, baby,” Jason yells. Without losing the beat, he bobs into the gym to shake it by himself.
“Baby? That guy’s an asshole,” Cass says.
My ears go fuzzy trying to adjust to the loud music in the gym. I look from person to person. All the pretty dresses and done-up hair.
“You wanna dance?” Cass yells, arms open wide.
“With you? Always.” Cass wraps his arms around me, like a ballroom dancer. “But it’s a fast song,” I say.
“My dad only taught me how to slow dance.”
“You smell good.” I stuff my nose in his shirt.
“All for you, baby.” Cass twirls me in circles, my dress billowing out around me, and then pulls me tight to him again.
“I’m still not putting out,” I say in his ear. Cass laughs as he moves me back and forth.
I rest my head on his shoulder and zone out. My gaze floats among the ruffles and ties and fancy hair. I find a boy dressed in brown corduroys and an un-tucked yellow collared shirt. No blue shirt. Ben even has his black and white Vans on. I pick my head up and rest my chin on Cass’s shoulder to watch Ben. He’s laughing next to Tom and Aiden. I smile and laugh along with him. And at this moment, it hits me that I need him.
“Aspen,” Cass says.
I need him like I need a shower every morning or sleep every night.
“Aspen, you’re biting me.”
“Huh?” I dislodge my teeth from Cass’s shoulder.
“Don’t get me wrong, that was kind of kinky, but my dad would kill me if I got spit on this suit.”
As I laugh, Hunter emerges from the crowd. His strawberry-blond hair flops into his lightly bloodshot eyes. He runs his hand through it, pulling it free, but the strands fall back into place, sticking in his eyelashes. “Mind if I cut in?” he asks Cass.
“Fair warning: She bites,” Cass says and I nudge him in the side.
“Awesome.” Hunter grins.
I grit a smile as Hunter whips me around the floor. He gives me a spin before pulling me against his chest. We bump together too hard and he steps on my feet.
“Sorry,” he says. “I’m clumsy.”
A subject and predicate? We’re making progress.
“That’s oka
y,” I yell over the music.
“You look hot.” Hunter’s voice sounds rehearsed, like he was planning to say that to me no matter how I looked. I grab Hunter’s hand, which is lurking dangerously close to my ass, and place it higher on my side.
The song changes to a faster tempo and Hunter picks up the beat, swinging his hips. I follow his lead. When he starts shaking his head from side to side and up and down, I do the same. The movement makes everything cloudy, the strobe lights a blurred rainbow on my vision. I close my eyes, letting the fuzz block my mind. I flail my arms over my head to the beat, until they tingle.
“This isn’t a drum circle, Aspen. It’s homecoming.” I open my eyes as Suzy bumps my hip. She fumbles to the side from the contact.
I smile at her honesty. “Thank you,” I say, and stop dancing.
“You have flowers in your hair. How pretty.” She pets my head.
“How many drinks have you had?”
She huff and holds up all her fingers. “I don’t know. A lot.”
“Cool,” Hunter says. “Got anything on you?”
Suzy looks down at her slim fitting aqua dress. “I can’t even wear a bra. Where would I put a drink?”
“Bra,” Hunter laughs.
Suzy squints at him. “Are you in Special Ed?”
“What?”
I yank Suzy away from Hunter, walking to the back of the gym. She stumbles from side to side. I hold her up and smile as we walk past Mrs. Calhoun, one of the chaperones, trying to give the illusion that Suzy isn’t completely wasted.
“Are you okay?” I whisper. Suzy’s breath stinks like rum and she looks pale.
“I don’t know. Everything’s kind of spinning.”
Before we can get to the bathroom, Tom Ingersol runs up to us.
“Hey gorgeous,” he says. He’s dressed in a navy blue suit, his faux-hawk unmoving. Tom’s clearly not sober either, because never once has anyone called me gorgeous. Plus his lips are curved into a goofy, sloppy grin.
“I hope you left your boyfriend at home. We are a couple, after all.”
“He knows about Isaac, too?” Suzy asks.
“Wait. Who’s Isaac?”
Suzy slumps closer to the ground. I yank her up. “Isaac Newton. We’re going to the bathroom.”
“Isaac Newton? Is he new?” Tom asks.
“No, he’s old. Very, very old,” I say.
In the bathroom, Suzy leans up against the sink, staring at herself in the mirror. Her eyes are wobbly, the lids hanging at half-mast. “Yep, I’m gonna throw up.”
She rushes into the stall and hangs her head in the toilet. I grab her hair, and close the door so no one can see Suzy having an extremely drunk moment that might get her suspended. When everything seems to have come out of her stomach, she sits down on the bathroom floor, her knees pulled up to her chest, showing her underwear.
“Did I ruin my dress?” she asks.
Other than a few wrinkles, it’s clean. “Just your dinner.”
“Thanks for holding my hair.” Suzy wipes her hand over her mouth.
“What are friends for?”
“I told you we would be friends.” Suzy grabs me around the neck in a hug, and I hold her back.
“Can we get off the floor now?” I ask after a few long seconds.
When we walk back into the gym, Ella is standing on the DJ stage, microphone in hand.
“Oh, God,” I say, and stop still.
“Can I have the king and queen up here?” Ella says into the squeaky mic.
“That’s you!” Suzy squeals, dragging me through the gym to the steps of the stage, which isn’t really a stage. It’s a platform holding the DJ’s setup, and it wobbles. Suzy gives me a push in the back.
“It’s time for our king and queen to dance,” Ella yells too emphatically into the microphone. People clap. I look out at the sea of teenagers, their hands smacking together, some enthusiastically, some not so much, like this is the stupidest thing to clap for.
Ella puts her hand over the mic and whispers, “Smile, for God’s sake. You’re queen.”
My lips part and I force my cheeks up. I’m pretty sure an “I have gas” smile is stuck on my face.
Ben meets me on stage and stands on the other side of Ella, his hands tucked firmly in his pockets, as the DJ starts a slow song.
“Act like you like each other. That shouldn’t be too hard.” Ella gives us an exaggerated, fake smile that makes me uncomfortable, and she puts the microphone down.
Ben seems to brush it off. “You heard the woman,” he says, pulling his hands free and extending one out to me.
“Don’t step on my feet.” I say as he leads me to an empty space on the dance floor.
One of his hands wraps around my back; his other stays firmly locked in mine. And then he pulls me to him, his chest pressed against me. I look down at our sandwiched bodies.
“I think they say it’s better to look up.”
“What?” I ask.
“For dancing. You’re supposed to look at the person.”
I force my eyes up to Ben’s face. An overwhelming sense that I desperately need to kiss his eyelids comes over me.
Ben steps back and forth, his eyes searching the gym over my head. If he bats his eyelashes one more time, I might start biting things again. I gnaw on my lip.
“You know what this dance is missing?” Ben asks.
“What?”
“Beta Particle. I haven’t heard them played all night.”
“That’s because homecoming is way too pedestrian for them.”
“Pedestrian: lacking inspiration or excitement.” Ben leans into me. “I’ve been studying my definitions.” He presses his hand into the small of my back. My heart pounds and I pull back a bit. “What’s wrong?” he asks.
“Nothing,” I choke out. Ben cocks his head to the side. “I was just wondering . . .” I pause. “What are the Ryans like?”
Ben stops dancing. My urge to bite things goes away. “They’re clean. Why?”
“Clean? What does that mean?” I ask.
Ben’s arm falls from my side. When that happens, I regret asking the question. “Mrs. Ryan was always picking up after Katelyn.” Ben’s voice is flat.
“That sounds kind of nice. Ninny never picks up after me.”
Ben wraps his arms around me again and leans down to my ear. “It wasn’t that nice.” Ben’s breath hits my ear. “Sometimes it’s good to be dirty.”
I swallow hard, my teeth clenching down.
“The flower crown suits you better,” he whispers.
I close my eyes and the people and music melt away. At this moment, if Ben asked me to clip his toenails, I would. Or give him a calf rub while he’s wearing his sweaty shin guards.
But when I look up, Olivia and Claire are staring at us, whispering. Olivia narrows her eyes on me like a girl aiming at a target. And she’s not the only one. The majority of the school has stopped dancing to watch the girl who lived dance with the perfect dead girl’s boyfriend.
Everything stops. The music. The dancing. The mingling heartbeats.
Before Ben can say anything, I leave him on the dance floor and run into the bathroom, locking the stall door. I can’t breathe. My head collapses on my knees, my eyes blurry, my body wanting to give out and fall on the floor.
When I look up, Katelyn is standing in front of me.
“Go away,” I whisper to her. But she doesn’t. She just stands, her mouth hanging open like she’s about to scream.
A fire burns so low in my stomach. I look Katelyn square in the eyes and say, “Fuck off.” I swing the stall door open. “By the way, Suzy just puked in there.”
CHAPTER 13
I text Kim and Cass to meet me outside. I stand in the cold, pacing. I can’t go back in there.
“Holy hot dancing,” Cass says when he and Kim come out of the school. “Did you bite Ben, too?”
“I need to rip some aliens’ heads off,” I say.
“Nothing’s
going on?” Kim pops her hip out to the side, her face scrunched up like she smells something rotten. “That’s not nothing. You were practically making out for the whole school to see.”
“Can we just get out of here?” I snap.
I stalk off as it starts to drizzle. They catch up to me. I can’t bring myself to say anything, so the three of us walk to Cass’s house in silence. I stomp my feet on the pavement. Every few feet, a flower falls out of my hair to the ground, wet and matted. Kim gives me suspicious looks the whole way, but doesn’t say anything else. She stops still at one point and says, “Shit. I totally forgot about Jason.” Then she shrugs. “He’s a fucking douche anyway.”
“A douche with a bad Asian mustache,” Cass corrects.
I open my mouth and let some rain fall on my tongue. It’s cold with the oncoming winter.
By the time we get to Cass’s, my feet are freezing and all the flowers have fallen out of my hair.
We stay up until four in the morning playing ExtermiNATION. I get pretty good at telling the aliens from the humans, and I even manage to rip a few heads off. After Cass falls asleep on the couch, controller in his hand, and Uma has picked up Kim, I slip out the back door and walk home as the sun comes up. Then I plop down on my bed and pass out in my dress.
When Ninny walks into the room the next afternoon, my head hurts. She tiptoes over to the bed and lies down next to me.
“You’re lucky I’m not a mom who cares about curfew,” she says.
“You’re lucky I’m not a teenager who cares—” I groan and roll over, “Do you really want me to finish that sentence?”
Ninny laughs, playing the drums on my ass. “The sun is up. The sky is blue. And there’s a cute boy downstairs for you,” she sings.
“What?” I sit up, my brains meeting my skull. Even my eyes hurt.
“That rhymes. I’m impressed with myself.”
“Focus, Ninny. Is someone here?”
“You should brush your hair.”
“That’s not an answer.”
She gets up. “Maybe we should try dreadlocks on you? I could have Mickey do it.”
“That’s not an answer!” I yell.
She just smiles and closes the door.
I check my reflection in the mirror. My hair is a mess: On one side, the curls are sticking out everywhere, and on the other, they’re matted to my head. “Oh God,” I mutter. I grab a pick and start pulling it through my hair, but it’s hopeless.
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