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I’m poison.
Tony is poison, too.
I start walking toward him—all the people…pushing past them—and he drifts into the other room. The dancing room. My throat is so tight I can’t swallow. Soren is smart and my mom is always okay. It’s Elise that’s in my head. She is my head.
I stalk Tony through the dancing room and into the hall. Crowded and it smells like flowers. He’s with other people, and I recognize where they’re all going. They go up the elevator, and I keep my distance. Wait my turn. I’m so sweaty with my hand inside my pocket, I feel like there’s a light over my head that’s flashing: danger, danger.
I’m not danger.
I was never danger, that’s the funny thing. I let Dad say those things and hit me because I knew he was sick. I hardly hurt most times and words don’t mean much.
Her lips, brushing my cheek… Her eyes as she looks up from between my legs. For a moment, I can feel her, I can feel us, I can feel the fortifying weight of all the love that lives between us, and it makes a whole world.
I’m about to shatter that world.
The coat closet with the door into the hidden hallways is a front. Alesso told me. Coats aren’t ever hung there. It’s just an entryway to all the other parts, the hidden places no one should be going.
I wonder if anyone will think that this is worth it. I will think it’s worth it. Even if my dad was a narc.
A second slips through my brain, this one shiny second where it’s clean and there’s no badness. I could turn back. That’s the message. But the second isn’t real, it isn’t right. I can see the blood on the stage, creeping over the uneven floorboards. I got Dad’s wallet somehow—don’t remember, but it’s soaked in blood. It smelled like blood, and little blood circles like faint stamps were smeared atop his debit card. I rubbed them off with my thumb.
Worthless. What is worthless? Only that which has no worth to you. It matters to me.
And I know how to do it. I know how to get to Tony. Same as anything else: you just do it.
I walk through the door behind the stairs. The Elise door, and I remember that still. I stoop low and then stand fully in the larger hall. I can hear them in one of the rooms. Maybe the black room. I don’t want it to be that room—but if it is, that’s okay.
I hear them talking in some room, and I’m relieved to find that it’s some sort of library. It looks a little like the dinner room, the steak room, the just the way I like it elemental room. See, I remember that. Even though I still feel really sick. I remember everything about that night.
Once I’m in the doorway it’ll be a train that’s taking off: no stopping. So I stand in the hall for some time.
I don’t feel good. Maybe I can still find some way to hold Elise. I would really like to do that.
I reach my hand back into my pocket. A breath that’s not enough, that goes by too quick. I’m aware of how cold my feet are as I move into the doorway.
A hush falls over the small group that’s gathered in there. Tony’s face is all I see. His eyes are wide as he looks at me. He says, “Hey, man,” but he’s scared. He looks at me like he’s scared, and then he looks around.
I take another small step toward him. “Tony—you’re a monster.”
Then I pull the gun out of my pocket, point it at him, pull the trigger.
You can feel a gunshot in your bones. In every cell, in every atom. There is no sound and no vision. There is no mind. In the silence after, everything starts on fast-forward. And it’s not real.
You can’t tell me that this is real. Maybe it was never real.
Someone tackles me. I hit the floor hard. I’m staring at the fancy ceiling. I smile at it, feeling proud.
Nobody’s ever going to hit me again.
Someone stands over me. “Go ahead and do it.”
“Do what?” the voice says sharply.
“Shoot me. I’m not scared.”
I think I’m ready to be free of all this.
Someone crouches down beside me. It looks like Elise’s dad. He’s telling me that I’m okay.
“Get up.” I open my eyes to Roberto. “Alzarsi,” he orders quietly.
I do—even though it hurts. I want to stand in front of him, to be more real when it happens. I look at him and then around the room, at all the tuxes.
“He shot my dad,” I offer.
Roberto moves toward me. For a bleary moment, I expect him to walk right through me. Then there’s hot fear as I wait for pain in my chest. Something presses to my ribcage. I look down, and it’s his hand. His hand goes around my side.
