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I swipe my water bottle out from under the papier-mâché clown fish and take a swig, the burn already intoxicating as it courses down my throat. Just the taste eases my nerves.
“I’m going to kill him,” Krysten gripes.
His eyelids are hanging low. I almost laugh. Poor girl.
“Wait until after V-Day,” I tell her. “You need a date.”
&nb
sp; She has to hang on to him for ten more days, at least.
Taking the bottle out of my hands, she throws back a swallow as I grab her shirts and toss them to waiting hands.
Music and laughter surround us, the confetti gun shooting another bomb into the air—blue, pink, silver, and gold fluttering like snow.
“God, that stuff is good.” She hands me the bottle back. “Goes down like water.”
“As long as you don’t drink sixty-four ounces a day, got it?” I joke, taking one more drink and capping my new favorite brand of vodka, the perfect liquor to be disguised in my Evian bottle.
She scrunches up her face in a funny smile, her apple cheeks perfect, and long, chestnut hair in a messy bun on the top of her head.
“What would I do without you?” she teases.
I chuckle. “The only thing any of us need is a little love…” I lean in, whispering, “from the right bottle.”
She laughs, and we both hop down from the float, leaving Amy to man it, while we join the girls in the last chorus of the dance.
My head floats a few feet above my neck, the “help” we just drank giving me just the right buzz that I’ll sweat off in twenty minutes, but enough to put a spring in my step.
Callum and Milo follow us, Callum watching me move as I step and tease him with my eyes. Little girls cheer us on, looking up at me like I’m something, while a couple guys hover close together, staring at me and whispering between them.
I move in ways our facilitator will certainly hear about on Monday, but I don’t care. I rub in their face something they’ll never get.
Because even at twelve, strutting down a pageant stage in a bikini, I knew what my power was. There’s no confusion.
“We love you, Clay!” some of my classmates scream as I lead the group and finish the dance.
I close my eyes, soaking up all the phone cameras recording us and the pictures that will survive of Clay Collins long after I was gone. Images that will show who I am far louder than I can ever tell.
Homecoming Queen.
Prom Queen.
Cute, while my looks last, and Omega Chi Kappa sweetheart.
That’s me.
I open my eyes, immediately seeing myself in the window of a parked car at the curb. I bring up my hand, pushing the lock of blonde hair back in place.
We all have to be something, I guess.
• • •
“Are you sure you have to go?” Krysten says from the back seat of Callum’s Mustang. “Have you even slept the past twenty-four hours?”
I climb out of the passenger side seat and shoot her a look as Milo sits next to her, hanging his arm around her.
I slept last night. Minus a couple hours to finish readying the float.
