One of them eyes me, a boy in a green shirt with blond hair and a nose ring. He’s standing only a couple feet away, his mouth sagging open, and he looks like he’s trying to speak but his soupy mind can’t form words.
I shouldn’t have come, I think suddenly. This was a bad idea.
I start to turn away, to weave back through the crowd, when I see her: Suzy. And my stomach sinks.
She staggers toward a set of stairs and grips the railing, leaning against it, smiling. She’s drunk. And the same rush of guilt pours through me.
I bite down on the urge to flee, and instead cross the room toward her, threading through the crush of boys. The boy in the green shirt and nose ring winks at me but still doesn’t speak—his voice lost to the booze. Another boy with freckles, smoking a cigar he surely pilfered from the house, arches his eyebrow at me and says, “Hey, moon girl.” A few others glance my way but don’t say anything. Maybe they’re afraid of what I might really be. That the rumors might be true.
Suzy’s cheeks are flushed pink when I reach her, and in her hand is a silver beer can. She sloshes a little onto the floor when she sees me, pushing away from the stair railing. “You came,” she says flatly, as if I received an invitation—foil-embossed card stock delivered in the mail, covered in glitter.Please join us for a winter bash at the Wilkinsons’ home. Just let yourself in, because we sure will.
“You guys shouldn’t be here,” I say. “This is someone else’s house.” It’s not what I intended to say, not at first. I meant to apologize. Or say something about not knowing who to trust, about sleepless nights and finding the watch and that I didn’t mean to say she wasn’t my friend.
Still, Suzy grins widely—already forgetting our earlier fight. “Who cares,” she answers.
“The camp counselors are going to find out,” I add. “They’ll realize most of the boys are missing from their cabins.”
Suzy’s loose, mushy smile doesn’t break, her eyes watering with drunken happiness, and she laughs. “The counselors don’t care what the boys do,” she says, tossing a hand in the air. “It’s not like they can kick them out of camp—we’re all stuck here.”
Her eyes drift closed and whip open again. She frowns at me, like she just remembered how mad she is, that I’m the last person she wants to talk to.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” I say quickly. “I shouldn’t have said all those things. I’m just—”
A boy bumps into me, spilling dark liquid from a red cup onto my shoe. “Sorry,” he mutters, glaring at me like it was my fault.
He staggers away, toward the kitchen, and I turn back to face Suzy. “I’m just trying to figure out what happened,” I say.
She raises one sharp, pointed eyebrow, and I realize how tired she still looks, lids wanting to slip closed. “You mean, you’re just trying to figure out if your boyfriend is responsible?”
I breathe and look away from her, out over the crowd of boys. Someone is singing along to the music and his voice isn’t half bad, if it weren’t for the hiccups punctuating every few lines. “A boy is dead, Suzy,” I say, swiveling back to her. “And someone is responsible.”
Her mouth goes slack and she leans against the railing again. “Accidents happen,” she says, and she takes a long swig of her beer.
“What do you mean?” I step closer to her, breathing her alcohol-tinged breath, which is masked only slightly by her floral perfume. But she shakes her head and turns away, using the railing for balance as she wobbles up the stairs. “Suzy!” I call, but she’s already reached the top and disappeared down a hall.
Accidents happen.It’s similar to what Rhett said at the bonfire.
I glance back to the front door, still open from when I came inside. I should leave, go back home, lock the door, and wait for the snow to thaw—for the road to open and for everything to go back to normal.
But I don’t. I climb the stairs after Suzy. I go deeper into the house.
Maybe she does know what happened.
I pass two open doorways, bunk beds lining both rooms. A place for kids to pile into on balmy summer nights.
Muffled voices carry down the hall. The low chatter of boys talking.
I pause beside the last door, pressing myself up against the wall, listening.
“Your girlfriend’s drunk,” someone says from inside the room. Jasper, I think.The boys from the bonfire are here.He sounds far away from the doorway, though, across the room.
“Shut up, man,” Rhett answers. And I hear Suzy make a sound from her throat, like she’s offended.
“She shouldn’t be here,” Jasper adds.
“I’m not his girlfriend,” Suzy snaps finally. “And I can go whereverI want.” She sounds wasted and I can imagine the boys’ faces, sneering at her, rolling their eyes.
“You’ve told her too much,” Jasper continues. I can hear footsteps and I wonder if he’s moving toward Rhett. A warning or a threat, perhaps. “She just runs and tells everything to that witch friend of hers.”
