Now we’re fifteen minutes away from Hargrove and I’m having a crisis about my black shirt.
Is it too plain? Too wrinkled? There’s a crease across the stomach from where I was sitting hunched over my sketchbook earlier. It feels like that single crease will be the reason Cinna doesn’t talk to me.
I pull my hoodie off over my head and stuff it between my knees.
Carter gives me a side glance and smirks. “You look good, bro. Don’t worry.”
I stare out the windshield, refusing to admit I care or give him the satisfaction. My reflection in the passenger window stares back at me—dark hair that I should’ve done something with, and shoulders I’m holding way too high. I force them down. They creep back up.
No, it’s all good. The distressed jeans are fine. The black T-shirt is fine. I’m fine.
(I’m not fine.)
Carter pulls into a lot behind a massive three-story house. The light from inside pours out of every window on every floor, turning the front lawn into a patchwork of gold rectangles on dark grass. We step out of the car and start walking. Music is thumping from somewhere deep in the house, and I can already feel the bass in the soles of my sneakers. People are clustered onthe porch and steps, spilling onto the lawn in groups of four or five. Everyone is holding cups, laughing and talking loudly.
I stop Carter before we reach the porch.
“Hold on.” My hands are shaky as I pull the joint from my back pocket. Dorien gave it to me yesterday and said it was “good shit.” I light it and take a slow puff. The smoke curls up past the porch light above us. The light catches it, turning it into a thin, twisting column of silver before it dissolves.
I offer the joint to Carter.
“Naw.” He waves it off. “You know I don’t like that crap. No offense.”
I take one more puff and stub it out against the porch railing. Honestly, I’m not sure I like it either. The looseness it gives my body is nice, but my thoughts are already too much, and the weed doesn’t help them.
We go inside.
The ground floor of the frat house is only bodies, which sounds like an awesome art piece: walls, floors, and ceiling made of people. It’s not like that literally, but it feels like it. People are crowded around us, and there’s the smell of spilled beer soaking into the carpet. A strobe light in what used to be a living room turns everyone into a series of freeze-frames, caught mid-laugh, mid-drink, mid-stumble.
The second floor is visible through the open staircase, with people leaning over the railing and yelling down at friends below. Third floor: I can see lights on up there but the staircase is roped off with a bungee cord, which means either someone lives up there or something happened up there that nobody wants to talk about.
The light is nauseating. Overhead fluorescents in the kitchen, colored bulbs in the main rooms, and the strobe cutting through everything. My eyes can’t focus anywhere because nothing stays lit long enough.
Carter seems completely unaffected and fits right in.
Within ten minutes he’s found a cluster of guys (bros) and eased himself into their circle so seamlessly that I’d think he’d been part of the conversation from the start. The guys all have muscular physiques and backward caps. I linger on the outskirts, listening to them talk about the swim team’s qualifying times. Carter matches their energy, which is loose and easy, cracking jokes that everyone thinks are hilarious.
I wonder how my life might be different if I was more like my cousin?
I’d probably have a girlfriend by now, or I’d get to experience “playing the field” like Carter does.
I smile at him, or rather this new side I’m getting to witness. At home, he’s kind of like a sun, everyone quietly orbiting around him throughout the day. At Alaria, he’s the easygoing bridge between any problem, the one who diffuses tension before anyone notices there was a problem.
But here, at Hargrove, he’s one of the guys. He’s louder (as if that were possible), and his whole body takes up more space. He gets attention without commanding it, and two of the bros are nodding like he’s saying super insightful things about sports.
I admire his ability to belong everywhere. I think it’s awesome. It also drops my mood because I have never once fit somewhere so completely.
One of the guys turns to me, just realizing I exist. “You Carter’s friend?”
“Uh, cousin.”
“Cool, cool. You at Hargrove?”
“Alaria.”
He nods, says “Nice” in a way that means nothing, and turns back to the group. I shove my hands into my pockets and let my eyes drift across the party.
I don’t see her.
