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I hold out my hands. “I can get it.”
He passes my bowl back to me and I allow myself another look at his beautiful face. “I should be able to hold a fish bowl, even though I am drunk.”
He pushes a curl out of his eyes. “Where ya headed?”
I nod in the direction of our table.
“Over there with John and Nic?” he asks.
“How’d you know?”
He smiles again, this time smaller and more fleeting. “They’re good guys.”
“I’m too drunk to tell,” I confess.
Tears fill my eyes as I remember the voice on the other end of Elvie’s phone. I try to tell myself it’s nothing. Just some stupid fangirl. He’ll call me later tonight, after the ball drops.
“Trust me, then,” the guy says.
I blink, surprised anew by the gorgeous mug in front of me. I smile absently, imagining his lips on mine when the ball drops. My drunk self thinks, He’s much cuter than Elvie.
The guy’s hand is on my forehead. He presses a fingertip against my hairline. “Snowflake,” he says softly, looking at his finger, then at me.
“What’s your name, snowflake?” he murmurs.
“Gwenna.”
Part Three
“How much can you change and get away with it, before you turn into someone else, before it’s some kind of murder?”
— Richard Siken,
from “Portrait of Fryderyk in Shifting Light,”
War of the Foxes
ONE
Gwenna
November 8, 2015
I awaken to a troubling noise: one that’s loud enough to rouse me but forgotten when I crack my eyelids open. A smeary mess of colors winks above me... Twinkle lights. I blink up at them, wondering for a heartbeat if I’ve fallen back in time. But I remember: I hung new lights for Barrett.
Barrett!
As if on cue, the sounds of retching reach my ears. I sit up, feeling dizzy. He’s not in my room. The harsh, strained sounds are coming from the bathroom.
“Shit.”
The horrible sound fills my ears as I cover the ground between my bed and the bathroom door. The toilet flushes as I pull it open.
I find Barrett’s big, nude body curled around the toilet bowl. He’s got one of his arms around the seat, his face resting in the triangle between his bicep and his forearm.
His hair and skin are damp, his shoulders pumping as he pants. A long look shows me that his skin is pocked with goose-bumps, and he’s shaking slightly.
“Bear?” I drop down beside him.
