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But it’s not about me.
It’s my reaction she’s scared of.
She knows damn well if she stands off that couch… she’s breaking her promise. The one she made me at the back-to-school party months ago. I’d caught her popping a molly and pulled her aside. Told her I didn’t recognize my best friend anymore.
She promised never to touch the hard stuff again, then fed me a bunch of excuses about feeling peer pressured and losing herself trying to fit into Finn’s world.
I bought every word.
But she can’t pull the Finn card anymore.
If she goes with Lacey, it’s on her.
“Dia, move your ass, will you?” Lacey tugs on Dia’s sleeve. “We have like five minutes before Axel gives the shrooms to Finn’s brother.”
Dia doesn’t budge.
Annoyed, Lacey whines a squeaky “D, come on! It was your idea!”
Then Dia rises off the couch.
And my heart cracks a little. It’s one thing to get dragged into Lacey’s whack plans. It’s another to literally come up with the plan.
As if she can sense my disappointment, Dia stops in her tracks, and I rejoice, foolish enough to believe that she might be having second thoughts. That the Dia who used to pick me up from work every summer before I got a car just because she felt like it is still somewhere in there.
“Vee, I…” Dia stares at me with the same guilt-ridden eyes as she did the night I confronted her about drugs.
“It’s fine, I’m leaving anyway.” I push to my feet.
“Vee, wait,” she calls, but I’m already tearing through the crowd. I’m storming out of Theo’s house a minute later, my throat throbbing with pain, and booking it down the sidewalk by foot. I don’t have the slightest idea of how I’m going to get home.
My mom thinks I’m crashing at Dia’s. I could just tell her we had a fight, but I’d have to call and wake her up at 1:00 a.m. so she can come pick me up from the party I lied about.
Any good deals on caskets this time of year?
Seeing as my house is in a completely different part of town, I pull up my phone’s GPS and enter my home address to check the distance from here.
Twenty-five minutes.
My chest inflates with relief.
Then I realize I’m looking at the time by car.
And the time by foot is nowhere near as reassuring.
Two hours and fifty-eight minutes.
Great.
Defeated, I shamble down the street, cursing my stupid small town for neglecting to host a cab company. Hopefully, I don’t get kidnapped. All lights are off, except for Theo’s house, and apart from the faint music emanating from the party, there isn’t a sound to be heard. Worry grips me when I spot a truck parked down the street.
Someone’s inside.
Just sitting in the dark.
Alone.
At one in the morning.
