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“To ahigh schoolparty?” Cassie scoffs. But her gaze wanders to me, and I can see the conflict reflected there.
“I’m nineteen, not thirty,” Josh retorts.
Cassie holds my gaze, and I can see the silent question hovering.
“Marcus is the youngest of five,” I inform her. “There will probably be some older kids there.”
After another moment of hesitation, Cassie nods. “Okay, you can come,” she tells Josh. He grins. “But if you embarrass me, I’ll tell Mom and Dad some things that will make their current argument look tame, got it?”
Whatever she’s threatening Josh with must be pretty bad, because he nods furiously. The three of us pile into Cassie’s car, and she immediately turns the stereo up, assaulting our ears with some pop ballad about a broken heart. I don’t know if she’s trying to prevent Josh from speaking or keep me awake, but she accomplishes both as we whizz along the empty roads.
More than awake, I feel…normal. Listening to a song about making an ex pay while headed to a party with a friend might be commonplace for most high school girls, but for me it’s a rare event. Exceedingly rare. I savor the feeling as best I can while simultaneously feeling like I might keel over from exhaustion, despite the fact I’m already sitting.
I give Cassie directions for a while, but stop bothering once we turn on to Marcus’s street. It’s obvious where we’re headed toward. The actual house is quiet, with only a couple of lights on, but the path to the right of it is lined with cars, and the sound and sight of activity is evident through the trees as we all climb out of the car.
There are a few other groups arriving at the same time as us, and I attract a lot of stares as we walk along the mowed path. I’m not sure if it’s simply because I’m here, or if it’s because I’m here with the “new girl” and a strange guy, but it’s annoying either way.
Josh notices. “You a local celebrity or something, Lennon?”
“Or something,” I mutter back as we emerge into the clearing. And that’s all it is. A large patch of browning grass ringed with trees and filled with people.
This is it?I can’t help but think.
For years of Monday mornings, I’ve heard about the wild Friday nights that take place here. The stories I’m accustomed to hearing don’t seem to fit with the scene in front of me. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this. I feel strangely let down; like an illusion has been shattered.
Cassie takes in my lackluster expression and laughs. “Come on. Let’s get a drink and try to find Will.”
“I’ll catch up with you guys,” Josh says, before heading toward a group of girls.
Cassie tracks his movements closely as we head in the direction of the two kegs perched on the periphery of the clearing, next to the few cars fortunate enough to avoid being parked on the sloping path.
“He better not embarrass me,” Cassie mutters as we walk along. I don’t answer, busy taking in my surroundings.
I study each group closely as we pass them by, feeling like an anthropologist sent to observe a foreign culture, rather than a high school senior in the midst of people I’ve known since kindergarten.
Although, the peer I’m most concerned about encountering has only attended the same school as me since ninth grade.
I scuff my sneakers along the tufts of grass, interspersed with dirt patches worn by decades of teenagers partying at this very spot.
“Come on, Lennon,” Cassie urges, finally losing patience with my pace and grabbing my hand to tow me along faster. “Try not to look like you’re being tortured just by being here, please.”
I paste the widest, fakest smile I can muster on my face as she drags me past a couple making out against the truck parked closest to the keg.
Cassie laughs at my expression as she fills two plastic cups with beer. “Much better.”
I drop the fake smile and try to muster a real one as I take a long sip of the cold, frothy liquid filling the cup she hands me. The malty smell is strangely comforting, reminiscent of lazy Sunday evenings spent sprawled out on the living room rug studying while Gramps nursed a bottle of beer until it was lukewarm at best.
“Let’s go over to the bonfire to wait for Will,” Cassie suggests.
“Okay,” I agree, feeling a little less like an outsider with a red cup in hand and hops coating my tongue.
The power of peer pressure.
I spin around to follow Cassie toward the roaring flames, and then the next few seconds seem to happen in slow motion. My left foot catches on something—an errant stick, or maybe an empty beer can—and I’m suddenly off-balance, falling forward when I want to be upright. I take a quick half-step to right myself, and watch in horror as beer sloshes out of my full cup and drenches one half of the couple kissing against the truck.
The person I soak turns out to be Madison Herbert. The girl who, as she’d be the first to tell you, is considered Landry High’s most popular is now dripping with beer, courtesy of my clumsiness.
Despite the fact she ranks quite high on the long list of people I don’t like very much, horror hastens my apology. “I’m so sor—” The last word dies on my tongue when I realize who she was kissing.
