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My costume is hasty, and I barely care how I look. The mask I’d bought is in place, along with my tail, and I have a skirt on over my tights that are way too light for the weather. So is my tight, zip-up shirt with a cut out across my sternum and collarbones, but I just shiver and do my best to hurry in my platform wedges toward the house where the party is.
I really, really don’t want to be here.
But anything is better than being alone right now. All of me would rather be at the boys’ door, banging on it and waiting until one of them lets me in. I’d rather have Rory’s hands in my hair and Phoenix’s mouth on mine, neither of them being shy about how much they want me.
But I’m here instead, to prove a point to myself that I don’tneed themjust because my day has been derailed and I don’t know what to do with myself or my feelings.
“Fuck,” I mutter, rubbing my arms as I walk into the house. I never go to things like this alone, and thankfully my shoes don’t stick to the floor, even as the smell of cheap beer invades my nose unpleasantly.
A girl grins and makes her way over to me, slinging her arm over my shoulders and making my teeth grit even as I try to give her my friendliest smile.
I hate being touched by people I’m not comfortable with. Especially when my emotions are running high and I just need a moment to think.But she doesn’t care. Not when she tells me how glad she is I’ve come, or steers me into the kitchen, where all the alcohol is lined up on the gross kitchen table half-covered by a stained white cloth.
“You never come to my parties,” Frankie giggles in my ear, pressing her face to my shoulder. “What made you change your mind this time?”
Desperation.The word tastes bitter on my tongue, and I swallow it down painfully, the sharp edges of it slicing along my chest as it goes down. “I just really wanted to,” I lie, flashing her a smile that I don’t feel. “Come on. Invite me enough and I’ll show up,eventually.”That’s not true. Invite me out enough and I’ll make sure you lose my phone number is much more like it. But she, in her tipsy state, accepts the stupid explanation and pours me a cup of something that might be charitably called punch, if the barely orange color of it is anything to go by.
“Just have a good time, okay?” Frankie giggles in my ear. “You always look like you need it.” It’s clear what she means by the way her eyebrows wiggle up and down, but a second later she’s gone, attaching like an octopus to someone else who has the audacity to walk by.
My phone rings, but I don’t move my hand toward the pocket in my shirt, knowing that it’s just Nic trying to call me for the eightieth time. Instead, I busy myself with staring at the punch, wondering if it’ll poison me if I drink it.
“Well, things can’t get worse,” I mutter, and down the contents of the red solo cup within a few swallows, shuddering as it finally goes down.
Yeah, punch would’ve been a compliment the drink doesn’t deserve. Sure, there’s something in there that tastes like it was once orange juice. And maybe some kind of other fruit juice, too. But the overwhelming taste of straight vodka overpowers everything, to the point where I can’t help the full body shudder that goes through me.
But with nothing else to do, I frown at the bowl of punch and consider getting another. It’s not like anyone’s here to stop me, or drag me away, or make this night somehow not as bad as it’s been.
“Bailey?”
My eyes close at the soft voice, and I groan behind my mask. Apparently, thereisa way to make this night worse, and I have a feeling that either this punch is laced or Ava is standing right behind me.
Fingers tightening to dimple the plastic of my cup, I swivel on my platforms to look at her, eyebrows arched behind the mask that apparently isn’t doing enough to hide my face.
Sure enough, Ava is there. Alone, and not dressed in a costume, she stands leaning against the kitchen counter, her blue eyes on mine before I look away. Her dark hair looks less perfect than usual, with some of her curls not quite ironed out to their normal curtain-straight perfection. She also looks like she’s been crying.
“What do you want?” I mutter, now really wishing I had more to drink. But thankfully it doesn’t take much to fix that, so by the time I lean against the wall, my shoulder blades pressed uncomfortably to the white plaster like she’s somehow trapping me here, I have more of the god-awful punch to focus on. “Last I checked, we weren’t friends.”
“Nic said you were thinking about coming to the hospital today.” Her voice almost wavers, but she crosses her arms like she can hide the unsteadiness I hear there. “She said maybe that you were upset at her and Nolan for visiting him.”
All I can do is blink at the contents of my cup, wondering why in the world my best friend was spilling my words to one of the people I hate most on the planet.
“Things like this…” She takes a breath, then lets it out, and continues slowly, “I know you don’t like me. I know you’re not a fan of Evan anymore, either. But this isn’t some stupid shit, Bailey. He almostdied. He was almost murdered, like Jack and Emily. And we were your friends.”
“This is an interesting argument coming from you,” I point out blandly. “Since I definitely don’t remember you or Evan crying at the side ofmyhospital bed.”
“That was different.” She’s quick to defend herself, voice placating. “That was a long time ago. We werekids,Bailey. It was an accident. Can’t you see that?”
All I can see is the bottom of my plastic cup and, occasionally, the inside of my eyelids when I close my eyes and count to three, so I don’t say something too unkind.
“We’re not friends,” I tell her at last, intent on ending this conversation. “Not anywhere close. So I don’t know why you’d even want me to show up. I don’t know either of you anymore.”
“Because we didn’t do anything wrong.” She says the words quickly, then frowns, like she hadn’t meant to. “I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant to say. I just wish we could move past everything that happened. Back then, I mean. I thought we were friends.”
“Me too,” My words of agreement are too harsh, and too loud. My voice echoes off the plaster, making me wince at the severity of the sound. “Me too, Ava. I wassurewe were friends. But I guess I was wrong.” I mock-toast her with the cup, then toss it into the trash can. “I’m going to go vomit or something before I leave. If you’re here, I don’t want to be.”
I walk by her, only for Ava to reach out and grab my shoulder with fingers too-tight to be anything other than painful. She whirls me around, eyes wide, and steps in so she can say, “I know you know who’s doing this.”
My stomach plummets.
