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IT BECOMES DIFFICULT TO
avoid someone while simultaneously using
them. That’s Troy. I know he’s had a crush on me these past three months.
And I’ve been trying not to lead him on. Not too much, anyway. Still, he tells
us about every party that’s happening in a thirty-mile radius. And I don’t tell
him about how I had sex with his older brother back in September.
Not that I enjoy the parties all that much. But I enjoy losing myself. And
there’s always someone there. Ready, waiting. Waiting for something to
happen. Just like me. I’ve gotten good at picking them out right away. Finding
that someone. Not a bad person. Someone who just wants what I want. To
disconnect. For a little while, anyway. From themselves, mostly. I think. I
wouldn’t really know, though, because it’s not like we ever talk about these
things. It’s not like I really care, anyway.
That’s what I’m thinking about, lying on this lumpy futon next to some
guy. The bedroom window is open, and the winter air flows in easily, cooling
my whole body. I can almost see my breath.
“You’re that girl,” he tells me, propping himself on his elbow as he lights
up a joint. “I didn’t even realize it when we first started talking.”
I turn to face him, and see that he’s looking down at me with a grin.
“What girl?” I ask.
“Let’s just say people know who you are at our school,” he tells me as he
exhales a cloud of smoke. “People talk about you,” he says, his words slowing
down. “A lot.” He offers me a hit, but I shake my head. I haven’t smoked pot
since the playground with Troy. It turns out getting high really isn’t my thing.
This is my thing.
The smoke begins to fill the room, making me feel dizzy. I close my eyes,
and try to sink down into this moment a little deeper—into my body, my
mind—so deep I can come out the other side and forget how I even got here. I
can hear the muted shouting and music on the other side of the door. But it
can’t touch me in here, somehow.
“You know,” the guy says, reaching over to brush my hair back away from
my face, his voice pulling me away from this feeling. I open my eyes and try
to focus on him. “I can’t tell if you’re really pretty,” he continues so sincerely,
a soft smile on his face, “or really ugly.”
It’s like when you’re falling in a dream and you wake up, shocked back
into reality by your body hitting the bed with a crash. That’s what his stupid,
clumsy words do to me.
And in that instant an image forms in my mind, quick and fleeting.
Josh. I see his smile. Feel his sweetness. His arms around me. For just a
moment—just a flash. It disappears almost immediately. As soon as my
consciousness kicks in, he’s gone. But he was there just long enough and just
clear enough to jolt me, to shock my system with a surge of fresh heartache. It
leaves me with this sick underwater sensation, something dangerously close
to drowning. Josh would never, ever say anything like that to me, not even
after the way I treated him.
I sit up fast. I find my shirt and my pants. I get dressed. This guy lies there,
watching me, smiling at me.
“Where you going?” he asks, taking too long to realize what I’m doing.
“Where do you think?”
“I don’t know,” he says slowly.
“Look, I realize you’re stoned, but you don’t say fucked-up things like that
to a girl you just had sex with!”
“What did I say? I said you’re really pretty, didn’t I?”
“No, actually that’s not what you said!” Leaving in a hurry was easier in the
warmer months. Now I have layers to keep track of—I pull on my boot laces
with force as I tie them in a double knot.
“Oh.” He laughs.
I look at him before I leave. He’s just lying there shirtless, grinning, and
oblivious. “You know, I can’t tell if you’re really mean or really stupid!”
He cracks up at that. “You’re so funny,” he’s saying as I’m closing the door
on him, stepping out into the noise again.
Fuck off.
There are too many damn people crammed into this house. As I squeeze
through the bodies, people look at me and I wonder if they all know me as
that girl
too. I find Mara in the basement. She’s sitting between Troy and Alex
on a dusty old couch. Mara’s talking. Alex isn’t listening. She acts like she
likes him when we’re at these parties—lets him put his arm around her
shoulder, and she’ll touch his leg with her foot, kiss him good-bye before we
leave—but I think she’s just using him too. The only time she even mentions
his name is when she’s around Cameron. Still, after all these months of
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