“Is Cody going?”
“I can text them if you want.”
Tai was less likely to abandon Ellory if her partner wasn’t there to distract her. Ellory shook her head. “Just you and me, please. I’ll change. I’ll go. But if I’m not feeling it, you’re bringing me right back here.”
Tai brandished her pinky, and, laughing, Ellory hooked hers around it. She packed up her things and headed back to her room, where Stasie and several of her freshman friends were bundled like sardines on her bed, watching a reality show. The only light was from the laptop screen and the silvery moon stretching through the hole in the blackout curtains. None of them looked Ellory’s way, which was good, because she was pretty sure her eyes were bloodshot and her cheeks were sallow. It would take a lot of makeup and maybe a late-night coffee to get her in the partying spirit.
Then again, she hadn’t been toanyparties since classes hadstarted. Her nights off were spent studying, and casual invitations had dried up after orientation week had ended with core groups and friendship circles clearly delineated. Maybe Tai was right. Maybe this was exactly what Ellory needed. And if it wasn’t, then at least she had a guaranteed ride home and could probably sneak some snacks out in her purse.
4
“I’d like to go back now,” Ellory said, her arms folded. “This is a waste of a dress, and you damn well knew what you were doing.”
She couldn’t believe that she’d worn her most club outfit—a long-sleeved metallic-black minidress with sheer mesh between the bust and the skirt, and a pair of black heels she could kill a man with—only for Tai to drive her off campus to a house that belonged to none other than Hudson Graves. Ellory hadn’t known that Hudson was somewhere inside by looking at it, of course. Her obsession—and in the dark of the car with only the stars to witness, she could admit itwasa bit of an obsession—didn’t extend that far. Tai had instead shut off the engine and admitted this little proviso in quick, jumbled words, and Ellory was having none of it.
On top of all that, she was clearly overdressed. The house was a flat-topped two-story redbrick building with five white columns that held up a gray box gable roof over the porch. People spilled out onto that porch and the dying lawn beyond, chatting over the pounding of music with a lot of bass. Everyone was carrying soda bottles that clearly did not contain soda, or narrow-necked flasks incrumpled paper bags, and they were dressed like extras on a teen drama, all flannel shirts and crewnecks, ripped jeans and ankle boots.
“Let’s go inside,” said Tai, affecting a pout. “Just for like five minutes.”
“You promised you’d take me home if I wasn’t having fun.”
“We’rein the car.”
“And I’m not having fun!”
Tai’s pout grew even more exaggerated. “It’s a big house, Lor. You probably won’t even see him.”
“Oh, I will,” Ellory said darkly. “I’m unlucky like that.”
Sometimes Ellory imagined herself and Hudson as magnets with opposing ends, but the universe seemed to think them more like nuclear fusion, binding together with explosive results. The house could be two stories or ten, the yard could be ten acres or twenty, and she and Hudson Graves would find each other. The only real question was when.
“At least give me your flannel,” she finally relented, after five long minutes of Tai sulking in the driver’s seat without turning on the car. “I can still make this work.”
It was oversize and plaid, the deep red of Baldwin apples. Ellory slipped it over her shoulders and tied it in a knot beneath her breasts, making her look less like she was standing in line at a nightclub and more like an actual person. Her heels and cat’s-eye makeup, she could do nothing about, but she finally got out of the car.
Music drowned out the New England night, so loud that Ellory was shocked the neighbors hadn’t complained. A light wind stirred her halo of curls, but it was a warm breeze like the dying breath of summer. Yellow-green bushes clustered in front of the building, some tall enough to partially cover the ground-floor windows.Between their stems, she could see crowds gyrating in flickering neon color.
In the corners of the house, shadows bubbled like fresh tar. Ellory blinked once, twice, three times, but she could still see that teeming darkness spilling across the lawn, flooding every inch that wasn’t illuminated by porch lights. It oozed closer and closer to where she was standing, indifferent to her racing heart. She was outside a house party, but it was like she was in a painting and someone was taking varnish to the colorful details, leaving her alone in the void. The music had been replaced by the buzzing of a thousand bees, and she couldn’t see anything but the wicked dark and the crouching building that now seemed farther away.
Hands grabbed her shoulders. A scream tore from her throat.
“Whoa, whoa,” said Tai, raising those same hands in surrender. “I didn’t mean to scare you. You zoned out on me for a second there.”
When Ellory looked back, the shadows were harmless and still. The only sound she could hear was the pulsing music.
It had all been in her head.
It had all been in her head.
Breathing hard, she dragged her gaze back to her confused friend. “Sorry, I thought I saw—sorry.”
“Sounds likesomebodyneeds a drink.”
Tai linked their arms and dragged her through the front door. The walls were baby blue. The spacious floor was gray wood. That was all the detail Ellory managed to gather around all thepeople. Either the students of Warren were starved for entertainment, or Hudson Graves really knew how to throw a party, because there was hardly any room to navigate the living area. People were tucked into corners, talking, laughing, or making out. Others were swaying tothe music, half of them too drunk to remain on beat. A group cheered one another on as they took turns chugging cups of who knew what. Someone was fast asleep on the long side of an L-shaped couch. On the other side, someone else—a friend?—texted, pausing only to glare at anyone who came too close.
Ellory’s first and last college party had been during orientation week, in one of the residence halls with a dining hall on the first floor, and it had involved mild property damage and a warning from the resident manager. By comparison, this was wildly boring. Too loud to think, too crowded to stand out, too tame to worry.
She loved it. In this chaos, she could breathe again.
