I had to give it to the organizers of the shindig. They were proactive.
The air was laced with alcohol, almost enough to blow up the fire if enough fumes made contact with the robust heat. Laughter and freedom were just as rampant as the illegal substances; apparently there’s nothing quite like the freedom of being parent-free.
Violet squished up her eyes and nose. “Always the life of the party, huh,Sandy?” She turned to her companion, a guy who I was willing to bet met or had surpassed the legal drinking age. “Want to dance some more, Ben?”
Ben bumped his head to the sound of the music in answer to her question.
I guess this was my problem. I always lost the dare. Once I was out and about in the real world, suddenly I wanted to run home. Once home, it never really felt like home. And once home doesn’t feel like home anymore, where do you go?
Back to the dare. Then the circle continued in much the same way. It was exhausting, and I found myself needing a nap.
Setting my red cup on the roof of lime-shot’s car, I turned my face up to heaven and closed my eyes. An image of my brother floated past, his smiling face like clouds rolling across the moon. I couldn’t bring myself to open my eyes. There were times when his memory seemed to come to me sharp like a knife in my heart, almost dragging me with him; other times, he came to me like a soft blanket over my cold body—gentle, comforting, making me smile through the pain.
Then there was the humming in my veins. That unexplainable sensation that had become such a part of me that most times I didn’t notice its existence unless I thought of it. But I refused to go there, even if the humming seemed to be getting louder in my ears.
The soft music playing in the background turned deafening. House Of Pain’s “Jump Around” blasted through the empty spaces, echoing for what seemed like miles around. The crowd started to howl and clap. Whatever was going on around me involved bodies crashing into one another. Guys were “oohing” in low tones when one body slammed hard into another.
My hands balled into fists at my sides. They were all disrespecting him, his memory. Just like they had done at his funeral, with all their excessive chatter and laughter at times.
How could they laugh?
Aunt Primrose had said they were keeping his memory alive, telling stories of how funny he was, how he was always the first to pull a prank.
I laughed bitterly at the thought.
How did they even find the energy to stand, to sing and dance? Didn’t they know he was gone? My brother, my best friend, was gone. He meant something to someone,to me.
I would never see him again. The realization of this fact overtook me, as it had uncountable times before, and constricted around my heart like a noose around a neck.
God, the music was too loud!
“Ooooof!”
I had no idea what had hit me until I was on the ground, looking up at the sky once more. One of the violent dancers must have gone for someone else and accidentally got me. Well, I hoped it was accidental. You’d have to be pretty low to hit a girl trapped in a tragic cage.
The energy it took to pick myself up eluded me, and it seemed like the party was still going strong, even with girl down. Mocking laughter floated above me.
The wind must have been knocked out of my lungs too, because I found it hard to catch air. I wheezed a bit, trying to gain a steady stream of oxygen. After what seemed like an eternity, but was probably only about two seconds, my body settled, taking in what it needed and had lacked.
I blinked. It took me a moment to notice two new faces standing over me. A man swooped me up like a rag doll, limp in his strong arms. The other guy took a step back, looking between the man—there was no other way to describe him, he had the most intense eyes I had ever seen—who had picked me up and the rest of the party. Theguyseemed to have a nervous twitch.
“You seem to be okay now.” The man who held me in his arms looked down at me, dark eyes full of concern and reflections of the fire. Flickering strokes of the surging bonfire lit up his features with a surreal vengeance. He was intimidating, almost overwhelming.
I looked up at him with eyes that felt too heavy for my face. I knew that voice, I knew those words, and that night came rushing back to me, knocking the breath out of me just as violently as the unexpected slam had.
Brando Fausti.
All I could do was nod.
He gently put me down on my feet, keeping one hand around my waist, and the other he used to dust some of the dirt off my blue velvet minidress. The long sleeves flared at the wrists, and they were caked with fresh-turned mud from the stampede of feet in the undeveloped area. My black stockings had gaping holes, exposing wide areas of skin to the biting cold. The black velvet lace-up witchy boots on my feet might as well have been dipped in a coating of grime, sprinkled with dead grass.
A hush settled over the crowd. The music was turned low. Dancing ceased, and every head turned in our direction.
I hadn’t even noticed that Brando’s fingers had made their way to my face, his thumb trailing over the lines of dirt. My hand trembled as I reached to meet his touch. His fingers smelled sweet, but with something added—his cologne.Him. The scent of him had been branded into memory just as painfully as the actual night.
The smell brought me back to my senses, and I returned to my skin to push his care away. But I couldn’t seem to tame the tremble that shook my bones, tightened my muscles, and made my teeth clatter.
Somehow I didn’t think the knock to the ground was what had caused it.
