If only Mom knew half the shit I’ve done with Luke.
She, of course, thinks you need to be married before you give yourself away, but I often wonder: For her, was it the chicken or the egg with Pa? She was eighteen when she got pregnant with Julia. They’ve always told us they were already married, but other than a single photo of Mom and Pa in church clothes, standing outside a small chapel in Minnesota, there are no wedding pictures, no documentation. No actual wedding date on the back of the photo.
I slide under my quilt.
Julia’s in her bed, across the loft, asleep. Or pretending to be. I’m sure she heard everything that just went down with Mom.
Whatever.
Moonlight trickles through the high window, streaking shadows across the quilt.
Other than dealing with Mom just now, I had fun tonight.
As soon as Blair pulled out of our drive, Stacy lit up a joint in the back seat, passed it up to me. “You smoke?”
I’d smoked weed a few times with Luke, but I don’t really like how fuzzy-headed and paranoid it makes me feel.
“Absolutely,” I said, pinching the hot paper between myfingers, taking a stinging drag, wanting to look cool.
“Woo-hoo!” Blair hooted in approval, slapping me a high five.
The Circles, she explained as she drove us there, are a cluster of empty streets in the middle of a forest. A developer intended to build a subdivision out there but lost funding, so now it’s party central for teens. Even though there are streetlights, it’s tucked so far back into the woods, no one from the highway can see in, tell what we’re up to.
We poured out of the car, pot smoke trailing after us. About a dozen kids from school were already there. A boom box sitting on Tommy Fields’s truck bed was blaring Guns N’ Roses, “Sweet Child O’ Mine.”
Blair sauntered over, and the two made out, right in front of everyone. Tommy is Blair’s boyfriend. Tall, dark hair, strong. Star quarterback.
Stacy handed me a Solo cup filled with something red.
“It’ssogood,” she gushed. “But strong. It’s Hunch Punch. Basically Hawaiian Punch with Everclear.”
I took a sip; it tasted like a cherry Jolly Rancher. I gulped it down.
Even though it’s summer, a bonfire was burning in a trash can, throwing out sparks.
Then, from across the flames, I felt her stare. Noticed her eyeing me with a wicked grin.
Nellie.
I never actually met her in school. We were in the same trigclass, but no one ever introduced us, and each time I tried to catch her eye, she’d be glaring at me.
So I’d started to glare back.
And tonight, she was giving me the same dirty look she always does.
What the hell?
I’d always thought it was because she’s the richest girl in town and probably the most stuck-up. I thought she was looking down on me.
What I learned tonight, though, is that that’s not it at all; she’s juststrange.
But what made my head spin even more as she shot daggers into me with her bizarro stare is that she was leaning against the hood of her red bimmer.
A red bimmer that could’ve been the one that ran me and Cookie off the road.
I actually lifted my hand, tried to give her a wave across the bonfire, but she rolled her eyes, then pulled a long drag off her cigarette.
I couldn’t help it—getting people to like me is my superpower, and I just had to find out if it was her who’d caused my accident—so I walked over to her. “Hey, so you’re Nellie, right?”
