Kyle lifted his shot glass, spilling sticky liquid down my arm. “To Stoner, a ridiculous human being. We could probably light this house on fire, and she wouldn’t give a damn. It’s amazing.”
“To Stoner,” Andromeda said. She leaned over my arm. “Can I lick it?”
“Do whatever you want,” I said. I felt her tongue slide wet and warm against my skin.
“Hot,” Kyle said. “Can I kiss you?”
I tipped the bottle over their shot glasses to refill them and laughed. “Kyle, I honestly don’t give a fuck.”
Kyle kissed me, and then Andromeda did, and then a third person, and someone laughed in the distance, saying,That girl’s wild.
In some amount of time there were hands everywhere, mouths up and down my face and my neck. Which was okay; which was good, actually, because I could barely feel my body anymore, and the touching helped me figure out where my boundaries were, the raw and vulnerable places where my skin met air. Good to numb those places; to cover them with other people.
I spun away. I could tell there were more people in my house than there’d ever been before, but the thing was—the funny thing was—they also didn’t exist. I could walk through them like gauzy curtains, gently pushing until they parted. It was nice to have company like this. To be surrounded by people, and at the same time alone.
“Hey,” said Lucius with the smiley face pills, popping up in front of me. He shook the baggie. “You want another?”
I swayed, and he caught me, and we both laughed. “Probably not,” I said.
“Look, that guy’s naked.” Lucius pointed to the living room, where people were dancing and jumping into each other. Sure enough, alone in the corner, a naked man danced in circles all by himself. His aura was a peaceful butter yellow.
“Hilarious,” I said.
“Let’s dance.” All of a sudden, the music was so loud it shook the walls.
It was all I wanted to do. I grabbed Lucius’s hand and pirouetted into the middle of the crowd. For hours, or minutes, or days, there was only my blood pumping, my sweat rolling, as I leaped and jumped with strangers to the thumping music.
“Turn itup,” I yelled, and they cheered and the world was nothing but a tilting floor and escalating noise, vibrating under my skin.
Then I was in my bedroom, sitting on the floor, surely. Because that was—yes, that was my bed I was leaning back against. I recognized the duvet cover, which I’d ordered proudly from a company in Point Reyes, California, when I got my first real paycheck.
Ha! Imagine thinking that was important. The girl who’d bought this duvet cover was a stranger, and I felt a sense of accomplishment that I’d managed to get so far away from her. This was much nicer, to be on the outside, looking in.
There were people sitting in a circle around me, Kyle one of them. We were playing some sort of game. Someone flipped a quarter and drank, and a few seconds later they were all making faces and laughing.
Then the mood in the room shifted. I could feel it, even without looking at anyone’s face. Someone dropped to their knees in front of me.
“Lee?”
I looked up to find Ben Laderman. Surely, a mirage.
I touched his leg. Nope. Solid and real. I knew I was angry at him, but at the moment, it didn’t seem very important.
“Guys!” I yelled. “Ben’s here. Now it’s a party!”
The circle cheered. “Benny boy!” called Kyle, who was friendlier when he was drunk. “Get yourself a beer. We’re playing quarters.”
Ben squinted at me. I’d never seen his face in such vivid detail. I could account for every freckle, every pore, every cell.Whew, he was pretty! Even his pores. Even the dark, slender hairs of his eyebrows, the ones that didn’t quite fall in line. The waves on his head looked black from far away, but up close I could see the individual strands of chestnut, like a secret just for me. The way he was holding his mouth—tight and drawn at the corners—made his cheekbones sharp and pronounced, which was a trick I would have to remember for selfies. And his eyes—it was trippy to have them locked on me like this, like I was the only thing that existed.
“You’re very handsome.” I patted his cheek. “And I’m not just saying that because the smiley face made everyone beautiful. I really mean it. Why are you here?”
Ben looked amused. “You texted me and told me to come over.”
“Huh.” I held up my hands and wiggled my fingers. “Wily. And full of surprises.”
“I don’t mean this in an infantilizing way,” he said, leaning closer. “But are you okay? Do you want me to kick all these people out of your house?”
I patted his cheek again. “Benjamin, I’m the best I’ve ever been. These are my new best friends.” I gestured at the circle of people. “You remember Kyle. That girl next to him is Andromeda, also known as Mermaid Hair. That’s Lucius Smiley Face, the guy next to him’s Little Timmy Tattoo Hands, and she’s Katya, or Nipple Piercing. What? That’s what they told me to call them.”
