“Okay! Have fun!” Quinn calls up, but her voice cracks. Then, we all wait and listen, and the second the front door closes, everyone cheers.
Fuck.
“Okay everyone! In a circle!” Quinn squeals, clapping her hands together.
“Oh god,” Hannah whispers, looking sick.
Same, girl, same.
We all crowd around the basement, thirty of us sitting on the cold concrete floor. I’m glad our entire classdidn’t come despite being invited, because then this circle would be comically big for a simple game ofSeven Minutes in Heaven.
“Here are the rules. We’re going to go around and spin the bottle, starting with Stacey.” She looks over at me and I fight a gulp. A couple guys laugh in the corner and whistle, but I refuse to look over in case the unease is written on my face. “Whoever it lands on has to get in the closet with the bottle-spinner for seven minutes! Understood?”
Everyone echoes back an agreement, and I steel my spine.
“Give me the stupid bottle.”
The party girl hands it over, the glass heavy in my hand. When I sneak a look at the circle, my eyes snag on Axl. His gaze is already on me, waiting for the spinning bottle, and I quickly avert my eyes. My hand places it in the center and only hesitates for a moment before I spin it, turning it completely on its axis as it starts to move. It happens in slow motion. I will it to land on someone that’s scared of me. Some guy in my grade that doesn’t have the balls to fuck with me in any way. I will it to land on anyone except…
Not him… not him… not him…
Fuck.
The bottle stops gradually, the neck of it pointing directly at the one person I don’t want to rendezvous with. Axl stares at it in surprise while everyoneoohsandahhsaround us in amusement.
“Alright, you two.” Quinn points at the door in the corner. “The seven minutes don’t start until you’re in there.”
I roll my eyes for everyone to see and then practically stomp into the closet. Axl must follow, because a second later the closet door is shut, followed by the sound of a chair scraping and being propped against it as a lock. I’m irrationally angry, and this closet smells like mothballs.
After a few moments, I finally turn around. He’s sittingon the floor, patiently waiting for me to join him. When I sit, there’s nothing pressing in his eyes. If anything, he looks bored.
“Well, this party is a wild one,” he comments.
I scoff. “Not up to your freakish standards?”
“I’d say the people forcing us into this closet to make out are therealfreaks, wouldn’t you?”
That makes me shut up, because yeah. This game does feel kind of ancient and not focused on consent. But it’s a rite of passage, right? That’s what I always assumed.
We sit there for a few more minutes, not speaking, and instead listening to the party continuing outside.
“Your scent,” he interrupts, breaking the silence. “It’s floral, but what is it?”
I balk. No matter what designation you’re assigned, everyone has their own distinct scent. But my scent is fairly new, so I’m not used to people bringing it up.
“It took a while to figure out,” I admit. “But it resembles gardenias. White ones, specifically.”
He nods. “It’s beautiful.”
My cheeks flush pink, but the light is dim and I pray he can’t see it. I take a subtle whiff of the air, but realize there isn’t any indication of his scent lingering. There’s only the floral notes of my own and the moldy essence of the closet. I’m not surprised, though. Guys tend to get their scent later, like everything else with puberty.
I fall back into silence, willing the minutes to go by quicker so this can be over. I can already hear the whispers, see the questioning on everyone’s face when we leave this closet.Did she kiss him? What else did they do in there? Wow, who would have thought?
“Have you ever kissed someone?”
“What?” I panic, then snarl at him. “Of course I have. I betyou’rethe one who hasn’t kissed anyone.”
“I haven’t.”
