“That’s so hot,” one of them shrieked over the music. “If that were me, I’d have never taken that costume off.”
“Do you even realize how viral this is?” another added, waving her drink for emphasis. “You’ve hit, like, a million views. Everyone’s talking about it!”
I tried to laugh, but it came out thin. The sound of it got swallowed by the bass thudding through the floor.
Some of the cheerleaders had invited me out after I’d run into the locker room, insisting Ihadto come out with them. They’d never invited me before, and I knew it was only because of what Matty had done…but the thought of sitting in my dorm room alone, obsessing over him, had been an unbearable thought.
So I came.
And it was a mistake.
I was surrounded by cheerleaders who smelled like vanilla body spray, half of them drunk, and all of them living for the gossip.
Music pounded through the walls, bass rattling the cheap cup in my hand. Someone’s playlist battled against the noise, a blur of drunk laughter, off-key singing, and a heated argument about fantasy football. The air was thick with perfume, beer, and the faint burn of weed drifting from the kitchen.
“I can do this,” I whispered to myself. It wasgoodto be doing this.
Normal girls went to parties. Normal girls laughed, danced, flirted.
Normal girls also didn’t keep glancing at the door every thirty seconds, though, waiting for the guy they were obsessed with to walk through it.
“Hey,” a voice said beside me.
I turned.
The guy had been hovering around for the past fifteen minutes. He stepped closer now, smiling a little too wide.
“You’re in my class, right?” he asked, leaning closer so I could hear him over the music. “Intro to Psych?”
I nodded, trying to place him. I hadn’t been very good at noticing other people existed besides Matty. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Ryan,” he said, offering a hand. “Or maybe you already knew that.”
He had sandy hair, a clean jawline, and the kind of easy grin that probably worked on most girls. His T-shirt stretched just enough across his shoulders to say he played some kind of intramural sport, but not enough to make him dangerous.
The kind of boy Dr. Whitaker might even callsafefor me because my brain wouldn’t attach to him.
“So,” Ryan said, still smiling. “You come to parties like this a lot?”
I laughed softly. “Not really.”
“Guess tonight’s a good night to start.” His gaze flicked toward the group of cheerleaders still showing the viral video to anyone willing to look. “You’re kind of the main event.”
I forced a smile, the back of my neck prickling. “Lucky me.”
His fingers brushed my wrist, casual, testing. My pulse didn’t quicken; it just existed, steady and dull. I tried to focus on his voice instead of the echo of Matty’s voice in my head.
You’re sick, I reminded myself.You ruin everything you touch. You need to find someone like this…someone normal.
Ryan’s hand lingered just long enough to make it clear he’d noticed I hadn’t pulled away. “It’s pretty loud in here,” he said, raising his voice over the music. “You wanna go outside? There’s a firepit out back. Way easier to talk.”
I hesitated, my gaze flicking toward the door again…the same door I’d been watching all night. No sign of Matty. Just smoke, laughter, and the faint glow of string lights through the kitchen windows.
“Sure,” I heard myself say. “Outside sounds good.”
He smiled, looking relieved. “Cool. Bring your drink.”
I did. And as he led the way through the crowd, I told myself this was progress.
