Nothing exists but this room and the music and the girl dancing against me, her belly pressed to mine. Her hands slide up my shoulders, across my collarbones, and for a terrible, horrible moment, I see someone else’s face in hers. Feel someone else’s hands.
And it isn’t this pretty, nameless girl I’m dancing with, but Finn. The one person I really want to do this with. Who I want to be this close to.
I pull back, sobering up long enough for my instincts to wake up and start screaming. I yell an apology her way and bolt, pushing through the crowd and into the hall. There is a massive line for the downstairs bathroom, so I head up the stairs, gripping the banister for dear life.
The second-floor hallway spins, and I keep one hand on the wall as I stumble down it. I open the first door on the left, slipping inside and shutting it behind me. It occurs to me a moment too late that I didn’t check whether this was a bathroom or not.
I fumble for a light switch. The overhead light doesn’t come on with the switch, but strings of yellow bulbs, stretching across the ceilings and draped down the walls, wash the room in warm light.
Definitely not a bathroom.
The room isn’t small, but there’s furniture jammed everywhere—a massive bed, a big dresser on one side and a vanity on the other. Rather than feeling crowded, it’s cozy.
Each wall has a theme. On the left are scraps of paper, quotes, sticky notes, you name it. Like the wall is bleeding words. On the right, posters from movies and bands overlap.
Behind the bed are photos. Every square inch of wall is covered in them.
Polaroids, printed pictures, film strips from photo booths. Nora’s life splashed across the wall.
It takes my alcohol-addled brain a moment to realize there’s an order to it. Chronological. On the outer edges are older photos, of younger Nora and her friends, her family, camp photos and Christmas cards. The center holds recent photos.
Finn is all over the outer edges. Toddler-sized Finn and Nora, identical down to the odd bob haircuts. Kindergarten Finn and Nora, gripping hands and grinning outside their classroom. Then middle school. The first day of high school.
Nora’s story continues on, but Finn disappears from the narrative.
The door whines open behind me and I jump back, aware I’ve been caught red-handed in my unapologetic invasion of privacy.
“What part of no hooking up in my room do you people not—” Nora stops. Relaxes. “Oh. Sorry, I thought someone came up here to…” She waves a hand. “Whatcha doing? Snooping?”
“I was looking for the bathroom,” I say.
“You’re close. One more door down.”
I nod. I’m about to head for the door when Nora joins me beside the bed. She follows my gaze to the photos.
“I’m a tad bit sentimental. I’ve been told it’s a problem,” Nora says. Her voice slurs slightly, but I know mine is doing the same, so I can’t judge.
“No, it’s really cool. It’s like…” I scramble for words, coming up empty. I try anyway. “It’s your history, all laid out.”
Nora’s gaze slides to the edges of the wall. She reaches out, tracing a finger along an elementary-aged Finn’s form. They’re both in ill-fitting gym uniforms, arms slung over each other’s shoulders, grinning. Both have braces.
“You’d have liked him,” Nora says.
An alarm bell rings in my head, and I know I should end this conversation before my drunk brain lets something slip. I’ve only known Nora and Finn as separate entities, but in Nora’s mind, the pair are still intertwined. The way my siblings and I are and always will be.
“He’d have liked you, too,” she says.
I can feel the truth building on my tongue, shoving against my teeth, yearning to be free.
It would be a relief to not have to hide it. But it would be cruel of me. To break the news that her brother isn’t missing but dead, and he isn’t in the great beyond but down the street, trapped in my house. I doubt she’d believe me either.
And on her birthday, nonetheless.
So instead of confessing, I say, “I wish I could have met him.”
Nora smiles. She touches his image once more, then clears her throat. “All right. Enough sappy shit. There’s tequila and pretty people waiting for us downstairs,” Nora says. She loops her arm through mine and tugs me for the door. “It’s my birthday. You’re legally obligated to have a good time.”
I let her pull me back down the stairs and into the party, and for a little while the chasm of loneliness that cracked open in my chest last December swings shut.
