“Um, orange.” I take one of them, and Jane sits down almost on top of me.This chair is tight, but it’s not that tight, and I struggle not to turn to stare at Su-Lin again.
I am hopeless.There’s a girl in a barely-there skirt and thong practically sitting on my lap.
And I don’t care.
All I want is the girl across the room who looks like she’s literally wearing the sky I’ve always imagined above us as we lie in bed together beneath our beach house skylight. I want to stalk over there and punch Warren in the face and tell him he can’t have her because she’s mine.
I hate myself for this. It’s my fault she’s not with me. She deserves better—she deserves a guy who will dance with her the way Warren is now, with his hand resting on the bare skin of her back.
She obviously likes him. It’s not just coincidence thateverytime she has to find someone to spend time with, she finds him. And there he is, dancing with her like I would be if I wasn’t so caught up in myself and my issues. Now I’m imagining us actually getting two houses on the beach, installing two big picture windows and two skylights, and she’s living in one house with Warren, and I’m alone in the other.
“Are you always this quiet?” Jane asks.
I shrug. “Yeah. Parties aren’t really my scene.” Usually that’s it, but tonight it’s that I can’t think of anything to say that isn’t wallowing in a pit of self-pity.
I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to call my mom.
“Hmm,” Jane says, scooting up close to me. Her breasts are about an eighth of an inch away from a wardrobe malfunction, and she leans into me so they’re right under my chin. “Well, you could have fooled me.”
The song ends. Su-Lin looks over at me, and I hope she’s going to come over here and finally introduce me to Warren, so I can at least size up whether he’s a decent person who would be good to her. Or maybe she’ll see me with Jane and want to breakthatup. Not that I want to have done anything to hurt her, but I wouldn’t hate it if she was a little bit jealous.
Instead, Su-Lin and Warren move off the floor and out of my eyeline. I want to follow her, but I’m not going to be the jerk that breaks that up tonight. I turn toward Jane, who I’m supposed to be trying to date. She seems like a nice enough girl—someone I might have been able to casually date if I wasn’t in love with Su-Lin, and if I was a person who was capable of that kind of social exertion.
“So, tell me about yourself, Brendan,” Jane says. She shrugs her shoulders forward so that her breasts pop out another sixteenth of an inch.
I look up at her eyes, and from the playful curve of her smile, she knows where I’ve been looking.
I should be into this. I should be happy that a gorgeous, fun girl wants to spend time with me while Su-Lin is off obviously having a good time on her own.
For once, I remember to say something about myself that doesn’t have anything to do with Su-Lin. “I’m in film editing, obviously,” I say. “I got into it in high school because some of my friends wanted to be YouTubers, but they couldn’t figure out the software. I used to take their stuff and mash it up in the school computer labs, and I kind of got a reputation for it.”
Jane smiles like this is fascinating, though she does keep looking at my lips.
I fight the urge to pull away. I’ve been failing at the Plan all week.Tonight, I’m going to make myself do this if it kills me.
“Do you do the editing on your show?” I ask.
Jane shakes her head. “Nah. I was one of those wannabes who sucked at it. My friend Quinn does all my editing now.They’re awesome.”
“Yeah, totally,” I say, before realizing that she’s using the plural pronoun for her friend Quinn, not for Quinn’s editing. I’m guessing Quinn is non-binary, but I never know how to ask about things like that, or if I even should.
“Though sometimes they get behind,” Jane says. “If I ever need someone in a pinch, I’ll remember you. If you’re still taking freelance stuff.”
I take a drink of my orange cream soda. “Yeah. When I have the time.”
Jane smiles like this makes her happy, and I wonder if she means it. I was starting to get the sense that she’s looking for a one-night stand—which I’m obviously not available for, and thank god.They say panic attacks can’t kill you—something I repeat to myself often enough—but I think trying to have sex with someone who is basically a stranger might be an exception to that rule.
Jane leans against me, her hand brushing my knee, and I remember what it felt like when Su-Lin did the same, the current that ran through my body when she moved that hand elsewhere. It wasn’t just that it physically felt good—although it did—but what itmeant, that my best friend, the most beautiful person I’ve ever known, the woman I long for and who knows me better than anyone in the entire world, wantedme.
And I don’t hate sitting here with Jane, but she’s just a girl I’m here with and nothing else.
I look back over at the dance floor, but if Su-Lin and Warren are still dancing, they’re lost somewhere in the crowd.
“You seem distracted,” Jane says. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” I say, looking back at her. “I’m fine.”
“Is it the social anxiety thing? Like at the party, when you had to leave?”
