“Funny,” Trent said, smiling. “Hey, can I get you another drink?”
I opened my mouth to say yes when a sound cut me off. Someone was yelling from farther down the yard. A shrieking that sounded vaguely familiar.
“What the hell?” Trent said. Then another yell.
I realized whose voice it was. I scanned the yard and saw Alex, her beautiful face turned up in sneer as Victoria screamed at her. A boy I recognized vaguely from Alex’s Facebook photos stood between them.
“Stop it, Alex!” Victoria shouted. “Stop!”
I couldn’t see Cassandra or Sam, but I knew this was going to get ugly. The tension had been building between Alex and Victoria for days. I didn’t say anything to Trent; I just left my empty beer can on the nearest ledge and made my way toward the sisters.
“What? I’m not doing anything!” Alex asked loudly, inviting the people nearby into the conversation. She looked at the broad-shouldered guystanding next to Victoria, suggesting they’d been having a close conversation that Alex had walked into.
“Seriously, stop!” Victoria said.
“It’s a funny story, Vicky. Calm down.” Alex snorted and turned back to the guy. “Anyway. So she can’t give blow jobs, like at all. The last one she tried, she choked and vomited all over his dick.”
I froze in place. That secret was one of Victoria’s worst. She’d sworn Cassandra and me to secrecy, and here was Alex parading it around the party. It was humiliating, something Victoria never wanted people to know. No one would.
Victoria’s face hardened as she took her Solo cup and tossed its entire contents down the front of Alex’s camisole. The dark liquid soaked the top, turning it see through. It clung to Alex’s body, revealing her hot pink bra.
“What the fuck?” Alex shouted.
Victoria threw the empty cup at her and stalked off toward the house. Scowling, Alex shook her hands, now sticky and covered in the drink. Cassandra and Sam suddenly appeared at her side.
“Are you all right?” Cassandra asked.
“Stop worrying about me,” Alex said, pushing her away. “Worry about Victoria. I’m going to kill that bitch when we get home.”
Sam shot her younger sister a critical look before following Victoria, leaving a baffled Isaac in her wake. Alex took off in the opposite direction, toward the woods.
Cassandra ran her hands through her hair. “Why are they being like this?” she said. “They’re going to ruin the night.” She was looking in the direction Alex had stomped off to. I could see her form retreating deeper into the woods.
“It’s what sisters do,” I told Cassandra, though that was starting to feel like a lame excuse. “You guys all fight. All the time. They’ll get over it.” I was grateful that Hazel was only four. My brothers could definitely get on my nerves, but they never would have done what Alex just did.
“Come on.” Cassandra grabbed my arm and led me back to the drink table. “Let’s get drunk.”
The next forty minutes were a blur. Cassandra mixed us several different bottles of alcohol, filling our two Solo cups up to the brim. It tasted disgusting, but that wasn’t the point. The point was to get a buzz. By the time I was halfway through my first drink, everything was fuzzy and warm. This delighted Cassandra, who kept encouraging me to drink, even as she filled a second cup for herself. I’d drunk alcohol before, but only little sips here and there. This was different. It made my limbs feel light and airless and I wasn’t nervous anymore. I feltgood.
Sam and Victoria hadn’t reappeared at the party, and neither had Alex, but we didn’t care. We were finally having fun.
Eventually, a group of boys who had been staring at us earlier in the night made their way over. One of them seemed to be interested in Cass, standing close and talking into her ear. I left her to flirt while I went in search of a bathroom. The line inside the house was long and didn’t seem to be moving.
“Someone’s puking in there,” a dark-haired girl in front of me declared, the sound of retching coming from the bathroom. “What kind of house only has one bathroom?”
I really had to pee, so I decided to just go in the woods. I only wanted to go deep enough to find somewhere secluded and squat.
As I walked, I realized I was a little drunker than I’d thought, stumbling over twigs and grabbing tree branches to keep myself upright. The farther in I went, the dimmer the lights and sounds from the party were.
I found a good, hidden spot between two trees and pulled down my underwear. As I finished peeing and stood back up, I heard a weird gurgling noise. I stopped, holding on to the trunk of the tree. All I heard was silence and then a yelp.
It sounded like an animal, a cat maybe, or a raccoon. I pulled up my underwear and pushed my skirt down. I was curious, and drunk, so I moved farther into the woods, following the sound.
It quickly became louder. And it wasn’t an animal, that was clear. This was human. Someone was moaning.
I stopped short, realizing what it was, and feeling the heat of embarrassment.
A guy and a girl were pressed against a tree. His pants were around his ankles, his back and butt exposed as he thrust forward. Clothes were scattered at the base of the tree. The girl’s skinny legs were wrapped around his waist.
