“Friends? Yeah, Blue. Let’s be friends.” Her grin is back. “Friends can dance, right?”
I inhale. “I don’t know about that.”
She rolls her eyes and opens my bedroom door. “Let’s go.”
She turns off the light on her way out.
I follow her. When I step out of my bedroom, I remember that there’s a party going on downstairs with all of my teammates. Melly is in my jersey, my name on her back, my hat on her head, my number on her, and I am wearing fuckingwings.
There is no version of this that goes well. I walk down the stairs anyway because she’s already at the bottom.
Mila is at the foot of the stairs. “There you are!”
She looks at Melly. She looks down at Melly’s outfit. She looks up at me right behind Melly. She looks at the halo on my head and then the wings. She eyes Melly’s shirt and the mustache. Mila’s whole face does a calculation that takes about one full second.
“Where thehelldid your costume go?” she says to Melly. “Why is he the angel now?”
“I had a wardrobe malfunction.” Melly’s voice has tightened. “And I didn’t have my phone on me. Blue helped me figure out a new costume.”
“So you’rehimfor Halloween now?”
Melly nods. She points at me. “And he’s an angel.”
“No, babe.” Mila looks at me. “He’s no angel.” She turns to me and says, “Where’s your devil mask? That suits you better.”
I look at her and don’t say anything. I don’t have anything to say. Mila hates me, and I allow her to. I hate myself for what I did, too. The fucked up part is that I haven’t stopped being that person. I deserve worse from her. I deserve worse from Melly.
Melly steps in front of me. It’s the smallest possible defensive movement a girl can make on behalf of a boy, and Mila catches it too.
“Mila.” Just one word in a specific tone.
Mila reads Melly’s face. And Mila’s body language changes.
“Fine,” she says, lighter. “Penelope said we’re doing shots in the kitchen in five.”
Melly turns to me and lights up again. “Want a shot?”
I should say no. I should sayI’ll catch up.I should say,give me a minute. I should stay on this staircase, take the stupid fucking halo off my head, peel the wings off my shoulders, hand them to her, turn back upstairs to my room, shut the door, and do twenty pushups against the floor and reset.
“Yeah.”
Mila’s eyes flick to me.
She doesn’t say anything.
She turns and walks ahead of us toward the kitchen.
I follow Melly through the living room.
The party guests all look at me. I hadn’t anticipated the people. I’d been so focused on the team — on Stanley, on Benson — that I hadn’t, until I’m six feet into the living room, accounted for the fifty other people at this party who don’t normally see Blue Golding wearing angel wings and a halo.
A girl in a witch hat stops mid-conversation. Five freshmen on the team look over at me and nod. A girl in a cat costume taps her friend’s shoulder and points at me with her chin. The math is being done all over the room at once.
Wings on his back. Halo on his head. GOLDING on the girl in front of him.
I keep walking.
The kitchen is bright after the dim of the living room.
