I could only see her back. She was facing the corner, and Decker was wedged in the darkness, next to the bathroom. I grinned and stepped forward to rescue him from Tara, but then she raised herself onto her toes. Just like I should’ve, could’ve done in Decker’s house. And Decker looked down at her and brushed his lips across hers. All casual. Like it was no big deal. Like he had done it a thousand times before.
And then he smiled at her and put his hands on her face and ran his fingers through her hair. And this time Tara didn’t raise herself onto her toes. This time Decker put his hands on her back and pulled her close and lowered his mouth and kissed her. He wasn’t drunk and he kissed her. He brought me here and he kissed her. Correction: he was still kissing her.
The two drinks in my stomach churned and the acid in my gut rose upward and I put my hand over my mouth because I thought I might throw up. I took a step backward and bumped into some antique wall table thing and knocked over a lamp, scattering what little light there was around the hall.
Decker looked up. He looked up and his mouth fell open. He moved it to say something, but I didn’t hear him because I fumbled around the hall until I found a door and I pushed it open and I was gone.
Chapter 8
I emerged to ice and darkness. I was out back, near the lake. The moon was hidden behind clouds, but the lights from the party illuminated the backyard. There was just enough light for me to make out the slope of the hill through the trees. And if I could get through the trees and down the hill, I could find the path. If I could find the path, I could make it home. I stumbled down the snow-covered slope, bracing myself against tree trunks as I went, until I reached the bottom. My feet were soaking and cold. I hadn’t planned on needing snow boots.
“Delaney!” I picked up the pace. “Goddamnit, Delaney, stop!”
I spun around to face Decker as he came down the hill, moving much more gracefully than I had done. He was faster than me, so he would’ve caught up if he wanted to. He slowed down when he reached the path. “You don’t get to be mad about that,” he said quietly. “Not after Carson.”
I hated myself that I was so obvious. Then it finally seemed to register with him. I was upset. His mouth fell open and he closed his eyes for a second and he reached toward me. “Delaney,” he said as he wrapped his hand around my wrist. His hand that had been in her hair and on her face and on her back.
I jerked back. “Don’t touch me.”
He balled up his fists at his side. “Unbelievable. So tell me. How was it? How was being with Carson? I mean, was it like every other girl in the school says?”
I narrowed my eyes at him and took two giant steps backward. “Yes, Decker, it was. It was everything my first kiss should’ve been.”
His face dropped. I broke him a little with that, and it felt better than I thought it world. Because Carson wasn’t my first kiss. And we both knew it.
Freshman year, two years ago, we were playing manhunt. Same place, same group, apart from a few random faces. But mostly the same because nothing much changes around here. We had just finished up, and I was sitting on a rock brushing the snow from my coat. Decker left his group of guys and walked over to me, a small smile on his face. He held a hand out for me. I took it and pulled myself upright, and he didn’t let go. He pulled me closer, leaned down, and kissed me.
Three and a half seconds, that’s how long it lasted. I kissed him back for three and a half seconds. And then I heard the clapping. “Didn’t think you had it in you, Decker.” Carson came over and put his arm around Decker’s shoulder. I pulled my hand back.
Decker didn’t take his eyes off me. He was trying to say so many things but I refused to look at him. “Guess it’s time to pay up,” Carson said. Decker earned fifteen dollars for taking the dare.
The money hovered between us in Carson’s hand. I looked directly in Decker’s eyes as I brought my sleeve to my mouth and dragged the back of my hand across my lips.
Decker took the money. And the next day, he came over like nothing had happened and put seven crumpled dollar bills and two quarters on top of my desk. “I owe you this,” he said. Which was his own version of wiping his mouth clean.
He never did it again.
Now Decker hung his head down and started walking toward our side of the lake. “Come on,” he put his hand on my back. “I told your mom I’d get you home safe.”
I spun away from him. From his hands that had been all over her. “I said don’t touch me.”
He turned and stared at me. “What do you want from me, Delaney?”
I wanted not to feel sick when I saw him kiss someone else. I wanted not to see it, and I wanted not to care. I shouldn’t have cared.
“I want you to leave me alone.”
He stepped closer and lowered his head so we were level and asked me again, speaking slower so I’d get the full meaning of his question. “What do you want from me?”
But he was too close and all I could smell was her—her detergent, her soap, her shampoo. So I stepped back and said, “I want you to get the fuck out of my face.”
Decker flinched like I had slapped him. He blinked heavily and started walking backward. It’s not like he’d never heard me curse before. And it’s not like I’d never directed my curses at him. I’d just never meant it before. So he left me. He left me standing on the edge of the lake. He smacked at the tree trunks with his closed fist as he stomped up the hill with an anger that even Mom’s fear couldn’t pierce. An anger that made him leave me again. He left me for her, ready to put his hands God knows where.
I turned for home and started walking, eyes on the path in front of me. I could’ve recited my life history up to this second as a series of moments.
First day of preschool, some girl dipped my pigtail in blue paint. Traumatic. I became decidedly unfriendly to my classmates.
A brown-and-yellow moving truck pulling into the empty house next door. A boy with black hair cut too short walked across the yard and said, “I’m Decker.” But I had entered my unfriendly stage already so I just crossed my arms over my chest. And Decker said, “Tomorrow I’ll make you smile.”
Running in the house when I was not supposed to be running and knocking over a crystal vase, glass slicing into my leg as it shattered on the floor. I was so terrified Mom would be furious. But she wasn’t. She ran me out of the house in her arms, leaving shards of glass on her spotless floor.
Winning my first science competition in middle school. Pinning that first ribbon to my lavender wall.
The ice, of course the ice.
And this, right here, this was another one. I should’ve waited for the emotion to settle before I answered Decker. But I didn’t. Now it was a moment. It was a moment, I was sure, that I would hate.
I kept walking, and the light faded farther and farther away. The noise from the party was swallowed by the trees, and all I could hear was the howl of wind, the trees groaning in resistance, the crunch of snow under my shoes. I glanced around and saw dark trees, dark sky, darker shadows. The path in front of me was engulfed in total shadow. A chill ran up my back, through my shoulders, but I shook it off.
It was nothing. Nothing but the absence of light. An empty void. And yet, that void was terrifying. I looked down and walked faster, arms crossed over my chest, and the next time I looked up, I wasn’t on the path anymore. I was walking up the hill, through the trees, toward the dark road. Not my road. But I kept walking because I felt the pull.
And the more I walked—up onto the road, one block in, one block right—the more it grew. Until it wasn’t just a pull but an itch deep inside my brain, buzzing at me, displacing my rage and anger and sadness until all that existed was this need to keep moving. The itch spread down my neck, through my shoulders, down to my fingertips. They started shaking.