We claim one of the sofas, and soon we’re chatting and shrieking with laughter, and it’s incredible and overwhelming, and what is my life right now? I can’t believe I’m on a giant boat atop the Pacific Ocean, surrounded by the nation’s richest kids, and despite everything, I’ve somehow made it through the semester.
Danny returns with two icy bottles of Dom and we cheer. He’s already opened them, and he hands out glasses and pours for everyone. We toast to the end of “the most batshit semester,” and the drink feels like magic sliding down my throat. Danny pours more for everyone, and then we all head up to the sun deck to join the heaving crowd on the dance floor. I don’t know if it’s the movement of the boat, but everything is spinning crazily in the best possible way, and I feel like my veins are filled with music and light. We jump to the beat and I kiss Danny and dance with Beth and Stacey, and at some point, we empty our glasses, and Danny gets us another round and everybody goes, “You’ve got the best boyfriend,” and all I can do is grin stupidly.
The next hour is a whirl of more dancing, jumping up and down, screaming with laughter, spinning, and making out. Everything is swirling lights and hot, slick bodies, and I’m so glad to be alive, to be surrounded by my friends. I’m a butterfly. A bird. A molecule bouncing free in the atmosphere.
At some point, the thirst hits me. It hits hard, and fast, and I’m suddenly panting. All the cells in my body are crumbling to ash. I’m no longer a butterfly but a lead ball. I grab hold of Stacey and manage to pant out, “Water.”
She’s busy dancing with a sophomore, their hips swaying close to each other’s. She ignores me. Dammit, Stacey. Beth and Sam and Grace are still jumping like little grasshoppers. I look around for the bar, but when I turn my head, the entire world turns dizzyingly, and I almost fall. Danny’s arm shoots out, seemingly from nowhere, and catches me.
“You okay?” he says.
“Water.”
He nods and swings an arm around my shoulders, holding me tight, and I cling to the reassuring warmth of him. We make our way to the side, where he helps me onto a seat and then heads for the bar. He returns with bottles of water.
I snatch one out of his hands and gulp the whole thing in one go. Grab another one and finish half before I feel like I can finally slow down. I sit there, blinking, tapping my feet, unable to stay still. Wanting to keep dancing, wanting to scream and laugh and have sex and jump overboard. Which doesn’t seem all that normal. I’ve gotten drunk before, and this isn’t it. This is more. But then fireworks go off—real fireworks, not just ones in my mind, and I lose all train of thought.
Danny comes back carrying even more bottles of water. I haven’t even realized that he’d gone for more.
“Come on,” he says, “the others are probably thirsty too.”
Still clutching my half-finished bottle of water, I plunge back into the dance floor. Danny’s right, as soon as Sam and the rest spot the bottles of water, they stagger toward us and chug the bottles gratefully. Danny walks over to Stacey, still dancing with the sophomore, and hands her a bottle. She grabs it and waves the sophomore away before taking huge gulps.
“Wow, this water tastes like asshole,” she shouts, but she drinks it anyway. “Sam, you need to stop skimping on the water, man. This tastes like tap.”
Grace and Beth do a mock gasp, and Sam flips Stacey the bird. “It’s Fiji, you spoiled brat.”
I laugh, and a sudden surge of mirth pushes me, and I pull Stacey toward me and hug her. “I love you, you big goof.”
“Love you too, dumbass.”
God, I feel like I could run a freakin’ marathon.
Why not?
I tug Stacey’s hand and we run through the crowd, the boat teetering up and down in the waves, and I have no idea where we’re going, but I’m glad I’m running with Stacey. The sky is showered with stars so bright, and we throw our heads back and spin and spin until our legs give out and we tumble in a heap onto a couch, laughing and gasping hard.
We stay there for a while, lying down, our hands linked. A minute. An hour. I can’t tell. The stars are dancing for us and this is the best night ever.
“Definitely,” Stacey says. I didn’t even realize I’ve spoken out loud.
“You’re still speaking out loud right now, you doofus.”
What about now?
“Yep,” she laughs. “Oh my god, you’re such a nong, I swear. Hey, Lia.” Her voice is suddenly serious.
“Yeah?”
“Did you know you’re the first person to hang out in my room?”
“Really?” What am I saying really to? I’ve already forgotten what she just said.
“I said, you’re the first person to hang out in my room.”
Wow, okay. I mean, that’s pretty huge.
“You’re sort of. My best friend.” Her voice slurs. “I gotchu. Just so you know. No matter what you’ve done.”
“I gotchu too. You’re seriously like, the best friend ever,” I babble. “Like, the freakin’ best.”
“That’s why I couldn’t let you like. Do that thing to Mandy, man.”
“Wha?”
“That night. You snuck out of Mather. You tripped my alarm.”
“What?” The sky is spinning way too crazily for me to keep up, but a jumble of memories assault my senses. Stacey telling me she’s rigged Mather with motion sensors so she knows who’s sneaking out at night. Oh. “You took the shoebox from Mandy’s locker.”
“You wouldn’t have been able to live with yourself,” Stacey says. “So, yeah, I took ’em. You’re too good to go down that route. Or whatever.”
I laugh. So that’s what happened. No wonder there was nothing in Mandy’s locker. “You’re amazing,” I tell her. “I mean, you’re literally the best person ever.” No answer. “Stace?”
She’s closed her eyes, her chest rising and falling slowly. I turn back to watch the peppered sky, marveling at how clear the stars look out here, how incandescently beautiful it all is.
My eyelids become heavier. Everything’s wonderful. I’m going to be okay. I’m going home soon, and when I come back next semester, I won’t be a new student anymore. I have a good group of friends, I’ve got an amazing boyfriend, and everything’s cool. My eyes drift shut and I sink into a deep sleep.
When I wake up, Stacey’s in a coma.
Chapter 30
Red and blue lights flash against the bright morning sky, blinding. All of it so bright and so painful. I need to run after Stacey’s ambulance and climb into her hospital bed and hug her and tell her everything will be okay. I need to crawl into a cave and curl up tight and forget the world. I need to vomit. I need to do so many things, and yet I’m stuck here at the dock, barely able to stand on my feet as detectives Mendez and Jackson question everyone.
“I wasn’t expecting to be back here so soon,” Detective Mendez says. Her face is grim. A few feet away, Detective Jackson is talking to Sam and Grace. They’re both sobbing. My heart cracks open. I would cry too, except I feel utterly empty, all my insides carved out like a watermelon.
“Here,” Detective Mendez says, giving me a bottle of water.