“Xander knows this club,” she says. “It’s getting started right now.”
“Seriously? Now? It’s one a.m.!” I’m saying this but I’m thinking, So this is Xander. Charlie mentioned him, said he was one of his good friends from the London days, back when he was a sophomore and junior in high school. I’m wondering if he’s as good a guy as Adam—if he can be trusted like I instinctively knew Adam could, when I first met him. And I’m also thinking, How did Lena know how to find him? She’s full of secrets, I’m just beginning to learn, and it doesn’t sit well with me. I didn’t even know Lena knew about Xander before now, though I should have guessed it. Of course she did—London was where she first met Charlie. She knows all about his life here.
“Is she coming or what?” Xander says to Lena.
“Relax,” she tells him. Then to me: “Aub, Charlie partied at Fabric all the time. Xander’s a lead; but so are all the others who hang out there. There are tons of people there who knew him.” She’s right. It’s a lead, and obviously the kind we’d need to explore in the middle of the night.
“You should have prepped me,” I tell her as I climb down from the bunk. By the time my feet hit the cold tile floor, I can see she’s already dressed, almost like she first planned on going without me—and I wouldn’t put it past her. I’m going to have to be a lot more wary of this girl. She’s wearing a black miniskirt so short it barely covers her butt, with a loose, plain white tank top that has armholes so wide you can see half her rib cage—and her Day-Glo pink bra underneath.
“Z,” she says, tugging Xander’s hoodie. “Go get the bike. We’ll meet you out front in five.”
“Z?” I ask, as I pull on my jeans. “Isn’t Xander spelled with an x?”
“Duh,” says Lena. “It’s phonetic. Are you always such a nerd? Oh. You can’t wear that.” She’s looking at my outfit like I’m wearing something straight out of Little House on the Prairie. “I knew I’d have to be the prepared one,” she says with a sigh, and I can’t help smiling as she rummages through her brown canvas duffel. “Here.” She whisks her arm through the air, and a slinky gold thing traces a path from her hand to my lap.
“So I’ll wear it with my jeans.”
“It’s a dress. Just don’t wear a thong.” She winks and hands me a pair of high, strappy shoes. “What shoe size are you?”
“Eight.” I’m still eyeing the dress warily. “I literally won’t be able to lift my arms,” I say.
“Eight’s perfect! Me too. Maybe Charlie has a thing for average-sized feet.” Her joke hurls me back into the present, into the dreary little hostel and into the reason we’re even here. Sometimes when I’m not paying attention, I find myself liking Lena a little. I think about what Charlie must have loved about her, and wonder if I could care about her too. But when I catch myself thinking that way, it feels like I’m betraying myself.
“Are you sure we’re going to find something at Fabric?” I ask her.
“No,” she says. “But it’s the first place I thought to look. And Xander can get us in. He’s always had a thing for me.”
“That’s funny,” I say. “Because I knew about Xander. But I thought he was this totally geeked-out gamer. I didn’t realize he was such a clubgoer.”
“Holy shit,” Lena says. “Did Charlie tell you he was a gamer? No. No way. Charlie probably never played a video game in his life, and Xander’s his club buddy, weed hookup, you know. That guy.” My heart’s pounding and I’m about to protest that actually, Charlie wasn’t the clubber type. He was super into philosophy, and claimed to have a soft spot for video games, both of which made him kind of a nerd. He told me he’d smoked weed once and hated it because it made him paranoid. But she’s already pulling me out the door. I do my best to tug the gold slinky thing farther down my thighs—then give up when I realize it’s just not possible.
I think of Charlie’s eyes as we walk to the corner where Xander’s waiting. “Thanks for giving us a ride,” I remember to tell him, and he nods back. Charlie’s eyes were blue, a pretty blue. Not bright like mine but paler, practically gray. They were always wide and direct but even when I first met him, I had the strange feeling that I couldn’t see beyond them into his soul. And then later, he started talking about how he didn’t believe in the soul’s existence.
It’s occurring to me belatedly that it’s all relevant, all tied up in this terrible nightmare; but then we’re squeezing in behind Xander and speeding off on his BMW motorcycle past the formidable, towering lions that guard Trafalgar Square—how much money does this guy have? He’s only, like, nineteen—and I’m hating, hating, hating Charlie even more than ever, for the awful ways he’s lied to me and because he thought he had me pegged. He was so sure the guy he presented me—the “safe” one who played video games and read philosophy and hung out with fellow nerds—was someone I could love.
6