We found Dustin in the living room, lounging on the couch with a dozen other people I mostly knew around a three-foot-tall bong. Clouds of sweet, sticky smoke clung to the walls and floated in the air, and I could tell by Dustin’s lazy grin and heavy eyes that he was super high. No air freshener existed strong enough to eliminate the smell before his parents came home on Monday, and they were going to kill him, but, right then, I doubted he cared.
“Ozzie! Cal! I’d get up, but I can’t get up.” Dustin had spent the last four years focused on earning the best grades and becoming valedictorian so he could attend an Ivy League school, only to see that dream crumble because his parents had made a couple of bad decisions. I’d worried the loss would crush him, but Dustin was stronger than Giles Corey, and definitely stronger than me.
We made our introductions, and Dustin rattled off everyone’s names, which I promptly forgot. There was a Sabrina, a Joel, two Austins. Too many names to remember. I called everyone “dude” or “hey, you” out of necessity, and no one seemed to mind.
“Drink up, guys,” Dustin said.
“Lua here?” I asked.
Dustin took a hit off the bong and blew a jet of hazy smoke toward the ceiling. “Not yet. Maybe. Honestly, I don’t know. This couch is my entire universe tonight.”
“I know the feeling,” I said.
“I’ll help you look,” he said. “Am I standing up? I’m definitely standing, right?”
“Still sitting.”
Dustin patted the couch. “You should join us.”
“Maybe later,” I said. “I want to find Lua first.”
Cal nudged me. “Mind if I . . . ?”
“Yeah!” Dustin said, and shoved some guy with blond dreadlocks aside to make room for Calvin. “Calvin’s cool, Oz. How did we never know he was so freaking cool?” He grinned at Cal.
“I’ll be back?” I said.
“And I’ll be here.” Cal flopped down on the couch beside Dustin, who was already packing the bowl.
I rarely understood Calvin. It was like his emotions were controlled by a single switch he randomly flipped on and off. We’d spent enough time together for me to recognize a few of the triggers that shut him down—college, wrestling, his mother—but sometimes we’d be hanging out in his room and he’d be talking furiously with his hands, arguing with me about a new theory I’d floated for why the universe was shrinking, and then he’d stop cold and go monosyllabic for the rest of the day.
I figured so long as he wasn’t hurting himself, I didn’t need to tell his father, but I still worried about him.
Besides, Calvin’s behavior wasn’t that unusual when compared to the rest of the senior class. As we neared graduation, and floods of college acceptance and rejection letters rushed toward mailboxes throughout Cloud Lake, a lot of students had started freaking out. The other day at lunch, Jocelyn Nash had thrown a plate of meatloaf at Devi Chad and then stormed out of the cafeteria because Devi got accepted to FSU while Jocelyn had been wait-listed, but who the hell throws meatloaf over something like that? And Stephen Malik showed up to school with a giant tribal tattoo on his neck, telling everyone it didn’t matter since he wasn’t going to college and would probably end up working at a convenience store. The tattoo turned out to be temporary, though I wasn’t as sure about Stephen’s nihilism.
So it wasn’t just Calvin who was stressing over the great looming unknown. Only, I suspected the source of Calvin’s behavior ran deeper and was connected to the teacher he said he’d had sex with, which I hadn’t worked up the courage to press him for more details about. I wanted to help him, but he needed to tell me on his own terms.
I wandered through the house, checking each room for Lua. I found Jaime and Birdie Johnson making out in the kitchen, and kids in other rooms drinking and talking. Dustin’s party was quieter than the one party I’d gone to at Trent’s. No one had trashed Dustin’s house—yet—and the neighbors hadn’t called the cops. We were just a bunch of soon-to-be sort-of adults enjoying our last days of wasted youth.
I was heading back to the living room to check on Calvin when I spied a lone figure on the patio by the pool. I peeked my head out the sliding glass door, and Lua’s bright green hair—because pink was so yesterday—shone like a neon beacon.
“Lu?” I called.
“No Lua here.”
The floodlights illuminated the patio and pool, but Lua kept to the shadows. He stood at the edge of the pool, wearing board shorts and a tank top, and I noticed that he’d stopped shaving his legs. I closed the sliding glass door behind me so we could talk uninterrupted.
“You haven’t been answering your phone,” I said.
“And yet you keep calling. Funny how that works.”
“I talked to your mom today while I was mowing the grass.”
“Good for you.”
I walked toward Lua but kept my distance. “Listen, you told me not too long ago that you were drowning. Well, Trent’s throwing you a life jacket, and you seem hell-bent on ignoring it. Tell me why.”
“Because fuck Trent, that’s why.” Lua glanced at me.
“Fine,” I said. “Fuck Trent. But accepting his parents’ money to fix your hand doesn’t make you indebted to him. It’s not charity, it’s restitution.”
Lua snorted. He sat on the deck and slipped his legs into the pool, and I sat beside him.
“Look, if you’re afraid of going on tour, that’s fine, but don’t use your fingers as an excuse.”
“It’s not an excuse!” He held up his hand. Even splinted, his index finger was bent at an unnatural angle. “I can’t play guitar with this.”
“Then let someone else play,” I said. “The band will still kick ass without you on guitar.”
“Yeah right.”
I threw up my hands. “Then get the damn surgery.”
“I will . . . eventually. But Trent’s not paying for it.”
“It’s okay to be scared.”
Lua laughed. “I liked you better when you only thought about yourself.”
“I’m serious, Lu,” I said. “Maybe it was all too much. Maybe the tour and the album and the attention were overwhelming, and Trent messing up your hand gave you an excuse to take a step back. That’s fine. But if you want this, if you really want to be a musician, don’t let your pride or fear stop you.”
“At least the things I’m afraid of are real, Ozzie.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Universe still shrinking?”
I looked up at the sky. There should have been stars, planets. The sky should have shone so bright, but it was empty. “The moon’s gone,” I said.
“The what?”
“The moon.” I shook my head. “Forget it.”
Lua pushed himself to his feet. “Just leave me alone, all right?”
“I still see you, Lua. No matter who you are, I see you.”
“That’s great, Ozzie. Too bad half the shit you see isn’t real.”
? ? ?
Calvin was stoned when we drove home from the party. He’d wanted to stay at Dustin’s longer, but after my conversation with Lua I’d just wanted to go home. His dad’s truck sat in the driveway, so I sneaked Cal up to his room. He fell across his bed while I stripped off his shoes and pants. He sat up long enough for me to pull his hoodie over his head.
Calvin’s arms were covered in a latticework of fresh cuts. Long gaping mouths that silently screamed.
“What did you do, Cal?” I reached out to touch one of the cuts, but stopped short. I couldn’t make myself do it.