I’ve never been invited before. I’ve never wanted to go.
But this year, Alison stops me in the hall before calculus and personally invites me. “I really hope you’ll be there,” she says, like she’s truly counting on me coming, like my presence at her eighteenth birthday party will somehow solidify her most-popular-girl-at-school status. Everyone still thinks I’m with Tate, no matter how many times I deny it, or maybe the fact that I was with him is enough to catapult me to a different social stratosphere.
I pick up Carlos and we drive to Alison’s house at the base of the Hollywood Hills. Alison isn’t exactly rich, but she has a pool and her backyard is lush and manicured by an actual gardener that comes once a week.
Alison spots me as soon as we walk through the sliding glass doors onto the back patio, and she runs up and gives me a hug. “You came!” she screeches, holding me out at arm’s length. As if she and I have been besties since kindergarten.
“Beer, margaritas, and fiesta snacks are all over there,” she adds with a nonchalant wave. “Get yourself a drink, then come hang with me in the cabana.”
I glance over her shoulder at the poolside cabana with white sheer fabric draped over the little roof, swirling in the breeze. Lacy Hamilton and Jenna Sanchez are already reclining on the white mattress with regal superiority.
As the evening wears on, Carlos and I sit side by side on a pool chair, observing the party around us like social anthropologists. After a while he goes to get another beer, and I hear someone behind me.
“Charlotte Reed,” a voice says, and I turn in the chair.
It’s Toby McAlister, looking very buzzed, his cheeks flushed and his hair tousled like he’s already had a closet rendezvous with one of the sophomore girls I noticed flirting with him earlier. I think briefly of the sycamore tree at school that bears the testament of Toby and Alison’s short-lived romance. Their own version of paparazzi photos, I suppose. I wonder if it’s ever painful for either of them to walk by those initials and be reminded of the past. Then again, maybe not, considering Toby seems to have no problem being here tonight. “Aren’t these parties beneath you?” he asks. “PHH’s very own celebrity. I heard about you and Tate Collins.”
I refrain, barely, from rolling my eyes. If I had a dollar for every person who has mentioned Tate to me in the last few weeks, I wouldn’t have to worry about financial aid next year, I swear. “That’s over.” Maybe if I say it enough, it will finally stop hurting.
“Cool.” He shrugs. “Looks like you need a beer,” he says, holding out a red cup, sloshing with frothy brown liquid. He’s clearly had several.
“I’m not drinking actually,” I say. “Designated driver.”
“Oh. Very responsible of you.” His mouth twists into a grin, revealing a perfect row of teeth. Toby McAlister is obviously good-looking. The problem is that he knows it.
I offer him a terse smile.
“The pool,” he says, gesturing to the calm water. “Do you swim?”
“Are you asking if I know how to swim?”
“I’m asking you to swim with me.” He hiccups, then takes a swig from the cup he tried to give me only moments earlier. “Come on, Charlotte.” He stretches out my name, his brows rising in what I’m sure he thinks is an inviting expression.
“No thanks.” I turn back to the lawn and stand up from the chair. “I think I’m going to go, actually.”
“No—you can’t.” He reaches out for me, grabbing hold of my right arm. His fingers dig into my skin, not intentionally I don’t think, but because he’s using me now to keep his balance. But he’s pushing me backward, closer to the edge of the pool.
“Toby!” I say, trying to shove him with my other hand, but we’re already stumbling backward, the momentum carrying us both. But just before we fall in, Carlos is at my side, pulling me upright.
“You’re such an ass,” Carlos says to Toby, who has fallen over into the grass.
“She wouldn’t swim with me,” he says through a chuckle, splayed out on his back, arms wide, blinking up at the sky. He doesn’t seem in any rush to get up.
“I need to go,” I tell Carlos and he nods. “Can you find a ride home?”
“I’ll just take a taxi. You know me,” he adds, batting his dark eyelashes. “I only like to travel in my private limo.” He says it with his faux British accent and I crack a smile, mostly to let him know that I’m not mad that he’s staying. “Text me when you’re home,” he orders.
“I will.”
The street that Alison lives on is narrow and steep and lined with cars along one side. There are no streetlamps, only the occasional glow from a porch light left on at one of the houses tucked up in the trees.
A dog barks when I walk beside a fence, and I hurry past.
Then, a crunching—like footsteps on gravel—disturbs the eerie calm. My skin shivers, a thread of panic starting to inch its way up to my brain.