“Don’t say that. He was a good guy.”
“But he didn’t take care of the people who loved him. You don’t remember what it was like, or maybe you don’t want to.” Her voice is hoarse, talking over me before I can argue. “He was reckless with his own life, get it? He pissed it away up there on that girder for fifty bucks, didn’t think twice about his wife or two little girls waiting at home. Mom’s still so crazy over him that she’ll never see it that way, but you need to open your eyes. I’m sick of this.”
It could almost be me saying how I feel about Nell. But I’m not like her—I don’t need anybody babysitting me, hovering over me—and helpless anger binds my tongue.
Mags breathes out, fixing her gaze on me. “Are you ready to tell me what’s going on with you and Nell?”
I hold my breath so long that tiny starbursts appear around her, my big sister, standing there so self-righteous she ought to be wearing a halo like a church-window saint. “I can’t,” I say, trying to force in every bit of feeling I have so she finally gets it.
She stands still for a long second before turning back to the hall. “Then I’m ashamed to know you.”
She couldn’t have taken my breath away faster if she’d sucker punched me. I listen to her go downstairs. Then I whirl and rip the quilt off my bed, heaving it against the wall, clearing the junk off my vanity top in one swipe, kicking the stool over.
When there’s nothing left to trash, I storm into Mags’s room, grab the laptop, and message Kat. Come get me? She’s always on her phone. In less than thirty seconds she sends back a thumbs-up. On my way out, I knock over Mags’s can of pens and pencils, scattering them across the floor.
Fifteen minutes later, nearly noon, I see Kat’s pickup pull into our driveway. I run downstairs and out the door. Libby’s sitting on the porch, and she’s on her feet in a second. “Where do you think you’re going? Hey! I’m talking to you!” She shouts after me from the railing, “Don’t you dare—Darcy Celeste, freeze!”
Words I haven’t heard since I was about nine, and I give them the respect they deserve, climbing into the cab and slamming the door. “Go, go, go.” Kat gives it gas and swings the pickup in a circle, taking us to town.
TWENTY-FIVE
FILLING MY BELLY with vodka and beer. Hope nobody wants these pretzels, because I’m eating them all. No wonder Kat weighs ninety-seven pounds: she called three ice pops and a handful of green olives supper. That was hours ago, at her place, before she sent texts and got everybody out here, quarry-side.
Hard edge to the night, and it’s not just me. Everybody’s drinking more, laughing louder, forcing it. End of summer, almost back to school and senior year and the big unknown after graduation. I’m not the only one who feels like their world is ending.
“Remember Mr. Eldon-Tower?” Kat’s loud and doesn’t know it. “God, he was suuuch a freak. Remember?” She duckwalks around the bonfire while all us girls shriek laughter, then drops back onto the granite slab, her sweet, earthy, weed scent settling over me. “He wrote my name on the board once for, like, nothing. I literally did nothing and got in trouble.” She grabs more beer and gives me one, because she knows I’m hurting without having to ask what it’s about, which makes me love her. Mags is stupid to always be dumping on Kat. Oh well. She hates me now, too, so there you go. I gotta stop eating these pretzels. They’re soaking up my buzz.
Shea’s here. One minute I’m singing with Kat and Emma and Maddie, feeling really floaty and good, and then he’s standing over there, back from the firelight, beer in his hand, with that sophomore—I guess she’s a junior now— who pulls her thong up so high you can see it over the top of her jeans. He’s watching me, a hint of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. Smiling. Sonofabitch shouldn’t be here. Nobody invited his ass. I’m not scared, but I guess my heart is, because it starts sprinting without me.
Kat feels me stiffen, sees Shea, blinks like she can’t focus too good. “Screw ’im. I’ll take care of ya.” Slings her arm around my neck and pulls me back down into the singing.
A couple girls get into a shouting match and one of them shoves the other, sending her down so close to the pit that we see sparks. Makes me think of Nell last night, her shoulder grinding into the mud under me. Not that she’s been off my mind for a second all day. I try not to picture her lying white and stiff with unblinking eyes in a ditch somewhere, but I can’t help it.
Jesse shows up with Mason and a couple other guys, wearing his plain white T-shirt and worn-out jeans, that sexy-as-hell Springsteen uniform that still melts me. He and Shea see each other. Major unspoken friction. As I watch, Jesse presses his lips together and keeps moving through the crowd to the other side of the clearing. Guess he decided Shea isn’t worth it. It doesn’t bug me that Jesse’s here. I mean, live and let die or whatever.
Not sloppy drunk yet, because I can tell where Braden Mosier’s lips begin and mine end. When you’re sloppy, your faces feel like one big warm glob, which can be nice until later when you wonder who saw you sloppy-globbing and how many people they’ve told. I close my eyes and think about Jesse in the field, sweet hay under us, my fingers in his black hair.
Braden’s chewing my earlobe like Double Bubble and whispering, “You’re so hot.” I go into a giggle fit because, come on, seriously. “What?” he says. I think he’s mad. “What?” And I’m just so done.
Moon is out. People toss things into the quarry: empties, rocks, a flaming log. “God,” Maddie says, standing at the edge looking down, “that’s like . . . really, really far.”
I’ve been clique-hopping, pretending not to be freaking out since Kat forgot about taking care of me and went into the woods to smoke even though she knows I’m too drunk to have good radar. So I keep moving, keep acting like I’m having the best time. That way Shea can’t come up from behind. I chug more beer, washing down the acid in the back of my throat, and say to Maddie, “Don’t you ever swim here?” I’m loud and laughing.
“You jump?”
Burp. Tastes awful, coppery. “It’s not that high.”
“Are you serious? It’s like forty feet.”
“Show us, Darce.” I hear him but don’t turn. I catch enough of him from the corner of my eye: Shea, sitting on the ground, forearms on his knees, that sophomore curled up beside him. He talks in that way he has, like we’re buddies, like we’re both in on the joke. “You done it before, show us.”