“Oh, yeah. I just—I thought you were going with him.” One baboons . . . two drunken revelry . . . “I can’t go.”
“What? No! You have to come with me,” Meg whines, opening the fridge to pour herself a glass of milk. If we were at her house she’d grab a Coke, but we don’t usually have pop in the house unless someone else brings it.
“There’s no way,” I tell her flatly. “I don’t do parties.” Three panicky stampede . . . four trapped in crowded corners . . .
“Don’t do parties yet.”
The only time I’ve ever been to a party, it was an accident. My so-called friend invited me over with “just a few people.” Turns out “just a few” meant at least thirty. Not as many as those huge parties you see in movies, but enough that when she disappeared to make out with her boyfriend and I found myself alone on a couch in a dark corner surrounded by strangers, I forgot how to breathe. I sat there forever, the chatter and faces and laughter swirling around me as I struggled to remember where my lungs were, until finally I pulled myself together enough to go outside and call my mom to pick me up.
I’m not going through that again, but how do I get out of it without telling Meg about my panic attacks? Because there’s no way I’m telling Meg the Fearless that just sitting on a couch with strangers can make me hyperventilate. “Can’t you just go by yourself?”
“Not when I’m trying to impress a guy! What if he’s watching for me? I’ll look like a loner if I show up by myself.” Meg pouts as she slides back into her seat. “Don’t be nervous. It’ll be fun.”
I nibble on a hangnail. The party she’s talking about is probably the full-blown movie type. If she thinks it’s silly for me to be nervous about that, she’s going to think it’s completely ridiculous that a party with thirty people lounging around on couches induces full-blown panic mode. I definitely can’t tell her that. I can’t even tell her that I’m freaking out at the thought of testing thirty people for our science project. Ever since we handed in our proposal, I’ve been waking up in the middle of the night thinking about it. Eight overstimulated . . . nine disappearing friend . . . “Who is this guy again?”
“Grayson. The guy I pointed out in the cafeteria. Like, multiple times. You know, Boxer Boy. You’d like him, Kat. He’s an archer.”
“We don’t need a new archer,” I protest. “We need a tank.”
“No, not in LotS. In real life.”
“What, like with a real bow and arrows and stuff?” I stop gnawing at the tiny, loose flap of skin and nail. “I didn’t know people actually did that.”
She giggles girlishly. “Right? That’s exactly what I thought. So cool.”
“And you think he likes you?” It comes out sounding skeptical, which is not what I mean. Thankfully, Meg doesn’t notice.
“I think he was going to ask me to go with him. Before Kenzie screwed it up.” She scowls and pushes my math text away.
“Well, problem solved then.” My tension-filled shoulders relax. “Call him up and the two of you can go together. You don’t need me.”
Seventeen romance . . . eighteen archery range . . .
Meg plants both her hands on the table, elbows in the air, and stares me down. “I’ll call him up and invite him if,” she challenges, “you pick up your phone and invite any guy in the world on any date of your choice.”
I break eye contact first, glancing down at my phone, then back at her, as my shoulders reunite with their familiar tension. I can’t do that. Obviously I can’t do that. “All right, fine, you win. But I’m still not going.”
“Not going where?” Granddad asks as he shuffles into the kitchen. He was downstairs with Mom and Dad, watching some documentary on whales. I don’t know how he got up the stairs without me hearing him. I don’t know how he ever manages to get up those stairs without breaking his hip again.
Meg hops up from her chair. “Hi! You’re Granddad. We haven’t met yet.” She strides toward him.
“And you’re Meg,” Granddad says. “And no, we haven’t.”
Meg sticks her arm out and I think she’s going to shake his hand, but instead she offers him her fist. Granddad doesn’t even hesitate, just presses his own bony knuckle up to hers in a fist bump.
“I’ve been dying to meet the man with the epic eyebrows,” Meg says, and my face flushes instantly hot. But Granddad just grins and makes the white, bushy caterpillars on his forehead bob up and down. Meg laughs appreciatively. “You sure seem to go out a lot. You’re never here.”
I’m always bumping into Granddad around the house and trying to figure out what the heck to say to him, so it seems to me like he never leaves. But I guess he’s been out when Meg’s visited before.
“Well, I’m not going to let this thing”—he waves his hand toward his hip—“stop me from living my life.”
That’s a sentiment I don’t understand. If I had an excuse to never leave the house, I’d take it.
“You’re even cooler than I expected,” Meg says. Granddad laughs at that, and my stomach twists. This is the first time Meg’s ever met Granddad, and she’s already talking more comfortably with him than I ever have.
Meg heads back to the table, and Granddad hobbles after her. “So, where were the two of you going?” he asks.
“Nowhere, apparently,” Meg says as she plops back down on her backward chair—sideways this time. “Kat’s being a real party pooper. Literally. There’s this party on Friday night, and she refuses to go for no reason.”
“A party?” His eyes travel far away for a moment, before drifting back to us. “You should go, Katharina. Your grandma and I used to go to quite a few before she stopped leaving the house. I met her at a party.”
Even though we’re so different, I’ve always felt like Granddad somehow gets me. But if he thinks I should go to this party, maybe he doesn’t get me at all.
Meg raises her eyebrows at me, as if Granddad meeting my grandma at a party is so romantic that I can’t possibly argue with it. But it does nothing to quell my panic. I might find it more compelling if I had ever met my grandma, but she died before I was born. Granddad has always just been Granddad. My granddad.
“Was she a good dancer?” Meg asks, and Granddad’s face lights up. How does Meg always know what to say? Even to people she’s just met?
“Oh, was she ever,” he says. “She could dance a mean twist.”
“Man, I wish I could dance the twist,” Meg says, climbing to her feet as if she’s going to try right now.
“If it wasn’t for this hip, I’d teach you.”
Their banter is so smooth. They’re both so adventurous.
I’ve always known how much Granddad loved me. Always. Except, now that we live together, now that he’s seen how terribly scared I am all the time, I wonder if that’s changed. Not that I think he doesn’t love me anymore, but if he doesn’t understand, then maybe he’s unimpressed. Disappointed.
Meg and Granddad chatter away about different dance moves, old and new, as I try to imagine going to another party. I can’t picture it. My brain shoves the image away and I see only darkness. Feel the tightness in my lungs from holding my breath.