“I did everything I did because I wanted to, okay?” I say. “You didn’t ever force me to do anything.”
She nods, but I don’t know if I’ve convinced her. She switches on her lamp and switches it off again. “You’re off the hook.” Her voice is the softest it’s been since I came in. “We only have a couple more weeks here. Let them believe you were never into it… that you were never into me.”
Maybe if I were a better person I would ignore her suggestion and tell everyone that she didn’t take advantage of me, that I care about her, that being with Iris makes being cut off from the life I never wanted to leave enjoyable, not just bearable.
But I am the sort of person who, when I walk out of our room the next day, finds it easier to let them believe what she said. I shut down Bianca immediately when, with the most concern I’ve ever seen her show toward another human being, she asks if I’ve been sexually assaulted and want to make a report. But I don’t deny what Iris told them, and I don’t correct them when they repeat it.
And the worst part is that I can’t stop thinking how it’s the nicest they’ve been to me all year.
twelve.
It’s hard not to think of Iris whenever I drink.
We weren’t even close to being the biggest drinkers in our dorm, but she kept a bottle of raspberry-flavored vodka under her bed that we sipped from during second semester. She’d procured it with the help of her older sister when she was home over winter break, smuggled back to school in a giant duffel bag with her lacrosse gear.
So when DeeDee says she’d like to get drunk because she’s fighting with Alicia and I’m the only person she wants to see, I immediately think of Iris, the relationship between girls and liquor. Iris and I stopped drinking when everything fell apart between us, and it never occurred to me to use alcohol as a coping mechanism. We drank raspberry vodka on the nights I wanted to be closer to her.
DeeDee comes over armed with a fifth of spiced rum tucked in her overnight bag, and when she shows it to me up in my room, it reminds me so much of Iris that for a moment I can’t breathe.
“What’s wrong?” DeeDee asks.
“Nothing. I just…”
“You’re not chickening out, are you?” She turns the bottle around so she can read the label. “It says it’s premium. This is the good stuff.”
I squint at the bottle. “Where’d you get that?”
“Someone left it at your welcome-back party. Totally unopened. Amazing, right?” She slips it back into her duffel, under her pajamas, and shoves the bag next to my bed. “Thanks for letting me come over. It feels good here. Cozy.”
“Mom and Saul missed having you here,” I say, linking my arm through hers as we head downstairs. Our bare feet press down on the squeaky hardwood floor as we walk in tandem.
“I missed this,” DeeDee says as we step into the kitchen.
The room is heady with basil leaves and olive oil and fresh dough, which means only one thing: DeeDee’s pilgrimage has warranted homemade pizza from Saul. He makes his own sauce, too, with tomatoes Mrs. Maldonado brings over by the bagful from her garden. The basil grows in a small plot of our own out back, across the yard from the tree house.
My whole family is hanging out in the kitchen: Mom carefully ladling sauce over a circle of rolled-out dough while Lionel and Saul line the top of the island with sausage and cheese and pepperoni and vegetables. We finish making the pizzas together, and DeeDee’s right—there is something nice about being with my family and her like this. These were the sorts of moments that made me ache with loneliness at Dinsmore: tripping over each other in a too-crowded, flour-dusted kitchen that smells like the very essence of good food.
After dinner, DeeDee insists on helping clean up, even after my parents protest more than once. Maybe she’s trying to solidify her spot on their good side, and I glance at her over the dual sinks as we rinse plates, wondering just how drunk she plans to get this evening.
Ten minutes later we’re up in the tree with the bottle of rum, transported through the house wrapped in a blanket.
“God, it’s weird being back up here.” DeeDee walks around the small room to inspect what’s changed and what’s stayed the same since she was last here many months ago. She opens the cabinet that Saul built into the far wall and looks at the stack of dusty board games hanging out above Lionel’s and my old sleeping bags. “Do you guys still come up all the time?”
“Not as much as we used to.” I settle onto the futon and place the blanket-wrapped bottle to the side. “It’s all kind of different since—”
Just then, I hear Lionel’s feet coming up the tree, and his flame-colored head pokes through the doorway a few seconds later. I asked DeeDee when we were washing dishes if she’d mind his company. I didn’t think she would, but I wanted to check, and she said, “Why are you even asking?” like the best friend that she is. And he decided to come up, which isn’t the choice I expected but the one I was hoping for. He’s comfortable with DeeDee, and maybe starting small is the best way to reintegrate into our group of friends.
Lionel’s eyes find the alcohol as soon as he’s in the room. The blanket has slipped away, revealing part of the label. “Looks like I showed up at just the right time.”
The first thing that comes to mind is his meds, but then I remember. And I know he’s not taking them again, because I check my tissue box every day, and they were still lodged in the bottom before DeeDee came over.
“We’re drinking because Alicia is being crazy,” she says, joining me on the futon.
I stiffen, waiting to see if Lion will be offended. Crazy is the word he always uses when he talks about how other people view him, and I know how much he hates that label.
But he doesn’t say anything or even flinch, and Dee tosses the blanket that we brought from inside over her legs. Los Angeles cools down after the sun has set, even in the summer. The two windows are sealed shut, but a chilly breeze winds through the cracks of the tree house. It’s nothing compared to the bone-chilling winters of Massachusetts, but it is enough to make me ask Lion to pass over a sleeping bag.
He retrieves them both and shakes the dust out in the doorway before he slides mine over. I unzip the musty cotton roll; it’s pink and purple and printed with sparkly-horned unicorns. Lion spreads his out, Transformers splashed against a navy-blue background, and sits on top of it, looking expectantly at the bottle.
DeeDee pops it open, taking a long swig before she passes it down to him. “Oh my God,” she says, breathless after she swallows. “That’s horrible. We need a chaser.”