Oville starts with a fast one, and the crowd all knows the words and starts dancing with arms thrown in the air. Liam sweats and belts his heart out: We tried, I cried, you hide, and then we do it all over. Do it all over. We tried, I cried, you hide, and then we do it all over.
Simple lyrics, maybe, but before I know it, I’m dancing too, transfixed. Maybe it’s the alcohol—not maybe, of course it’s the alcohol—but I find myself staring at Ethan. I don’t care if he notices, thinks I’m a cray-cray stalker; he’s onstage asking to be stared at. For a second I feel his eyes on mine—I swear I do, and I shiver—but then he looks back into the crowd and I think I must have imagined it.
—
“We’re Oville, and we’ll be back,” Liam says, and jumps off the stage to deafening cheers. I turn to Dri, grab her shoulders.
“You were so right about them,” I say. “Oh. My. God.”
“Right? Right?”
“Not you too,” Agnes says, and rolls her eyes, though she was dancing right alongside us.
“Not about Liam,” I say. “But—”
“Not about Liam, what?” Liam says, and there he is again, standing next to me, shiny with sweat and elation. Thank God I didn’t finish my sentence. I don’t need the humiliation of Ethan finding out I have a debilitating crush on him via Liam.
“Nothing. You guys were amazing. Seriously,” I say, and nudge Dri to join in the conversation. Before she can say a word, though, Gem runs up and practically jumps into Liam’s arms, and wraps herself around his torso. She kisses him and we can all see her tongue.
“Whoa, what was that for?” Liam slowly puts her down. He doesn’t sound drunk anymore. Maybe performing burned it all off.
“Baby, you guys, like, totally slayed,” Gem says, and then links her arm with his, as if we need another demonstration that she is his girlfriend. We get it. He bones you.
“Thanks. Hey, do you know Jessie? Remember I told you about her? She works at Book Out Below!” Liam says.
Gem turns to me and smiles, and it looks so sincere, my first thought, beyond disgust, is that I’m certain that she will one day become famous. This girl can act. Of course Liam likes Gem; he’s never actually met her. I wonder what he’d say if he knew she mocks me daily.
“You’re new, right? Don’t we have English together or something?” she asks. Pure innocence. I shrug, unable to force myself to respond. Agnes thrusts another drink into my hand, and though I don’t really need it, I gulp it down.
“Liam, I like the new riff you added to ‘Before I Go.’ It really works,” Dri says, and I so appreciate her jumping in that I want to cry.
“You think? Ethan thought it was a little flashy,” Liam says.
“Nah, you needed a break right then. Too much tension or something.”
“That’s exactly what I said.”
“Lee-lee, we need to go. Crystal is calling us,” Gem says, and starts to pull Liam away, like he’s a yippy dog sniffing something disgusting.
“I’ll be there in a sec,” Liam says.
“Come on, I want you to make me your special vodka and Red Bull.” Gem says it like an invitation, as if she is asking him to lick her, not to prepare a drink. How does she do that? Talk with innuendo? Is that something I will ever learn how to do, or is it a skill she was born with, just a bonus in her overflowing genetic swag bag?
“I do make kick-ass cocktails. Catch you guys later?” Liam asks, and gives us a wide smile, big enough that Dri can now cross see Liam Sandler smile at me off her bucket list.
SN: you look beautiful.
Me: are you here? where are you?
I don’t acknowledge his compliment because it’s too easy to lie. Maybe Agnes has a point: writing is different from speaking after all. My mom used to tell me I was beautiful, but I always felt like she meant it in a general way, from the perch of someone whose own body had betrayed her, and maybe also as a public service message, a way to build up my flagging self-confidence. Scarlett’s mother, on the other hand, used to say that Scarlett could be gorgeous if she only lost ten pounds, which was cruel, of course, but also specific, as if her mom thought she was worthy of an honest assessment.
I look around. A tall, good-looking guy in the corner wearing glasses and a gray T-shirt is staring at his phone. It takes me a moment to place him. He was the first person I saw at Wood Valley: Kilimanjaro gray T-shirt boy. The one who spent the summer climbing mountains and building schools in Tanzania. I doubt he’s SN—I picture SN as more of a homebody, unlikely to have spent his summer scaling mountains—but it’s worth further investigation.
“Who’s that?” I ask Dri, motioning to the guy in the corner.
“Caleb. Agnes went to junior prom with him last year as friends. He’s cool. Why?”
“Trying to figure out who SN is,” I say. Dri jumps up onto one of the lounge chairs to get a better view of the party. I try to pull her down. I don’t want him, wherever he is, whoever he is, to see her scoping him out. Dri is many wonderful things, but subtle is not one of them.
“I’d say three-quarters of the guys at this party are texting right now,” she reports. “Could be Caleb, though. He’s a little weird like that.”