“Did you see me?” says Sof. She’s extra-raspy, grabbing my arms and bouncing up and down, it’s annoying, before jumping past me. “I’m so thirsty, ermahgahd, I might drink straight from the tap.”
I trail in her wake. Somewhere near, I’m aware Ned and Thomas have followed her into the kitchen. The half-destroyed cake is on the counter.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Ned’s stereo is blasting Iron Maiden, and I have to yell. It makes me sound angrier than I am—I just want to know why it had to be a secret.
“I’m sorry!” she yells back, reaching into the cupboard for an actual glass, not the plastic cups everyone’s drinking from. “What if I’d chickened out, or been terrible? I always told you I wanted to see what it was like to be in a band.”
“All your bands are imaginary.”
Sof yanks on the tap, which doesn’t budge. “I know—but”—she readjusts, shoving aside debris to put her glass on the counter, both hands on the tap—“you’d have wanted to hear us rehearse, and I could only do it if it was me and Ned alone, and—shit, this is annoying—I dunno, what if we were terrible?”
Ned hops onto the counter next to us, even though it’s disgusting—broken cups and drink spills, wet cigarette butts and weird sticky stuff. I suppose in spandex it doesn’t matter.
“You were brilliant,” he says, looking at Sof. There are ten thousand people in the kitchen but it’s just the two of them, in a bandmates bubble. Friends, conspirators. Swaps: I get dark matter, you take my friend.
You’re being a dog in the manger, says Grey’s voice in my head.
Yeah, but Ned’s MY brother, I argue back. And you’re dead, and I’m so, so angry at you about that.
“Who wants what?” says Thomas, catching up to us and plonking down a bunch of bottles, not looking at me. He didn’t want to kiss me. How stupid. How embarrassing! I laugh hysterically. Everyone ignores me.
“Is there any water? Even some pop?” croaks Sof. “Your tap is KILLING me!” She twists at it again, her knuckles white. The sink is full of darkness and I’m struck by how hugely unfair this is, that I’m the one who’ll have to face it.
“Budge over, Sof, it’s stuck.” She moves aside and Ned puts his full weight and both hands on the tap. “Scheisse. Thomas, can you grab me a wrench, or a knife, or something?”
“Wait a second,” I say to Thomas, holding him back. He flails, caught between me and Ned. “You couldn’t rehearse in front of me? You couldn’t even tell me? I’m the only one who’s heard you sing.”
“Sorry we didn’t tell you about the band,” says Ned, semipatiently, still trying to yank at the tap. Even over the music, I can hear the sarcasm, that he’s drunk. “Sof asked me not to. What happens at rehearsal stays at rehearsal—as I’ve told you a thousand times. You’d remember if you paid attention to anything other than yourself.”
He grabs a spoon from the drying rack and starts bashing the tap. I let go of Thomas’s arm. Am I selfish? All I’ve seen Ned do all summer is party, play guitar, and pretend Grey isn’t dead. But maybe I’ve got no idea what he’s been up to. Maybe he’s got wormholes too.
“I cannot believe you just said that,” I say to Ned’s back. “Hey! Look at me. You should have told me, you should have … She’s my friend.”
It’s Sof, not Ned, who turns on me. A hiss so low and furious I can barely hear the words. “I’m your friend? Are you joking? Gottie, you barely want me around! I can see it in your face every time I’m round here, and it sucks. You only reply to my texts half the time, you’re always with Thomas, you think the world revolves around you. Even when I was upset about Grey, you wouldn’t let me be your friend. Well, guess what? Ned did, and we don’t need your permission.”
“I’m not giving it!” I shout back, knowing I’m seconds away from being yanked out of time. Thomas is telling Sof to calm down and holding my arm, then Ned is yelling back at me.
“Gottie, shut up. You’re driving everybody crazy. You hide in your room for hours and you’re always daydreaming, you never listen, I fixed your bike, I try to involve you. And God, his car, you cleaned it—that was his STUFF, but you can’t deal with his shoes? And you disappear for hours when we need you, you’re so selfish, you eat all the cereal and drift around like you’re the only one in pain and Jesus, this fucking tap—”
Punk is blaring and everyone’s still yelling and I’m waiting for the wormhole to yank; it’s going to take me right now, surely. None of us notice the tap—the ancient, rusty, creaky kitchen tap, which I’ve been tightening with a wrench all year because it keeps leaking and Papa won’t deal with anything and I don’t know what else to do—as it shoots off the sink.
Silently, it rises up and up to hit the ceiling.
Followed by a geyser of water that threatens to drown us all.