Lessons from a Dead Girl (13 page)

As soon as we step inside, Jess grabs Web’s shot glass and downs one, then refills the glass and gives it to me. I sniff it.

“It’s raspberry Chambord,” he says. “You’ll love it, Lainey.”

I smile at him, hoping to see something in his eyes that says he likes me back. Nothing.

He pours the shot glass three-quarters full, then tops it off with some cream from a purple carton. I tilt my head back and fill my mouth with the sweet stuff. I swish it around before I swallow. It’s delicious.

“Mmm,”
I say.

“Told ya.” He winks at me, and I actually blush.

We finish the bottle and then switch to vodka and Sunny Delight. It doesn’t compare, but by then I am willing to drink anything.

Most of the night is a blur. I spend it standing against a wall in the living room, watching people dance and feel each other up at the same time. I don’t know how many people are here. Lots. I don’t know any of them.

Jess disappeared with a guy about twenty minutes ago, confirming that our time in Maine was just my freakish paranoia. Leah always told me I was a bad judge of character. She was so convinced everyone had a story. Sometimes when we were at a public place like the beach, she’d whisper each person’s secret life as they walked by. Whenever I made something up, she’d shake her head and tell me I was a bad people reader.

“You’re just afraid to look closely,” she’d tell me. “You don’t want to know the truth about people.”

I’d look again at all the people walking by, but she was right. I was afraid to look too closely.

I take one last look around for Jess before I go to the kitchen for some more juice. Straight juice this time.

The light is off when I get there, but when I flick it on, someone yells, “Cut the shit!” I shut it off again and walk quietly to where I think the fridge is. When I open the door, the light clicks on and I see two bodies pressed together, leaning up against the marble-top counter.

“Fuck sake!” a familiar voice says. I quickly grab the juice and swing the door shut. It’s Web.

I turn to leave, but I can’t help looking to see who he’s with. Web looks away, burying his face into the person’s neck. It’s the guy who gave us the raspberry stuff.

“Sorry,” I manage to mutter. I stumble through the room, leaving Web and the stranger in the dark.

I don’t know why I’m shaking. Like I’m the one who was caught, not him. But
caught
? It’s not like he was cheating on me. It’s not like … It’s not like he was ever going to like me more than as a friend.

I should have known. I should have looked closer.

I replay the night at the bar in my head, with me trying to get Web to kiss me. And Leah, right before we left, smirking and saying, “Nice try.” I thought she was talking about my pathetic attempt to look like I was with a guy, which now seems infinitely more pathetic.

She knew the whole time. Of course she knew. They were in summer school together. Web said something about being able to be himself there, but I was too clueless to know what that meant.

I manage to push my way through the living room of dancing bodies, down the hall, and out a sliding-glass door to a huge stone patio. I sit down on the ledge overlooking a pool made to look like a pond.

How could I be so stupid? How could I not have known? Everything makes sense now. Maybe I should be glad. He wasn’t attracted to me because he’s gay, not because there’s something wrong with me. So why am I not relieved?

“Hey,” a whispery voice says behind me.

I turn and see a guy I don’t know but recognize from inside. I think I saw him dancing.

“I’m Lucas.”

“Hi,” I say. “Laine.”

“Strange name.”

“Yeah.”

He sits down next to me.

“You have amazing eyes,” he says.

Really?

No. I know it’s a lie.

The jug of juice sits next to me on the bench. I wish I had more to drink.

He takes a long swig from his own red plastic cup and smiles at me.

“Can I kiss you?”

Before I answer, he leans forward and presses his lips against mine, forcing them open with his tongue, which is cold from whatever he’s been drinking. Coke and something stronger.

This is not the first kiss I imagined.

I see Web in the kitchen again, being held.

I squeeze my eyes shut tighter and concentrate on kissing the stranger back.

He puts his arms around me and slides me closer so our chests touch. He moves his hand from my back toward my front at my waist. I’m still trying to figure out the kissing thing, thinking,
Oh my God oh my God oh my God, I’m Frenching a total stranger,
when his fingers find their way under my tank top.

I feel like one of those cartoon characters when they hit their head and little birds spin around like a halo. I am so wasted. And yet every sensation in my body feels very, very, very alive. His thumb presses under my bra and finds my nipple.
Oh my God oh my God oh my God.
It feels good. Scary, but good. Very good.

The sliding door wooshes behind us.

“Lainey? You out here?” It’s Jess. She calls out innocently, even though I know she sees me.

The hand slips out of my shirt at the same time the tongue leaves my mouth. Lucas — that was his name, right? — pushes away.

“Uh, later,” he says. He doesn’t even bother to smile.

I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand as he dashes off, leaving me to wonder how the hell that just happened.

“Nice,” Jess says, nudging her head in the direction he fled. “Sorry to interrupt, but you looked like maybe you needed to be saved.”

“I guess,” I say. The excited feeling oozes out of me and off into the shadows. Why do I feel like I’ve been caught doing something bad?

“You seem”— she inspects my face —“sad.” She sits down next to me.

I shrug. “I’m stupid — that’s all,” I tell her.

“Stupid how?”

I shrug again. And then, I don’t mean to, but I start to cry. Only a little, but enough for her to notice.

“Hey,” she says. She moves closer to me and puts her arm around me. “Was that guy bothering you?”

“No.” I wipe my eyes with my wrist. I’m an idiot. First for being so amazingly clueless about Web, then for letting a complete stranger feel me up.

“I didn’t — I didn’t know about Web.”

“Know about him how?”

“I didn’t know.”

“Know what?”

“I walked in on him and another guy.”

“You mean you didn’t know he was
gay
?” She looks shocked.

“Yeah.”

At first I think she’s going to laugh, but as she sits and thinks, I see her put it all together, and instead of gloating, she squeezes me to her. “Oh, Lainey. That sucks,” she says.

I rest my head on her shoulder and cry quietly. Not because I’m sad that Web and I really don’t stand a chance, but because Jess is here, being a friend the way I always imagined a friend should be.

For the first time, I don’t feel uncomfortable when she touches me. I just feel comforted.

When I recover, we open the orange juice and pass it back and forth. Jess tells me about the guy she hooked up with in some bathroom, and I tell her about my five minutes with Lucas.

The sliding door opens again, and Web steps out, all disheveled. We crack up.

“What?” he says, but we just get hysterical.

“Move over.” He squeezes between us and takes a long swig from the juice. “Great party,” he says. “Next weekend, it’s at my house.”

Web’s first party is a blast.

It’s easy to make up an excuse for staying out all night. All I have to do is tell my mom I’m staying at Jess’s. Sometimes there are benefits to having your mom think you’re a loner freak.

There’s this picture of me, Web, and Jess on my screen saver. We’re wasted, but to the average clueless mother, we simply look really, really happy. I’m sure it makes my mom ecstatic to see me in a photo with
friends
— and I’m even
smiling.

At the party, someone from Web’s school has managed to score a small arsenal of serious stuff from their parents. It’s nasty-smelling, but Jess is good at finding ways to hide the smell — even the flavor — when necessary. We play drinking games to force down the first few chugs. After that, the taste gets better.

By the end of the party, people are totally out of control, getting sick in the bathroom, hooking up in any open space available. I keep an eye out for Lucas, but I don’t see him. Not that I want to be with him, but … well, maybe I do.

I keep replaying that time on the patio with him and wish it had been Leah who walked out to see us instead of Jess. I can almost remember his hand on my breast, and Leah’s words from way back, when she first told me about getting felt up and I didn’t know what it meant. It felt about as romantic as she described — someone rubbing my tit. But it also felt pretty good.

I look around for something more to drink, even though I don’t really need it. Jess and Web find me in the kitchen.

“Come on,” Jess says. “Escape walk.”

“What about all these people?” I ask. Web shrugs, like he doesn’t understand what the big deal is, leaving a bunch of drunken strangers in his house.

It’s dark and cold when we step outside. Fall is coming fast this year. Web brought a travel mug with orange juice and vodka with him. The three of us pass it back and forth as we walk to the gazebo behind his house.

We sit on the floor so we can’t see the house, only the silhouettes of the trees around us. The music from inside feels far away.

After a while, we hear cars starting as people begin to leave. I swear Web’s keeping track of how many, waiting until he thinks everyone has left.

When we finally go back inside, everyone’s gone except for a few people passed out on the floor and on the two couches in the living room.

Jess and I follow Web up to his room. He pulls off his sweatshirt and pants and then draws back his blankets.

“Looks like none of us are getting lucky tonight, girls. Care to join me?”

Jess strips to her tank top and panties and crawls in. I hesitate, standing at the edge of the bed.

Web pats the empty space next to him. “It’s OK, Laine. You know you’re not my type.” He smiles the way I love, even though it still hurts. I take off my pants but keep my long-sleeve shirt on. Then I crawl in. Web spoons me from behind, his warm arm draped over me. He breathes steadily in my ear. It feels good, and horribly hopeless.

“’Night, guys,” Jess says from the other side of the bed.

Web is already snoring softly.

“Good night,” I whisper. I close my eyes, letting my hot tears slip down my jaw.

A few weeks later, Web has another, even bigger party. Web’s house is the perfect place to have parties because his parents are never home. Most weekends they go to their place on the Vineyard. And in November they’ll go to Florida and only come back north for Thanksgiving and Christmas reunions with Web. Other than that, they think the house is unoccupied, with their perfect son at boarding school making them proud. Ha.

I’ve been drinking steadily for about an hour before I find my way to the bathroom in the master bedroom. Jess and I have put an “out of order” sign on the door so people will think it’s broken and we’ll never have to wait in line.

When I’m done, I open the door and step into Web’s parents’ bedroom. Someone has turned off the lights. I don’t think anything of it, but as I step into the dark, I feel a hand grab my wrist. At the same time someone whispers
“Shhh”
in my ear.

My heart races.

“Nice party, Lainey,” she says.

“Shit! God, Leah. You scared me.”

She sucks in her breath. “Nice to see you, too.”

“What are you doing here?” I ask. My heart pounds in my chest the way it does whenever I’m scared. The way it does when I’m with Leah.

“I followed you.”

I don’t tell her that’s not what I meant. I would have thought she’d consider herself too cool for partying with people her own age.

“Sorry I scared you,” she says. She walks over to a side table and clicks on a reading lamp, then sits on the bed. The low light casts a dark glow over her skin. She has on a silk tank top and definitely no bra. She pats the space next to her for me to sit down.

I stay standing, still recovering from the shock of seeing her again.

“I won’t bite,” she says. She shifts on the bed. She’s wearing a sheer skirt that shows the shape of her perfect thighs through it. I look down at my loose jeans.

I try to act casual when I walk over to her and sit down.

“So, how’ve you been, Lainey?”

“I’ve been fine,” I say, matching her fake cheerfulness. “How about you?”

She smiles and pushes her blond hair away from her face with the back of her hand. I catch a quick glimpse of her wrist but don’t see a scar. Maybe she only tried to slit one wrist. Maybe it’s the other one.

“I’m fine, too,” she says.

“How’s Brooke?”

“Great. Never been better. She’s fulfilling her dream of becoming a court stenographer.”

“Yeah, your mom told me about that. That’s cool.” I relax a little, relieved the conversation isn’t about me. Or us.