recognize each of them. Like me, they are freaks and outcasts so low on the social ladder they should be ashamed of even thinking about Michaela’s party, much less attending it.
I slump back down and let my heavy eyes close once more. I’ve been tossed from the party and while I wish I could say someone made a mistake and that I don’t belong here, it’s not true. Who was I kidding? Did I really believe a few jars of shine were enough to change my life?
And then, as if the universe wants to make sure that I really and truly got the message, water begins to pour down. We’re all soaked in seconds. The deluge ends as abruptly as it began, only to be replaced by soap. I squeeze my eyes and mouth closed too late. From the spitting noises around me, I’m not the only one. Everyone’s awake and prepared by the time the scrubbers come down.
Yes, we are at the car wash. After getting watered down, soaped up, and nearly blown away by the drier, we finally emerge back out into the night. Before we can exhale a great big communal sigh of relief, tons of camera phones begin to flash around us as several of Michaela’s buddies compete to capture the moment for posterity and Instagram. The cherry on top of all this is someone’s car radio cranked up and blasting out that old disco favorite, “At the car wash, whoa whoa whoa.”
I pull myself into a sitting position in time to watch Michaela saunter toward us. Actually, there are two of her, I think. I squint, trying to bring her into focus, as she leans against the side of the truck and smiles the tight bitchy smile she’s known for; Dylan used to do an amazing impression of it.
“I wish I could say that all of you clean up nicely, but . . .” Michaela and her double both laugh.
“Bitshhhh,” I slur like an idiot. Michaela laughs again.
“Don’t try to talk, sweetie. You’ve got a lot of liquor inside you still . . . although it does look like some of it’s in your hair. Oh, and the cough syrup we poured in your beer is probably messing with you a little bit too.”
Furious, frightened, and more than a little betrayed, I try to take a swing at Michaela, but only manage to painfully connect my fist with the side of the truck. Michaela—and now with the clarity of pain, I can see the second girl is not a double, but Blake’s girlfriend, of course—gets another giggle out of this. I hate them both, but my eyes are so heavy, and if I let them close for a minute . . . just long enough to gather my thoughts . . .
I wake again, still groggy as hell and now dizzy too. At first I think I’m alone because all I can hear is my own heavy breathing. But there’s a hand wrapped around my ankle, and another slowly sliding up my bare leg. The heavy breathing isn’t mine. It goes along with the owner of those hands. I squirm, trying to shake him off.
“Don’t be like that, Lennie.” This voice I recognize instantly.
Walsh Weathers Junior. Otherwise known as W2, which is a nickname his family gave him when he was a baby. They own Weathers Chevrolet, and W2 comes to school in a brand-new pickup truck every month. That explains whose truck bed I’m lying in. The car wash too. Damn.
W2’s goal of feeling up every girl in our class is well known. Hell, he even brags about it. “The dykes, the fatties, the nerdies, the Jesus-lovin’ super virgins. I want ’em all.”
It’s gross. And parties full of drunk girls are his main hunting ground.
I know all of this, but for some reason it hadn’t even crossed my mind that he might try to cross me off his list tonight.
Because I thought I’d owned that party. I thought that maybe things had finally changed.
I’m an idiot, that’s for sure.
Most people would say that right now I’m getting exactly what I deserve. They said the same thing about Dylan when she went missing. That she’d hung out with trash like me and I’d led her to the biker bar where she was last seen. They didn’t know that the big fight we’d had was over me telling her to stay away from there. That the uncs had told me that place was bad news, and