about the brilliance of my uncles’ moonshine. It’s my uncles’ sales pitch, which I’ve heard a million times.
“Making moonshine has been in our family for generations and everyone who knows about it agrees it’s the best moonshine around, taking top honors in the three essential moonshine tests.” I try to hold up three fingers, but can’t quite manage it and settle for all five. “One. Most likely to make a man fight someone he loves for no good reason.” I point in the direction of the screaming couple in the next room. “Check.”
The freshmen look impressed.
“Two. Most likely to lead to bad life decisions while under its influence.” This time I have to scan the room for a moment, mostly because it is spinning around me. Finally, I locate Arnold Tuney kissing Blake Graham. Arnold is out of the closet. He is the cool girl’s token gay. Blake is a guy who has been dating the same girl for three years and routinely refers to people, places, and things he does not like as “gay.” This time the freshmen don’t need me to point, they have followed my gaze and are staring in open-mouthed shock.
“Check. Wow, Arnie could really do better.” I shake my head, lose track of what I was talking about, and have to be reminded why I’m holding my hand up in the air.
“Right,” I say. “Finally—and most important of all—it’s likely to make you so goddamn drunk you don’t even care about the other two.” I don’t have to point to any particular person for this. The whole party is insane. People are puking everywhere and then turning around to get more beer. They are too drunk to know better. Michaela’s house may never be the same. It gives me a certain satisfaction. Maybe the freshmen feel it too, because they all look back at me and say, “Check.”
By the time I open the final jar of moonshine, I feel certain that my whole life has changed. The crowd cheers me as a hero. We are all best friends, drinking from the communal jar of love. For the last few sips they even pick me up and place me on the dining room table.
Raising the jar of moonshine above my head, a gigantic grin on my face, I know I look like an idiot, but somehow I can’t stop smiling. The world isn’t the horrible place I thought it was. The world is great. It’s awesome and full of possibility that I was simply never drunk enough to see before.
I open my mouth to tell these wonderful people here how much I love them and how happy I am to be here with them tonight.
And then Smith walks into the room.
He has his arm slung around some long-legged girl who goes to another high school, or maybe even college. Smith is so cool he can’t date girls who go to his own school. After all, where’s the challenge in that?
Of course, half the room turns to stare at him and his latest hottie. You idiots, I think, why do you all fall for his “coolest guy in the world” shtick? The only problem is that my gaze is also aimed squarely in Smith’s direction, drinking in his skinny jeans, worn T-shirt, dark hair that looks casually tousled but has actually been painstakingly styled, and signature smirk. You know the kind of smirk I’m talking about. You want to slap it off his face. Or kiss it off.
Okay, fine. I’m leaning toward the second one and even worse, I’m so drunk that I forget to hold back the drool and naked longing.
And that’s when his eyes collide with mine.
Briefly.
It is much too long.
Smith. Dylan’s twin. Dylan. Oh, Dyl. Dead, dead Dyl.
It all comes roaring back.
How could he think that I’d had something to do with what happened to her? He should have known better. Maybe he did. Maybe he’d just been looking for an excuse to hate me. For being the one who didn’t die. And I hated him for that because once we’d been . . . not quite friends, but close. He hung out with me and Dyl sometimes and we often ended up laughing at the same things, grooving to the same music, reaching for the same potato chip.
All right, so maybe I was inflating small moments.
Smith pivots, dragging his girlfriend with him, back out the door.
“Have a drink, Smith.” The moonshine takes over my mouth and I actually yell these words at his