I got here to Ethan, where I promised I wouldn’t let it go. “Aubs?”
You don’t answer, and I nudge you. “Aubrey!”
But you’re asleep. Snoring deeply.
* * *
Your parents are no longer in the chairs by the pool and I didn’t pass them in the kitchen, so maybe they’re watching a movie in the living room, or upstairs. Or maybe they went to bed. But doubtful with the party still going on.
There are way more people out here than earlier when we headed up to your room. I feel stupid without you, unsure what to do. Maybe I should go home. Thoughts of Ethan noticing me, or caring if he did, are all but vanished. I’ve already spotted him—off in the corner laughing with a pretty brunette with a better body than I’ll ever have, named Carly Witherspoon.
My heart sinks. Even her name is sophisticated.
Emboldened by the buzz from the wine, I walk over to the keg and hold a red Solo cup under the tap, my eyes scanning for your parents, who would likely kill me, or at least send me home, which wouldn’t be the worst thing. What’s the point of staying here, anyway?
“Can I see your ID?” There’s a hand on my shoulder and I startle, but it’s just Dante Darby, who you have a crush on.
Did you know he would be here?
My eyes shoot to your window, but the lights are still off, how I left them. I wonder for a brief moment if I should run back up and try to wake you.
“Hey, Dante,” I say, staring down at the trickle of liquid in my cup. “Aubrey crashed on me early. It was probably the wine. Anyway, I was just thinking how I should probably go home.”
“Getting a beer for the road, then?” I shrug and he takes my cup and fills it, and hands it back to me. “Kidding. Stay. Really. We were about to play chicken and you’re dressed for it, and we need teams. Half these bozos didn’t wear a bathing suit to a pool party.” He eyes me in my new bikini in a way that makes me wonder if he’s interested, but it’s a stupid thought, and anyway, I’d never do that to you. Never. Then again, I seem unable to stop pining for Ethan, which is worse and gross and horrible, and I know you’d so totally never forgive me.
“Okay,” I say, my eyes scanning the crowd, but Ethan has disappeared, probably off in the bushes with Carly.
I sit by the pool with Dante, listening to him tell me his whole long college application story, which is even more boring than it sounds, and waiting for a game to start up, but by 11:00 p.m. the crowd is starting to thin and there’s no game of chicken to be found.
Ethan is to be found, though—back from wherever he disappeared to—and not with Carly Witherspoon, who seems to have, thankfully, gone home.
By 11:30, I’ve had at least two more beers, and Ethan comes over with another, and tells Dante to scoot, and suddenly he’s sitting right next to me.
It’s then I realize how out of control my brain feels. Like the earth is spinning right up and out from under me.
To tell you the truth, Aubrey, I liked how it felt, to be all dizzy and free like that. Maybe I felt like my mother in that moment, like I wanted to spin and whirl with my kimono falling open, my molecules loosening inside, till I spilled breathless and sprawled onto the dew-dampened grass, my limbs splayed dangerously wide, my whole beautiful body—its bare, uncovered skin—glistening beneath the star-dotted sky.
I liked how it felt to be out of control, a moth on a carnival ride, ready to be swept off by the wind, every tenuous hair, every fiber, every quivering speck of me, lit up, on end, and electrified.
Someone has thrown someone in the pool, and Ethan takes off running, and dives into the deep end. When he surfaces at the side, he calls to me.
“Hey, Markham! Come in! Now! You’re on my team. The water is fine!”
I make my way over, aware of the light, and smells, and sounds, as if all my senses are firing, both sharp and blurred by the swirl of alcohol. The waffle of water reflecting across the yard from the pool light, slicing across the high tree branches like specters. The swish of my feet in wet grass. A breeze on my stomach. The trill