the sense of warmth. I had a place here. I wasn’t dependent on anybody, I could come or go as I wanted. I could even sit alone in a corner by myself, and people would know it was by choice, and not because I had nobody to talk to. I had power. And, yeah, it was less than Carrie’s or Pothan’s, but it was still real.
This was demonstrated the moment Avani walked in. Nobody understood better than Avani how to dress for the California fall and still look good; she was in high-heeled boots and skinny jeans, and there was something in the cut of the clothes and the layering of colors that set her apart from the other girls—and the guys too, of course, though aside from Pothan, with his leather jacket and side-swept hair, they weren’t even trying.
But she had no power. Most guys knew Avani didn’t hook up, and something in her eyes froze out even the younger boys who would’ve crushed on her anyway. Her power had always lain with her girls, but in this room they were either like Carrie, too loud and too outgoing and too drunk, or they were younger girls, hanging on to attention from guys who barely noticed them.
She hugged Carrie, and she was polite to Gabriela, but then Avani’s eyes flicked across to me, sitting on the edge of the couch, and relief blossomed in her face. It was a weird thing: She and Carrie didn’t like each other, but they were friends. Whereas Avani and I weren’t really friends, even though we liked and respected each other.
She came to my end of the couch and prodded my elbow. I slipped sideways, scooting into another girl. “Oh hey, sorry,” I said.
“It’s okay.” The girl was young and unformed, with a tiny face and sticklike arms. She leaned forward, her eyes wide.
Avani said, “Hey, what’s up?”
She was propped on the arm of the sofa, where I’d just been. “Where’s Dave?”
“Studying. Jessie?”
“Same, but with a guy.”
“What? Jessie likes a guy?”
“Yeah, some random dude.”
“Who?”
“His name’s Niko?”
“Diamandis!” I said. “You’re serious? The unicorn!”
The girl next to us leaned over, listening.
Avani laughed. “What? You know him?”
“Remember Hen mentioned him once? The fanny pack?”
“Well, I’ve never seen the fanny pack, but what the hell? Yeah, I looked through his photos, and I was like ‘He’s not hot,’ but Jessie was like, ‘Umm, he is demonstrably hot, I am not alone in this.’”
“I know Niko.” The voice piped in, small and sweet, from somewhere around my armpit.
Avani’s eyes got tight, but I sat back so the girl could lean into our conversation.
“Oh yeah?” I said.
“We were in a play together.”
I felt Avani’s tenseness, but she leaned in over my shoulder. “Oh, hey, what’s your name?” The girl instantly gave her heart to this friendly older girl, and in the process forgot all about me.
Avani might’ve temporarily lost out to Pothan, but she had the tools to make a new power base. There’d always be girls hungry for her approval. Even if she was alone and by herself, Avani carried power in her walk, in her clothes, in her makeup, her voice, and the sheer force of the I-give-zero-fucks attitude that she carried with her all the time. She was everything a girl was supposed to be, and if she liked you, then somehow you got to keep a tiny bit of that power for yourself. I remembered a year ago and a party just like this, where the touch of her eyes transformed me from a nobody into something bigger and stronger, half girl and half boy—she’d given me a piece of her power, and sometimes all I wanted was for her to say, “You did a good job, Nandan. You really did.”
But now Avani was pulling her games, fawning over the sophomore girl, giving her compliments, and asking about her other friends, and I knew this would go on for a long time, the way it always did, with Avani treating me like just an accessory—the guy she needed by her side to look legit—and I shook my head, getting up to see who else was around.
Except in a moment Avani was with me again. “Hey, where’d you go?”
“Nowhere. You seemed like you were getting along okay.”
The girl was still on the couch, alone, staring at us with covert eyes.
Avani took my arm. We were in the swirl of the party, but people made space for us. “Hey,” she said. “You want to leave?”
“Umm, to do