happening at the lake house must be insanely epic.
When we got to the house, it was dark and quiet, but lots of cars were parked outside. It was only when the car door opened that I heard the pulse of music. The gravel in the driveway was vibrating from all the bass. And when we turned the knob of the front door, the music blew outward and chewed on the bones in our ears. I reached instinctively for Dave’s arm, but then I remembered his voice, Maybe no more touching, so instead I beckoned him forward into the dark hole of the living room.
Four or five people danced in front of the TV, and figures shifted on the furniture around us. The kitchen was an island of bright lights, and as we got closer, we heard a yell and the tapping of feet. Pothan slapped a red cup, sending it spraying. Ken, shirtless, let out a whoop that was barely audible above the music. They were playing quarters with a few of last year’s Ninety-Nine: kids who’d graduated. Mostly guys, only one girl—a tall nineteen-year-old who kept smiling out of the corner of her mouth but didn’t really pay much attention to Pothan’s antics.
Dave and I stood next to him. Pothan yelled something, but I shrugged helplessly. With the music so high, he was deprived of his voice. I pulled Dave toward the stairs, where I saw some lights filtering down. Pothan tried to dance, grinding his crotch against my hip while he shouted in my ear, but I ignored him and pushed past.
Upstairs, kids were thicker on the floor. We spotted Gabi, looking a little bored, and I waved hi and asked where Avani was.
“Upstairs.”
We kept climbing until we reached the absolute top, the attic, the room where Dave and I had hooked up. Some people, mostly girls, crowded into the stairwell, trying to drink and trying to talk, but we pushed through, into the room, where we spotted Avani—a desperate smile on her face—sitting on the bed next to the large, red-haired figure of Lyle Brashear himself.
He had a knife and a gallon of milk, and he slashed it open, emptying the milk into a garbage can. One of his friends was next to him, shouting something like “This is awesome, dude, this is awesome.”
There weren’t many people in the room, but he’d taken over its center, where he had tape and plastic and was, apparently, building a bong. Avani was trapped next to him, intensely visible, and now he laid a hand on her knee, while she leaned forward, trying to be interested. I stood in the doorway for a long time, wondering if he’d speak to me. But Lyle was completely in control. At some point, attention shifted, and he screamed, “Kate, what’s going on? Come here.” His booming voice pulled another girl into the middle of the room, where she drifted, helpless and confused, and fully on display, while everyone else quieted.
Like everyone else, Dave and I were waiting for something to happen. His body was a few inches away, and I almost put my arm around him before stopping myself. The people around us weren’t precisely silent, but they weren’t joyful either. We were moths, fluttering around Lyle’s flame. And yet his light was so weak.
Then out of nowhere, a body crashed into me. “Oh my God!” Mari said. “You’re here!”
“Uhh, hey.”
Her huge hair pressed into my shirt. “Oh, you look nice too. Wow, I should’ve gone to homecoming! It’s unbelievable how much this sucks.”
People couldn’t hear us, I was pretty sure, but now that the three of us, Dave and Mari and me, were all turned inward toward each other, we had created a new place for people to stop and come together. Carrie appeared, and she said, “Dude, how was it? Tell me homecoming was terrible. Gabi is so mad I made her come here.”
“It wasn’t amazing.”
“Hey!” Dave said. “I liked it.”
The nexus of our conversation grew, and at some point we attracted too much of the room’s attention. Avani’s head went up, and I saw her wishing desperately to be with us.
“Hey, let’s go across the hall,” I said.
I opened the doorway across the hall. Two people were making out on the bed, but I turned on the light, and I said, “You guys are taking up way too much space.”
The girl popped up, and she grimaced. I didn’t recognize either her or the guy, but he yelled, “What the fuck,