again, crushing me, before letting me go. I burned with anger, fighting the urge to punch him. Then Dave was next to me, whispering, “Come on, let’s go.”
Within ten minutes we were out the front door, packed into the car with Mari and Carrie and Gabi. On the way out, I texted Avani to tell her the train was leaving the station, but she wrote back that she was gonna stay.
22
MY FRIENDS BURST INTO LAUGHTER the moment the car started. The laughter continued for some moments without anyone explaining why they were laughing, and I said, “What’s so funny?”
“I don’t know what they’re laughing about,” Dave said. “But I was laughing at your face.”
Now I burned red as they kept ragging on me. Carrie added, “Oh my God, you really thought you were our savior, didn’t you?”
“What do you mean?” Mari said.
“I mean look at him opening that room. He thought he was solving everything. He was so happy. I was like, This is worth it, just to make him so happy.”
“Okay, okay, okay. I get it.”
We launched into a debrief of the night. In a rare moment of self-assertion, Gabi took the floor. She was totally confused, and not a little annoyed, over why she’d ended up at this party in the middle of nowhere, instead of going to a perfectly nice homecoming, and Carrie and I tripped over each other trying to explain that Lyle was a legend. A fucking legend.
“That guy?” Gabi said.
For our part, I mentioned how Dave’s family had done a total 180 about the gay thing, and I told them about Kendall, which intrigued Mari so much that she made us text Hen to see what he was doing.
“You’re such boys! I can’t believe you didn’t take any pictures of him.”
“Just picture a werewolf in a pin-striped suit,” I said.
“Hey, that’s not fair,” Dave said. “He was nice and smart, and he really liked Hen.”
“A nice werewolf.”
We were driving without a destination, until Dave said, “Umm, where should I drop you off?”
Carrie gave an address, and in the passenger seat I struggled to navigate. My blood was up, and I was completely awake. We spent some fifteen minutes discussing Avani. Carrie couldn’t understand why she’d thrown this party in the first place.
“It’s Lyle,” I said. “They have a connection. She’s trying to relive last year.”
“It was so awkward,” Carrie said. “She was totally not herself. She bought all the alcohol, and she got so nervous. And when Lyle rolled in, she was all over him. I was like . . . are you trying to hook up with him? What’s going on?”
“No more Avani talk!” Gabi said. “Please!”
This led to Gabi giving all her voluminous complaints about Avani. “She’s selfish. And she’s needy.”
Carrie jumping in to say, “Hey, she’s a good friend,” and the two of them bickered and bickered, and I had to mediate, saying, “Well, you’re both right.”
By this point, we were close to Carrie’s place, and I had a split second to decide. “We, umm, we could hang out at my place,” I said.
There was silence.
“My mom’s working, so she won’t be around,” I said. “Mari and Dave have been there. It’s nice. Isn’t it nice?”
“Well I can’t go home,” Gabi said. “I told my parents I was gonna be at my friend Jenny’s place.”
“That settles it,” Carrie said. “Gabi can’t go home! We gotta go to Nandan’s mysterious lair.”
A half hour later, we were in my living room. I fiddled around, arranging chairs, turning down the lights, digging out my stash of alcohol (which nobody drank), while the conversation turned to whether we should order pizza. Gabi was the odd person out, but Mari had cozied up to her, and they talked about some mutual friend who went to Holy Redeemer. My heart throbbed. I didn’t have a word for the emotion I was feeling. I looked over my shoulder at the four of them, splayed on the carpet, listening to Mari chatter excitedly. I saw the energy running low, and already a part of me ached with nostalgia for the night that was about to end.
But the doorbell rang, and Hen trotted inside. His voice, clearer and more full throated than anybody else’s, rang out sardonically, “Well, I see this is the real party.”
Immediately he was peppered with questions about his date, and he, after beating around the bush, said, “I think he has some real potential.”
Nobody knew what to say, so I jumped in, “Trains?” I said.
“What? Trains