about what food to order via delivery apps or phone calls. The adults in the world, for the time being, lived in a separate world, the same one they’d all existed in before.
But the students dropped the distinctions that placed them on different sides of a fight. It wouldn’t last forever, but it would last the night. Peejay’s party succeeded in the goal most parties, at their core, aim for: to erase differences and bring people together to celebrate a fleeting moment of joy.
* * *
Since there were no apparent dangers, Marisa’s Protectors momentarily disbanded. Those in love with her moved as one to the other side of the room so they could look at her and whisper to each other about the heartache they felt, how she both caused their pain and soothed it. If anyone had thought to tell them, It’s only been a few hours, they would have sighed and said, “I know.”
The teachers who had formed part of the protectors now went to the lounge, sensing an odd desire to step away from the kids for a while, maybe foment some support for Marisa among their friends and colleagues. This left Kenji, Celeste, Peejay and Amira sitting in front of Marisa.
The joker, the wallflower, the partyer, the athlete, the provocateur, someone might have called them. Peejay leaned back on his elbows and crossed his outstretched legs at the ankle, looking out at what to a teacher looked like a mellow gathering of students, but to him was a rager, an improbable and therefore all the more beautifully orchestrated party. He took it in for a moment, soaked in the joy that had flushed in through his system, washing away all the anxiety that had clogged his veins in the previous hours. If only Hamish could see it.
Before he could break down in tears, he turned to Kenji, pulling out one of his earbuds and tucking it into his palm to keep it hidden.
“You, my friend, are a lifesaver.”
Kenji couldn’t help but smile. “Just wait until the pizza gets here.”
Now that the scariness was over, Kenji was much more in his element. He wished Lindsay was around to see him play with Peejay. Peejay! He could hardly believe he’d recruited Peejay Singh to play improv.
Celeste already had one earbud out, not wanting to miss any conversations. She hadn’t been to a party since her thirteenth birthday in Glen Ellyn, and that one had been in her backyard during the day.
There’d been a barbecue and cake, and since her parents wanted the trampoline to remain intact and the whole grade was coming over, all those eighth-grade boys, they’d taken its legs off and laid it flat on the grass. It had felt like a childhood party, with water balloons and the smell of sunscreen, no drama about who would get invited or if anyone would get drunk and make out. Even though they were freshmen, even though it had only been a few years, Celeste couldn’t imagine the same word—party—applying to both scenarios. This one felt so much older, less innocent. It wasn’t surprising she didn’t know how to act. She’d been glad Kenji hadn’t made any move to get up.
“I can’t believe you held in your laughter when this one went cartoonishly Italian on us,” Peejay said, this time turning to Celeste. Marisa’s Protectors notwithstanding, she still got butterflies in her stomach when she was spoken to directly. Not from nerves, but from joy. She was not meant to be invisible.
“Look, just because I kept it in doesn’t mean I wasn’t laughing,” she said. “I actually think I pulled an ab muscle trying not to let the laughter out.” They chuckled, and a little later, when the not-quite silence was about to take hold (they all still moved their heads to the beat), Marisa spoke from just behind them.
“Aren’t you gonna go enjoy your masterpiece, Peejay?”
He tilted his head, shifted his body to open up the barricade they’d set up so he wasn’t giving Marisa and Amira his back. “Oh, I am.”
They fell silent, waiting for him to say more. But he didn’t know how to put it into words, or rather, didn’t exactly know why he was enjoying it from the sidelines, why he wasn’t deep in the fray. Yes, yes, he was thinking about Hamish, but that should have just been sadness, easy to recognize. There was joy here, too, and he didn’t understand it.
Instinctively, Kenji and Celeste angled their bodies, too, scooting along the