Between Us and the Moon - Rebecca Maizel Page 0,71

all silent for a few seconds then everybody talks at once. Their muffled voices rise and fall within the house. I can’t tell what they are saying. It doesn’t matter. I could script it accurately.

I lean my forehead against the cold glass.

“See? I told you.” Nancy’s voice is right next to the door. I shoot up and back away to the next step in case she opens it up. “She has been cooped up in a science lab much too long!” Nancy says, but her voice retreats farther away back into the house.

I move down the front steps to the street.

The street lamp highlights my chipped toenail polish. I can’t believe I talked to Nancy like that. I’m just so tired of swallowing my words all the time.

Also, Mom and Dad don’t need to control me.

Something in the corner of my eye catches my attention. I look toward the street lamp at the end of the cul-de-sac.

Andrew sits on the hood of his pickup.

I almost forgot I got a text message. My cell phone is still clenched in my hand; I open it.

ANDREW: Am I a stalker if I’m on your street?

Relief flutters through me and even makes my cheeks tingle. For a second, I think he might be a hallucination because he’s exactly who I need right now. The hazy blue light of his cell phone just barely shines on his beautiful features. With each step to him, my chest releases. I ache to be closer to him, to someone who doesn’t classify me, who doesn’t put me in neat, labeled boxes. Andrew looks up from his phone and scoots over to make room for me. By the time I make it to him, I can smile. He doesn’t have to know about the fight with Nancy.

“Let out?” he asks.

“Escaped,” I say.

I lean into his body and his arm scoops around me. I inhale. He smells like soap and suntan lotion. Comfort.

“Stalking is a felony in Massachusetts,” I say.

“Up to five years in prison for a first time offender,” he says with a proud lift of his chin. “I’d risk it for you.”

It’s enough to make me want to cry.

“I was about to come to the door. Surprise you,” he adds.

Adrenaline pings in my chest. He would have heard the fight.

“Surprise me? With what?” I ask and simultaneously try to figure out a way to explain to him that he really can’t come to the door—ever.

“Party,” he says. “Curtis’s house. Want to go? It’s only like two minutes from here.”

“Sure,” I reply and glance back up at Seaside Stomachache. That house has never earned its name more in its existence.

TWENTY-ONE

CURTIS’S HOUSE IS ACTUALLY THE STAFF HOUSING for the Wequasset Inn. It’s the other super fancy resort on the Cape and the employee housing sits on the bay with a massive water view.

“But Curtis doesn’t work at the Wequasset,” I say as we pull into the end of the driveway.

“His parents won’t let him come home, so he stays here.”

There’s a tug on my gut. I couldn’t imagine being ousted from my house forever. The accident can’t be the only reason. I don’t get a chance to ask anything else because we get out of the car. Bass music and loud voices echo from the windows. Andrew turns the knob and we walk inside.

Candles line the mantle above a defunct fireplace. Wax drops onto the ground near a couple of guys with long hair comparing scars on their knees. The music is pumping. Andrew, the boy who gets all the looks from the girls around us, leads me through the party. The music plays and the slide on the electric guitar goes up and down. I catch myself in the mirror. Here, as the music plays a hypnotic song, I am beautiful. My hair falls over my shoulders and as the guitar slides again and again, Andrew leads me through the tanned and blond people—lifeguards.

We find Curtis in the kitchen pumping beer into a cup from a silver thing on the floor. Ah. A keg. Scarlett is always saying people are getting “kegs of beer,” but I never knew what it looked like until now.

“Hey!” Curtis says, waving us into the room. He’s not that drunk yet or at least he seems sober. Andrew hands me a drink in a large red cup.

I take a sip.

“You like it?” Andrew asks. “They usually buy shit beer.”

The froth is kind of bitter, but it’s okay. I’m not about to go to the