“Grant,” Presley said back. She plunked down in Devon’s chair.
“He did come to visit me, and not during visiting hours. You think.…”
“I totally think. If he dropped by unannounced during the first week, you know what that means. He was thinking about you this summer.” Presley drew out the last sentence as if she’d just cracked the Da Vinci Code.
“Ya think?” Devon doubted it. Guys didn’t exactly seek her out. Presley usually acted as Devon’s hook-up guru, pushing her together with whatever wingman was attached with Presley’s current boyfriend. Their system had yielded precisely 2.5 hook-ups for Devon in the last two years. The half was when Presley was hooking up with a local surfer in Monte Vista. Presley and her surfer made out on the beach while Devon and the surfer’s friend, Whateverhisnamewas, huddled in his crappy van for warmth. He smoked joint after joint until just before passing out he said to Devon, “You’re totally bang-able. You can go down on me, if you want.” A true charmer. The ever optimistic Presley had insisted that if Whateverhisnamewas hadn’t passed out, he would obviously have hooked up with Devon—thus the half point.
“Yeah, I think. Someone’s gonna get la-aaaa-id.” Presley sang again.
“I don’t know.” Devon flopped onto her back. The glossy white ceiling reflected her room in rippling waves, Presley’s blurry head of yellow hair and blue pants, and Devon, a wavy white form on her colorful bed. “Hey, did you know Hutch was dealing pharmaceuticals last year?” Devon asked the ceiling.
Presley plucked a lip gloss from Devon’s table and tried it on. “Yeah, I scored some Adderall off him last year for finals. Way to change the subject, President Ho-bama.”
Devon rolled over. “Whatever, Former Vice President Al Whore.” Her smile faded. “Jesus, am I the only one that didn’t know what Hutch was doing?”
“Probably,” Presley said.
“Do people think it’s weird that Hutch OD’d on the one kind of pill he didn’t sell?” Devon was beginning to feel like the only one at Keaton who was left out of the Hutch party. First she doesn’t make the list for his suicide text. Now she discovers that everyone but her knew he was running a pharm ring at school. Yes, it was petty, but why not her? Not that she was waiting around to buy pills from him, but it felt unfair that Hutch kept a huge piece of himself hidden. Weren’t they closer than that?
“I wouldn’t say weird.” Presley’s voice broke into her thoughts. “More like, ‘not totally surprised.’ But you’re right: Hutch never had Oxy. It was like a rule of his. Wouldn’t give out the hard stuff. Strictly performance enhancers. He said it was something about messing with the system. Fighting the Man, all that. Like, I heard he even hooked up Jin Soo with prescription strength Rogaine because Jin was freaking out about losing his hair early.”
“Jin is losing his hair?”
“Not anymore.” Presley flashed a smile. “Look, dork, it’s almost nine thirty P.M. Pete’s coming over and we’re getting the language lab before anyone else. Seriously, who told these freshman all the hook-up spots? It’s not cool. Not cool at all.”
Devon mustered a smile in return and sat up in bed. “Wait, I’m seriously behind on the intel. I thought you and Pete broke up?”
“We did. He apologized yesterday. Bought me flowers, and this necklace. See?” Presley leaned over to Devon. She could smell the lemon hand cream. “It’s a compass. He said I’m his True North. Isn’t that cute?”
“I wonder if Hutch and Isla—”
“Dev?” Presley interrupted. “You’re going to have to ease up on the Hutch talk, okay? You’re kind of obsessing.”
“Humor me. The Hawk met already this year, didn’t you guys? Did Hutch go? Did you notice anything weird about him?”
“I don’t know. Hutch was going to do the arts roundup. Profile rising art stars at Keaton and all that.” Presley burped and grinned at Devon in the mirror. “Damn, excuse me. That was gross.”
Devon rolled her eyes. “Look, I’m not the expert, but do people who are going to kill themselves the next day plan on writing articles that month? It doesn’t add up.…” She suddenly noticed sweat glistening on Presley’s forehead. “Are you okay?”
“Fine, whatever. And no, it doesn’t add up. But.…” Presley burped again. She steadied herself against the wall. “It never adds up. That’s the thing about suicide. You can’t.…” Another burp. Her moist skin suddenly went white. “Shit, not again.” Presley grabbed Devon’s trash