That closeness. I think we have it all backward. Kids sleep alone and adults sleep together. It seems to me that kids are the ones who need the companionship, they are the ones who are haunted by the bogeyman. When I slept at Michael’s, it was the first time I had been all night with someone while I was sober. And it was as if his sleeping body was a witness when the suffocating darkness violently woke me. And because of Michael, the night’s grip on my throat was looser.
I just can’t believe he left me.
If I stuffed my clothes in a garbage bag, if I just walked the fuck out of here, would I find him?
The phone rings, sending a wave of excitement through me, like it does every time since he left. “Hello?”
“Yo, Mel.” The sound of a girl’s voice sends my heart crashing back down. It’s just Jessica. “We’re in the ravine.”
“Get yer ass over here, bee-yotch!” I hear Ally shouting into the phone.
“I’m grounded.”
“So?” Jess questions, and then explains to Ally, “She’s grounded.”
“So?” Ally shouts.
“Okay. See you in twenty,” I say, not needing any more persuasion than that.
“Later.”
I hang up the phone and glare at it in my hand. “Fuck you.” If Michael thinks I’m a child, I may as well act like one. I change into my jeans and a thick hoodie. I switch the phone onto vibrate and put it in my back pocket. Then I roll a blunt and slip out the window, hanging off the balcony, and drop from the second floor onto the first-floor balcony, then down.
The ravine party is totally sick by the time I’m there. It has to be past one o’clock. Everyone is scattered around the non-existent bonfire, sitting on the bench logs or on the grass. David has the tunes blasting, and there’s so much ganja smoke in the air, you’d swear we’re in the clouds. If people weren’t so drunk, they might feel cold. But we party here all year, even in winter, so it seems our bodies just adapt to the temperature.
I find Jessica right away, sitting on her boyfriend Devon’s lap. She passes me a mickey of vodka. “Here’s to your grounding.”
“Cheers,” I say, taking the bottle and finishing what little was left.
“What the hell?” she contests.
“It’s okay,” Travis interjects before I can answer. “I’ve got some more.” He takes a bottle out of a plastic bag by his feet and holds it up. Not caring what it is, I reach out and grab it, tearing off the cap and chugging down as much as I can before the burn in my throat becomes unbearable. The surrounding laughter overtakes Jessica’s protest. I shut myself off from all of it, everyone, replace the cap on the bottle, throw it back to Travis and plop down onto the ground, staring up at the shadow of trees. There are many ways to run away, I think as my head spins. You can pack your bags and physically leave a place or you can stay and just pack up your soul.
At some point, Jessica, Travis, Devon, Ally, Craig, and I end up at Travis’s house, in the basement, where we watch Requiem for a Dream again, for the fiftieth time.
A few hours later, I find myself lying half naked on Travis’s parents’ bed, trying to lose myself in the thought of Michael. All I’m thinking about is him. I’m imagining his mouth. I’m imagining his tongue. Craig is down between my legs, fully clothed. I won’t touch him back. There’s no way. He knows he could never go out with someone like me. I’m not the most beautiful, but guys like me. So he’ll take what he can get—and all he can get is me off. I’m actually impressed at how good he is, and it takes only a few minutes. And when I’m done, I quickly push him away, pull up my underwear, and tell him I have to go.
“That’s it?” he questions.
I turn my head, flipping my hair at the same time, and look him directly in the eyes. “What satisfaction canst thou have tonight?” I ask, quoting my favourite Claire Danes Romeo and Juliet line.
“Huh?”
Moron. I dismiss his ignorance. Of course he doesn’t know Shakespeare. He’s a little fifteen-year-old boy. “I’m grounded,” I explain, zipping up my jeans. “It’s like five in the morning. I have to get home.”
He sits on the edge of the bed looking like some pathetic child, probably afraid to get