“I’ve been warned,” I tell him. “I know I’ve been warned.”
—
It’s only when I’m driving over to pick him up on Saturday night that I wonder why I want to go to this party.
Rebecca won’t be there. She and Ben have a “date night.” Preston and his best friend Allie tend to avoid parties they find “obnoxious.” And while I’m friends with Stephanie, I have to agree with Justin that being the party’s center of attention might not bring out her best behavior.
Mostly, I guess, I feel that something new might happen if we go to the party. If we stay home, there’s no chance that something new will happen.
We get pizza before heading over—apparently Justin’s father told him he couldn’t go out unless his room was clean, and Justin left the house anyway. When I first asked Justin what his dad was like, all he’d say was “military”—I couldn’t tell whether this meant his career or his attitude or both. Now he’s always saying, “Please God, don’t let me turn into that man.”
I think pretty much the same thing about my mom, so I guess we relate.
On our way to Steve’s, I ask Justin if he knows who else is going to be there.
“Does it really matter?” he asks. “It’s the same whoever’s there.”
I don’t think he’s in the mood for me to argue, so I stay quiet. A song I like comes on the radio, and I start to sing along. He shoots me a look like I’m a crazywoman and I stop.
When we get there, he goes, “You know where to find me”—meaning: wherever the alcohol is. He takes off as soon as I lock the car doors, acting like the party might run out of beer before he’s made it inside. Which, considering Steve’s last party, isn’t totally off base.
Crowded. Already it feels like there are people everywhere. I don’t recognize some of them. I see Stephanie for a brief moment—she gives me a squeal and a hug, then moves on to the next squeal and hug.
I know I should go to the kitchen, get a drink (only one), and stay by my boyfriend’s side. But I find myself wandering away from it instead. Steve stumbles past me—he must’ve started drinking early. I say hi. He tells me to make myself at home.
It’s really loud, some bitch-bashing rap competing with all the talking, making everyone louder. I head into the den and see a laptop there, hooked to the speakers. I look at the playlist and find that the song that’s playing is called “My Dick’s Got Rights!” The next song is called “Naked Like U Want Me.” I think about turning it down. I think about putting on Adele. I don’t do anything.
I look around and see Tiffany Chase talking to Demeka Miller. I walk over and say hi.
“Hi!” Tiffany shouts back over the music.
“Yeah, hi!” Demeka says.
I realize the flaw in my plan is that I don’t have anything to say to either of these girls. I almost tell Tiffany that I get now why she likes to take people around the school, but I don’t think that’s the right party thing to say. It’ll sound like I want to be her, when that’s not it at all.
“I love your hair!” I tell Demeka. She recently added a red streak.
“Thanks!” Demeka says back.
Tiffany and Demeka look at each other. I’ve clearly interrupted their conversation. I know I should uninterrupt it.
“See you around!” I say. I drift off, but not that far. Again, I know I should head to the kitchen. But I don’t.
Next to the laptop, there are CDs. Probably belonging to Steve’s parents. (I have no idea where they are right now.) Adele is near the top. Having nothing better to do, I start to flip through.
There’s Kelly Clarkson, which makes me think of the drive to the ocean. And there’s Fun., who we also heard.
“I really like them,” someone says to me, pointing to the CD. “Do you?”
I’m surprised to have been noticed. The boy talking to me looks totally out of place—he’s worn a jacket and a tie to the party, like he’s going straight from here to church in the morning. He looks really desperate to have someone to talk to, and at the same time, I feel this weird sense that he specifically wants to talk to me. Usually this would make my guard go up. But for some reason, I decide not to brush him off.
“Yeah,” I say, holding up the CD. “I like them, too.”
Quietly, he starts to sing “Carry On”—the same song Justin and I sang along to in the car. I decide to take this as a sign. Of what, I’m not sure.
“I like that one in particular,” the boy says.
Strange. There is something so familiar about him. It’s in his eyes, or in the way he’s looking at me.
Harmless. I remind myself that talking to him is harmless.
“Do I know you?” I ask.
“I’m Nathan,” he says.
I tell him I’m Rhiannon.
“That’s a beautiful name,” he replies. And it’s not just something to say, like “I love your hair.”
“Thanks,” I say. “I used to hate it, but I don’t so much anymore.”
“Why?”
“It’s just a pain to spell,” I tell him. And because it’s different. I don’t tell him all the grief I got as a kid for it being so different, how badly I wished my parents had given me something easier.
The fact that he seems so familiar is still nagging at me. “Do you go to Octavian?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “No. I’m just here for the weekend. Visiting my cousin.”
“Who’s your cousin?”
“Steve.”
“Oh, that explains it,” I tell him. And then, just like with Tiffany and Demeka, I find I’ve completely run out of things to say. I mean, I could ask Nathan where he’s from, how long he’s here for, why he’s wearing a tie. But I’d only be filling the time until I leave, and that doesn’t seem fair.
I’m ready to pull the plug and let the conversation die. But then he surprises me.
“I hate my cousin,” he says.
Scandal. But not really. Still, I’m curious why.
He goes on. “I hate the way he treats girls. I hate the way he thinks he can buy all his friends by throwing parties like this. I hate the way that he only talks to you when he needs something. I hate the way he doesn’t seem capable of love.”
Wow. I can barely remember my own cousins’ names. Nathan seems so intense about Steve.
“Then why are you here?” I ask.
“Because I want to see it fall apart. Because when this party gets busted—and if it stays this loud, it will get busted—I want to be a witness. From a safe distance away, of course.”
The boy’s on fire. It’s amusing. I decide to add more fuel.
“And you’re saying he’s incapable of loving Stephanie?” I ask. “They’ve been going out for over a year.”
“That doesn’t mean anything, does it? I mean, being with someone for over a year can mean that you love them…but it can also mean you’re trapped.”
Trapped. How stupid, because my first thought is, Stephanie is not nearly as trapped as I am. Which is ridiculous. Neither of us is trapped.
I wonder what would make Nathan say such a thing. He talks like he knows.
“Speaking from experience?” I ask.
“There are many things that can keep you in a relationship,” he says. His eyes are begging me to listen. “Fear of being alone. Fear of disrupting the arrangement of your life. A decision to settle for something that’s okay, because you don’t know if you can get any better. Or maybe there’s the irrational belief that it will get better, even if you know he won’t change.”
He. I guess Nathan is on the Preston side of things.
“ ‘He’?” I say, to make sure.
“Yeah.”
“I see.” Maybe this explains why I’m finding him so harmless, why I’m feeling so open to him. Girls don’t need to be threatened by boys who are after boys.
After a moment, he asks, “That cool?”
“Completely,” I assure him. I wonder if Steve knows.
“How about
you? Seeing anyone?”
“Yeah,” I say. Then, seeing where this is going, I add, “For over a year.”
“And why are you still together? Fear of being alone? A decision to settle? An irrational belief that he’ll change?”
Ha. I’m not about to tell him it’s much more complicated than that. So instead I say, “Yes. Yes. And yes.”
“So…”
“But he can also be incredibly sweet,” I add. “And I know that, deep down, I mean the world to him.”
Those eyes don’t let me out of it. “Deep down? That sounds like settling to me. You shouldn’t have to venture deep down in order to get to love.”
Enough. I don’t know you. Stop.
It sounds like Justin talking in my head, even though it’s my voice.
“Let’s switch the topic, okay?” I say. “This isn’t a good party topic. I liked it more when you were singing to me.”
Justin pops into the doorway now, Corona in hand. He scans the room, sees me, looks a little happy, then sees that I’m talking to a guy and looks a little less happy.
“So who’s this?” he asks, coming over.
“Don’t worry, Justin,” I say. “He’s gay.”
“Yeah, I can tell from the way he’s dressed. What are you doing here?”
“Nathan, this is Justin, my boyfriend. Justin, this is Nathan.”
“Hi,” Nathan says.
Justin lets it hang for a second, then asks, “You seen Stephanie? Steve’s looking for her. I think they’re at it again.”
There’s an I told you so embedded in his voice. And he did tell me so.
I give him back an I told you so what.
“Maybe she went to the basement,” I say.
“Nah. They’re dancing in the basement.”
Dancing. The last time the two of us danced was probably a very tipsy night at Preston’s house a few months ago.
I miss it.
“Want to go down there and dance?” I ask.
“Hell no! I didn’t come here to dance. I came here to drink.”
“Charming,” I say. What was I even thinking, asking him? Then I figure I have another opportunity. “Do you mind if I go dance with Nathan?”
He takes another look at Nathan’s tie, jacket. “You sure he’s gay?”
“I’ll sing you show tunes if you want me to prove it,” Nathan volunteers.
Justin slaps him on the back. “No, dude, don’t do that, okay? Go dance.”
Then, with a Corona salute, he heads back to the kitchen.
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” I tell Nathan. I know I wouldn’t be crazy about the idea of dancing with someone I didn’t know, so I can’t really expect him to be into it.
But he says, “I want to. I really want to.”
I don’t know why this makes sense, but it does. So I lead the way to the basement. There’s a different kind of noise down there—dance noise. In a total Stephanie touch, all the regular lights have been replaced with red bulbs. It feels like we’re at the center of a beating heart.
It’s hard to see who’s here, but I spot Steve making his own pre-hangover moves in the corner.
I call out to him, “Hey, Steve! I like your cousin!”
He nods, so I guess the feelings Nathan expressed aren’t entirely mutual.
“Have you seen Stephanie?” he yells.
“No!” I yell back, figuring it’s probably best if they stay separate until they come to their more sober senses.
Maybe because he’s gay, I think Nathan will leap into the dancing. But instead he looks vaguely terrified. I remind myself that he’s surrounded by strangers. Then I also remind myself that I am one of those strangers, even if it doesn’t feel that way. I pulled him down here, so it’s on me to make him feel at home. I find myself thinking that dancing is just another form of singing along, and all I have to do is get him to sing along, the same way he was singing along to the song that wasn’t playing upstairs.
He’s swaying now, blocked in by all the people around us and the space they’re taking up. I try to ignore that, and focus only on him and the music. I create a space to draw him into. And it works. I can feel it working. His eyes matching my eyes. His smile matching my smile. The song. The song is taking the lead. The song is telling us how to move. The song is guiding his hands to my back, to my waist. The song is generating the heat and giving it to our bodies. The song is pulling me closer. The song, and his eyes.
Then a new song. He starts to sing along, and that makes me happy. It’s all making me happy, to be so loose in a place that’s so crowded. To not feel Justin tugging me in any direction. To give up on everything.
“You’re not bad!” I yell to Nathan.
“You’re amazing!” he yells back.
More songs swimming through the red. Bodies coming and going. Nobody shouting my name. Nobody needing me, or asking for anything.
I lose track. Of time. Of what I’m thinking. Of where I am and who I am. I even lose track of the song. I lose track of everything but the boy in the tie across from me, who is releasing himself as well. I can tell, as one who knows.
Then it all ends. A song is cut short. I feel like a cartoon character, holding for a minute in the air, then looking down and falling to earth. The regular lights go on—they’ve been there all along, beside the red. I hear Stephanie’s voice yelling that the party’s over, that the neighbors have called the cops.
Even though it’s not my fault, I want to apologize to Nathan. Because it’s over. It has to be over.
“I have to find Justin,” I tell him. “Are you going to be okay?”
He nods. “Look,” he says. His hand is still on my wrist. “Would it be weird for me to ask you for your email?”
I wouldn’t have thought it was weird, except for him asking if it was weird.
“Don’t worry,” he adds. “I am still one hundred percent homosexual.”
“That’s too bad,” I say. Then, before my inner flirt can make more of a fool of herself, I give him my email address, take his pen, and write his email address down on a receipt.
The basement is nearly empty, and there’s the sound of sirens in the distance. Stephanie isn’t making it up—we really need to leave.
“Time to go,” I say. We’re both staying in the space we created, not wanting to leave it even though the lights are on.
“You’re not going to let your boyfriend drive, are you?” Nathan asks.
“That’s sweet,” I say. “No. I control the keys.”
There’s chaos at the top of the stairs, and we’re separated before we can say goodbye. Justin isn’t in the kitchen, so I figure he’s already at the car.
Sure enough, he’s pacing there, waiting for me.
“Where were you?” he accuses as I unlock the door.
“The basement,” I tell him when we’re in the car. “You knew that.”
He curses a little, but I know he’s cursing at the cops, not me. I pull out, relieved that we didn’t park in the driveway, where things are all backed up.
“We’re going to make it,” I assure him.
“You’re beautiful,” he slurs.
“You’re drunk,” I say.
“You’re beautiful anyway,” he tells me. Then he puts back the seat and closes his eyes.
I wait a few minutes. Then I discover a song I like on the radio and sing along.
As Justin snores, I find myself hoping Nathan made it out okay.
Chapter Five
I know Justin’s not working on Sunday, so I’m hoping we’ll hang out at least a little. But he doesn’t wake up until one, and from what I can tell from the texts he sends, he’s not in good shape. I offer to come over and make him whatever hangover cure he wants. He texts me back two hours later to say that all he can do today is sleep. He can even sleep through his parents yelling about all his sleeping.
Get shitfaced, then face the shit—I know the routine. It’s not like I’ve never been there. I just d
on’t go there as often as he does.
I asked him about it before. Not confrontational. Just curious.
“I drink to feel better,” he told me. “And if I feel worse the next day, it’s still worth it, because I still got to feel better for a little bit, which is more than I would’ve done sober.”
There are times I can make him feel like that, too. There are times when I know he’s drunk on me. Not just when we’re making out—there are other times I can make him forget about everything else. Which is a power nobody else has with him. I know this.
Because my day is empty of him, it’s empty. My mother asks if I want to go to the grocery store with her, but I know if I do, I’ll only want to buy things I shouldn’t eat. My dad is on the computer, doing work, avoiding us to provide for us. I think of emailing Nathan from last night, but that thought passes. I doubt I’ll ever see him again. Whatever we shared is gone, because it was destined to be gone from the minute it started.
Distraction. I turn on the TV. Housewives and nature shows. An episode of Friends I’ve seen a hundred times. Nothing I want to watch followed by nothing I want to watch followed by nothing I want to watch. I imagine doing this forever. An infinity of nothing I want to watch.
It’s a day like that.
I call Justin. I can’t help myself. I want to talk to him so bad. I know I won’t convince him to stop being hungover. I won’t convince him to get out of bed and do something with me—or even stay in bed and do something with me. I would be happy to lie there next to him.
“I’ve decided that whiskey is not my friend,” he says.
“Still bad?” I ask.
“Better. But still bad. The day has completely crapped out.”
“It’s alright. I’ve been catching up on my TV watching.”
“Fuck, I wish I were there with you. Being sick is so fucking boring.”
“I wish you were here, too. I could come over if you want.”
“Nah. I just have to ride this one out. It wouldn’t be fair to ask you to be around me when I’m so sick of being around me.”
“I’m willing.”
“I know. And I appreciate it. But it’s not going to happen today.”
The fact that he sounds disappointed makes my own disappointment a little easier to live with. Even if it still leaves me alone for the rest of the day.