“You look beautiful,” David says right into my ear, so close I shiver. My back presses against a speaker blasting crappy music, and I flip my hair in a way I’ve seen Jessica do, right then left then right again. I instantly regret it because I have the kind of hair that frizzes, not flips. I am wearing my mom’s red bandage dress and her most expensive heels, and I’m carrying a full bottle of some fancy Scandinavian vodka, the total effect of which makes me feel like I’m in a Halloween costume. Cocktail party grown-up. I took—well, stole—all this without asking, of course, despite the fact that my mom would have happily lent me her clothes, if not handed over the alcohol. That would have meant having to talk to her, and I’m not ready for that. The silence between us has turned malleable and soft, though. I suspect we are now being quiet out of self-protection. We are both too raw for words.
I still eat dinner alone in my room.
I still hate-love my mother.
The party is too crowded—most of Mapleview High is here, even a few guys who graduated last year and go to the local community college—and people are dancing anywhere they can find space. On couches, side tables. They bounce around against each other as if this is a rave and not Dylan’s parents’ living room. Gabriel and Willow eat each other’s faces right in the center of the makeshift dance floor, the sort of making out that gives kissing a bad name.
Abby and Jessica giggle from the sidelines. Based on their bloodshot eyes and the bag of Cheetos they are sharing, I’m pretty sure they’re high. Neither of them would be caught dead eating something fluorescent, scratch that, eating at all, sober.
“Thanks,” I say to David, and hope he doesn’t notice that I’m blushing. My mother, when she feels like complimenting me, almost always suggests some adjustment (Maybe try a different shirt, Kit? Yellow doesn’t suit your skin tone.), then only once I’ve taken her advice and changed does she say I look lovely. Beautiful feels like an upgrade.
“It’s too loud,” David says, again into my ear, and I want him to keep talking. Because it feels good, him leaning in like that, tickling my ear with his breath. He’s right, of course. It is way too loud. I have no idea why I come to parties. It’s not like I actually want to talk to any of the people here or, God forbid, dance. David and I would have been much better off heading to McCormick’s alone to have burgers and milk shakes.
I lead David by the hand, past Justin, who is deejaying, away from the noise and throngs and into the kitchen. If the other room felt like mayhem, here it feels postapocalyptic. The overhead lights are on. Bottles, ketchup packets, and empty potato chip bags litter the countertops. There’s a puddle of something yellow on the floor, and for Dylan’s sake I really hope it’s beer, not pee, though let’s be honest, they taste and smell the same.
Violet and Annie lean against the counter and sip from red plastic cups and greet us with weary enthusiasm.
“Hello!” they say in unison, and give me a semi-drunken hug, then lean into David, who at first doesn’t know what to do, but eventually leans in too.
“This is disgusting. Why don’t people clean up after themselves?” David’s wearing a fitted blue cashmere sweater and jeans that border surprisingly on skinny. He has a leather jacket crooked on his arm. He looks handsome. I have trouble looking away. He rolls up his sleeves and starts to gather up some trash.
“You can leave it,” I say. His sister must have picked out his clothes. It has her stamp of effortless cool. I wonder if she could give me lessons. I’d pay. Seriously.
“Really? I don’t really get what we’re supposed to do here otherwise,” David says.
“We’re supposed to just have fun.”
“Have fun. Sure. I can do that,” he says, though he looks uncomfortable and has what I think of as his processing face. Like he’s translating my words from English to whatever language it is he speaks in his head. “But it’s loud. Like really, really loud. Even in here. And the lights are too bright.”
“Have a drink. That should help.” I pour out four clear shots from my mom’s bottle.
“I’m driving,” he says.
“Good answer. More for me, then, my DD,” I say, a stupid play on the words designated driver and David Drucker. I’m glad he is responsible, but I don’t want to think about driving.
I hand Violet and Annie their shots and swig mine and David’s fast, one after the other. They burn on the way down. Like David, I no longer have any idea about how to have fun, how to just be, and so I have decided if I am going to survive this party I need a little help. I don’t really see any other way.
“Slow down,” Violet says, looking at my now-empty glasses. I’ve drunk before, but not a lot and not often. “The night is young.”
“So are we,” I say, and take a third shot just as fast. Violet gives Annie a look, but it turns out Annie’s on my side on this one.
“Touché,” Annie says, and pours out more drinks and hands them around. She even pours David a cup of soda. “To hashtag Team David!”
“To David,” I say.
“To me?” he asks, adorably confused.
A few minutes later, or maybe much later, I can’t really tell, David takes my hand and leads me outside to the backyard, which is mercifully quiet. My head is humming and my edges are blurry and the world is rolling. I’m drunk. That much is obvious. How drunk I am and how much I will regret this tomorrow remain to be seen.
“Do you want my jacket?” David asks, and I shake my head, which is, of course, a mistake. A wave of nausea hits fast and hard.
“Let’s sit down,” I say, and we find our way to the back porch steps. I scoot up next to David, since it’s cold out. We are the only people dumb enough to be outside. Even the smokers have abandoned their cigarettes for the warmth of the house.
“You okay? You’re not going to throw up or anything, are you?” he asks, and I don’t know why I find this hilarious, but I do. I laugh and then he does too, and the laughing and the cold somehow clear away the nausea.
“Nope. I pinky-swear I will not blow chunks.” David winces, and then of course my face goes red. Why did I have to say blow chunks, which is by far the least romantic word combo in the English language? I could have just said no. “I mean, I’m fine.”
“You match, you know? Your outsides and your insides are beautiful,” David says, and he throws one arm stiffly over my shoulder. The movement is awkward and clumsy and because of this awkwardness and clumsiness—not despite it—I’m charmed. Or maybe it’s the four vodka shots and whatever concoction Annie made for me. Either way, I like sitting here, with David’s arm heavy around my shoulders; I like studying his profile, basking in the glow of his compliments. I want to reach up and feel the tiny bit of stubble along his jawline. Unlike the rest of the guys here, he is more man than boy.
“I like to match,” I say, which I realize makes no sense but I think still comes off in a flirty way. It’s so much easier to flirt drunk. How come I never realized this before? This is the sort of basic information I’m sure someone like Lauren Drucker already knows. David smells good, and the crook of his neck seems inviting. The sort of place where I should rest my dizzy head. And I do. Nuzzle right in there. Which is something I would never do without liquid courage.
“We match,” I say, and as soon as the words are out I already know that tomorrow will come and I will remember this moment and wince. We match?? And so, even through this drunken haze, I feel relief when he doesn’t laugh at me. Instead he squeezes me a little tighter, brings me a tiny bit closer so my edges are against his edges, and it’s all warm. Our bodies fit. I secretly sniff him, and get rewarded with his fresh lemony scent.
I want him to kiss me, I realize. There is nothing else really left for me to want. I can’t undo the past two months. I can’t make my dad be alive. Or my mother not be a cheater. I can’t undo the accident, am no longer naive enough to think that figuring out the math could somehow make it better. I can’t become editor in chief. I can’t change or fix any of it. But kissing David would feel good, good enough for me not to think about Lauren’s warning that I better not hurt her brother, good enough for me not to worry about whether David will understand the concept of a casual hookup, good enough for me not to think about why I ever started the Accident Project in the first place.
Good enough that I will not think about my dad or my mom or anything at all.
David has told me I am beautiful, not once but twice, and right now I really feel that he isn’t lying, that I am, or maybe that one day I could be, beautiful, inside and out.
Kissing David would make me forget.
Is that so wrong? For me to want to forget for just a little while?
Kissing David would feel good.
Do I need a better reason than that?
Team David, I think. I’m totally on Team David.