“Look, I moved into Cori’s room,” I said. “I found it hidden in the mattress.”
He looked into my eyes, his expression growing hesitant. “You moved into her room?”
“Yes,” I said. “Just today. I didn’t know anything about her, but her old roommate, Jill, said she dealt drugs. But I figured she didn’t need the money if she left it behind.”
He dropped my wrist. “Left it behind? I haven’t heard from her in weeks.”
“No one has.” I massaged my wrist. He’d been gripping it really hard. “Jill says she left. She says Cori took all her stuff and cleared out.”
“Left?” said Levi.
I nodded.
He dragged a hand over his face. “Fuck.”
I started to back away.
“That is just like Cori to run off like that.” He shook his head. “I could kill her.”
I took a few more steps. I was almost back to the stairs.
Levi seemed to notice me. “Oh, hey, I’m sorry.” Suddenly, his entire demeanor had changed. He smiled easily at me again, once again the harmless stoner guy. He held up a capsule, trapped between his thumb and his forefinger. “You wanted one of these, right?”
I held out my hand.
He placed it in my palm. “Sorry about that. Really. Have a good time tonight.”
I eyed him warily.
This guy knew about the envelope. He knew it was Cori’s. I should ask him where it had come from, why it said Prof. X on the front. I should find out what I should do about it.
But Levi was heading down the steps, loping off in a casual way, as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
I stared after him, a little freaked. One second he’d been easy going. The next, he’d been threatening. It was like he was two different people. What the hell was up with that?
CHAPTER THREE
“There you are!” Jill was coming up the steps. “Oh my god, I was looking everywhere for you.”
I held up the pill. “I was buying this.”
Jill’s face lit up. “Awesome. You decided to do it.”
I nodded slowly. “Yeah, I figured I wanted to see what it was like. Coming to this new school is all about new experiences. I figured what the hell.” But I was feeling distracted. I couldn’t help but be a little weirded out by Levi.
“Well, why aren’t you taking it then?” Jill shoved a bottle of water at me.
I took the bottle. “What’s the deal with that Levi guy?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Sometimes he has stuff to sell, but mostly he doesn’t. He shows up everywhere, but I don’t think he even goes to our school. He’s probably a loser townie or whatever.”
“Yeah.” I opened the water bottle and peered down at the pill in my hand. “It’s only that he…”
“You think he’s hot, don’t you?” said Jill.
“No,” I said. “Well, I mean, anyone with eyes would think he was hot. He’s very attractive. But, um, he’s also—”
“Stupid?” Jill grinned. “Like fried from smoking too much pot?”
“You know, he seemed that way. But then… he changed.”
“Changed?”
“Yeah, he grabbed my arm, and he started asking me questions about Cori. Did Cori know him?”
“Cori knew everyone,” said Jill. “Hell, she probably slept with him.”
“He thought something happened to Cori,” I said. “You don’t think that the reason she hasn’t shown back up is because she got hurt or something?”
Jill’s eyes widened. “God, I hope not.” She covered her mouth with one hand.
“Oh, I made you worried,” I said. “I didn’t mean to.”
“Well, it’s only that I don’t want to think about that kind of stuff when I’m waiting for the E to kick in, you know?”
I nodded. “Sure.”
She pushed my hand towards my mouth. “Would you take that pill already?”
“Yeah.” I popped it in my mouth and swallowed it with some water. I handed the bottle back to her.
I realized that the funk music downstairs had stopped. Now, there was no noise floating up from the basement except conversation. “The band on a break?”
“That was probably their whole set, actually,” said Jill. “I don’t know if someone else is going to play next, or if there’s going to be a D.J. instead.”
“I should find a bathroom,” I said.
Jill pointed. “Right off the living room there.”
“Oh,” I said. “Thanks.”
“When you’re done, come back downstairs,” she said. “I’d wait for you, but Guy said he didn’t want people up here.”
“Oh, well I could use the bathroom downstairs.”
“No, it’ll be crowded,” she said. “Just go up here.” She grinned at me.
* * *
When I left the bathroom, there was a guy standing outside the door. He was sweaty, wearing a ratty Nirvana t-shirt and holey jeans. He had dreadlocks that fell about to his chin. He wasn’t looking at me. He was facing away from the bathroom.
There were other guys in the room too. I recognized one as the lead singer of the funk band. He was sprawled on the couch, taking a long pull from a whiskey bottle.
I realized that these guys were the funk band.
I debated saying something to them, complimenting them or something. That would be a good way to meet some new people.
Of course, I hadn’t really thought the music was anything special.
I weaved around the guy with dreads.
He caught me by the arm. “Hold up.”
I looked him in the face. He was attractive in a kind of sweaty, gritty way. “Oh. Sorry.” He let go of me. “I thought you were Cori Donovan. She has a shirt like that.”
I looked down. I’d actually borrowed this from Jill. Was it possible that Cori had too on occasion? I wondered if I should tell this guy that. “Sorry, I’m new here. But I keep hearing all about Cori.”
“Really?”
“Do you know her very well?”
He popped a cigarette in his mouth and lit it. “We hooked up a few times. But, uh, I didn’t know her as well as I would have liked.”
“Maybe you’ll get to know her better if she comes back.”
He shook his head. “She’s not coming back. She’s gone.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“No,” he said. “I just have a feeling, you know. Like none of us are ever going to see her ever again.”
“Right.” I pushed past him. “Well, I need to find my friend. I don’t want to be alone when the pill kicks in.”
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Molly,” I said. “Molly Colligan.”
“I’m Wyatt,” he said. “I’ll help you find your friend.”
* * *
“You see her?” Wyatt yelled.
I scanned the crowded basement. All I could see were bodies in the dim light. There was no music anymore, so no one was dancing. Instead, it was wall-to-wall talking and conversation. I couldn’t make out anyone’s faces. “She’s here somewhere. She told me to find her.”
He touched my shoulder. “Maybe she’s outside.”
I wrapped my hands around my bare arms. “I don’t have my coat.”
“We’ll just run and look.” He grabbed my hand and tugged me after him.
We burst out of the basement door into the frigid winter night.
Immediately goose bumps appeared on my skin. I shivered. Out here, there was nothing but a few cars parked in the driveway. Most of the people here seemed to have walked, though. “There’s no one outside.”
He grinned at me. “Yeah, sorry. I guess I wanted to get you some place where I could hear you easier.”
Oh. Was Wyatt hitting on me? I looked at him a little more closely. He definitely had that ratty, unwashed thing going for him. There was something raw about him—unapologetically masculine.
Or was that the fucking pill kicking in already?
I wasn’t even sure what it felt like.
“I just want to find my friend,” I said. “I never did E before, and I don’t want to be alone.”
He was still grinning. “Oh, don’t worry about that. You’re not going to be alone.”
“Well, I don’t know anyone,” I said.
“You know me.”
“Not really, I don’t,” I said. “I just met you.” Of course, I’d met Jill only a few hours earlier. Maybe he was right. I shivered again.
“Come back upstairs with me,” he said. “Get to know me better.”
“I thought that Guy didn’t want people up there,” I said.
“He won’t care if it’s me,” said Wyatt. He held up two crossed fingers. “Guy and me are like this.”
“Okay,” I said. I didn’t want to stay outside, and the crowded, hot basement didn’t seem so appealing right now.
He was still holding my hand. He led me up away from the basement door. There was a hill. We climbed up the driveway to get to the upper level of the house. “Your friend will turn up.”
“Yeah.” I nodded.
“She’s here somewhere. Are you really worried about her?”
“Not worried,” I said. “Not exactly. I guess I’m more worried about myself.”
“Hey, I’ll take care of you.”
I shivered again.
He slung an arm around me.
Usually, having someone be so forward would bother me, but right now, it only felt comforting. “Thanks.” I smiled at him.
* * *
“You ever do whip-its?” Wyatt asked me.
“No,” I said. “I don’t even think I’ve heard of that. What is it?” I was grinning. I couldn’t stop grinning. We were back upstairs, standing in the doorway to one of the bedrooms in the house.
Inside, there were several people lounging on the bed or the floor. They all had big balloons. They were sucking on them, breathing in the air in the balloons.
I squinted, feeling confused.
“Nitrous,” said Wyatt. “It’s a gas that they use in, uh, whip cream cartridges.”
A girl was stretching a balloon onto a cylindrical piece of metal. She turned the metal, and there was a whooshing noise as gas filled the balloon.
Wyatt touched her on the shoulder. “Hey Lisa. You think my new friend Molly can have a balloon?”
Lisa looked up. “I don’t know, Wyatt. I only have so many cartridges, you know?”
“She’s never done nitrous before.”
Lisa peered around Wyatt at me. “Seriously? You’re a whip-its virgin?”
I giggled. “Yeah.”
“Come on,” said Wyatt. “Help me pop her whip-its cherry.”
“Eww,” I said, shoving him. But I wasn’t really mad. I thought he was kind of charming and kind of funny and more than a little cute. I kind of didn’t care if I found Jill at all. I was feeling really good.
“Well, let me get the balloon off the cracker.” Lisa pulled the now swollen balloon off the metal piece. Pinching the opening together, she handed it to me.
“Cracker?” I was confused.
“This.” Lisa held up the metal. “It cracks open the whip cream cartridges and lets out the nitrous. Enjoy.”
I held up the balloon. I looked at Wyatt. “What do I do with it?”
“Breathe it,” he said.
I wrinkled up my brow, still confused.
“Here,” he said, “I’ll show you.” He took the balloon and put it to his mouth. He sucked air in from it. When he stopped, he handed the balloon to me with a goofy grin.
I took it from him.
“Careful,” he said. “Don’t let the nitrous out.”
I put the opening of the balloon to my lips. I breathed in. It was cold and sweet, and it invaded my lungs like a refrigerant, making everything feel fresh and cool and tingly on the inside.
Whoa.
I giggled. Everything was a little bit… stranger somehow.
“Have more,” said Wyatt, a huge smile plastered on his face.
I breathed in more. I swayed on my feet. I liked that stuff. I kept sucking on the balloon. Everything began to seem strangely distorted. The room was undulating. Wyatt’s voice seemed too high-pitched. I took one last huge lungful, letting the cold air fill me up.
And then…
The world was a spinning wheel, moved around by tiny bears that labored over and over in a circle, climbing and striving, spinning everything together, mixing colors, turning the rainbow into nothing but swirls and whispers. I was caught up in it, spinning too, everything spinning. Faster and faster and faster and—
“Whoa,” I murmured.
Wyatt was holding me upright. The balloon I’d been breathing out of was limp in my hand. The world was not a spinning wheel. It had actually been a poster on the wall of Grateful Dead bears. But before, it had looked all weird and move-y.
“That was awesome,” I said to Wyatt.
“Yeah?” He was still holding me up. His arm was slung around my waist, and I liked it there. I leaned into him, feeling the firmness of his chest against my skin, the heat of him. The smell of him—cigarette smoke and spicy sweat and something vanilla…
He looked into my eyes.
I peered into his.
“Hey,” I said, laughing.
“Hey,” he said, his voice almost reverent. “You’re beautiful.”
I giggled. “So are you.”
His fingers moved on my waist, making tiny circles. “So, you liked the whip-its?”
“Uh huh,” I said. “It was way better to have my whip-its cherry popped than my actual cherry.”
He laughed. “Really?”
“Shit, I can’t believe I just said that out loud.”
He brushed hair out of my face, tucking it behind my ear. “You said you never did E before either?”
“Uh uh.” I shook my head.
“I took a pill like a half hour ago,” he said. “It’s kicking in for me, so I’m sorry if I’m too, uh, touchy-feely.”
“You’re fine,” I said.
“Kicking in for you too?”
I turned back to look at Lisa. “I kind of want another one of those balloons?”
Wyatt laughed. “Yeah, they don’t call it hippie crack for nothing. I’ll see what I can do.”
And then—without warning—he kissed me.
It was wet and warm and so, so nice.
I moaned.
* * *
Downstairs, the music was coming from a D.J. spinning turntables. There were lights pulsing in time to the music. Everything seemed alive and throbbing, like the world had just become the most beautiful place that I’d ever seen.
I heard music like this before, but I’d never realized how amazing it was.
Perfect, wonderful synthesizer chords cut into my soul, pulling aching, agonized pleasure from my guts.
I threw my head back, basking in it, laughing, reaching up at the lights and the ceiling.
Wyatt’s hands were on my hips.
I looked back at him, drunk on my surroundings—the sights, the sounds, the sensations. “This is ecstasy?”
He pulled me against him. He was sweaty. I didn’t care.
I ran my hands over his dreads. They felt so cool. The texture was absolutely amazing. “They gave it a good name,” I said. “It is… ecstatic.”
His eyes were closed. “Yeah. It’s good all right.”
I sighed. “Is it always this good?”
“No,” he said. “It’s better this time than usual.”
I drew back. “You think we got really good pills?”
“No,” he grinned. “It’s just that you’re here, and you’re really freaking awesome.”
I shoved him. “You’re just saying that. You don’t even know me.”
“I know you have freckles,” he said. “You have the most pretty freckles I’ve ever seen. Like, if someone was going to make a freckled person, I would insist that they looked at yours first. Because yo
ur freckles are just… beautiful.”
I laughed. “That’s the silliest thing I ever heard. Besides, I cover my freckles up with makeup.”
He touched my nose. “It must have rubbed off.”
“Oops,” I said.
“You don’t need makeup,” he said.
“Whatever,” I said. “Wyatt, you are really high. You think I’m pretty because you think everything is pretty right now.” I had very nearly fallen in love with a couch cushion earlier. It had been so soft.
“No, that’s not it at all,” he said, burying his face in my neck. “This you-and-me thing is meant to be. Because I thought you were Cori. It’s like a sign. We should, you know, like suck the marrow from each other’s bones.”
I laughed. “That sounds disgusting.”
“Yeah, I think I got the quote wrong. Suck the marrow from the bones of life? Something like that?”
“Just dance,” I told him.
He kissed me again.
I groaned into his mouth. It felt so good.
* * *
We were back upstairs—alone on the couch. I was staring at the ceiling and running my fingers through Wyatt’s dreads. His head was in my lap.
He handed me a cigarette. “Just try it.”
“I don’t smoke.”
“Trust me,” he said. “Try it.”
I took the cigarette and obediently lit it.
“Suck on it,” said Wyatt.
I did.
The smoke hit the back of my throat. It was cool and pleasantly stinging. Like a… mint? I took the cigarette out and looked at it. “It tastes like toothpaste.”
“They’re menthols,” he said. “You like it?”
Man, I liked everything right now. I took another drag on the cigarette. “Yeah. It’s awesome.”
He grinned.
“Everything is awesome,” I told him.
“You like E?”
“I love it. Are you kidding? Who wouldn’t love this?”
“Yeah.” He reached up to touch my face. “You got to be careful not to like it too much is all.”
I sucked hard on the cigarette, feeling every inch of the smoke travel through my body. I sighed. “Damn it, that feels good.”
Wyatt sat up. “So, uh, you said you were new.”
“Yeah.”
“You go to the college?”
“Yeah. Do you?”
“Used to,” said Wyatt. “I’ve been taking a year off. It was going to just be a semester, but it’s turning into a year. What are you studying?”
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