Ian’s phone buzzes for the sixth time. He doesn’t check it, but he tells me, “It’s Brook. Seems like Andrew’s Halloween thingy is the place to be.”
Oh, yeah. Andrew’s annual Halloween bash. I forgot.
“Should you be there?” I ask, biting my lip.
He shrugs, leaning against the door. “Not really.”
“Not really?”
Ian shrugs again. This whole nonchalant thing isn’t very convincing—not on him, at least.
“I had fun.”
“You did?”
Ian motions toward the living room. “With Willow. Not you. You’re kind of boring.”
“I pride myself on my boringness. It’s a trademark.”
“Is it?”
This time, I shrug. It’s amazing how many competent conversations I have using only shrugs and blushes and gross smiles. “Do you want to go? To Andrew’s?” I ask.
“Do you?”
My shoulders start to lift, but I squeeze my muscles so tight my spine aches. I can feel Clover at my ankles; her wagging tail hits my calves. “I don’t think so,” I finally say. “Wasn’t on my to-do list for tonight.”
That draws up the corners of his mouth. “What was?” he whispers.
And there it is: the Infamous Remy Cameron Blush, conquering my cheeks and nose and neck like a boss.
I don’t answer his question. He doesn’t seem to mind. We opt to go with a staring contest, one that I’m certain he’s going to win because looking at this boy is like staring into the heart of a star.
Then Mom yells, “Go to the party! It’s a Friday night and I’m having a No Boys Allowed night with my daughter.”
I’ve officially entered the Hellmouth.
Serious credit to Ian: He manages to slap a hand over his mouth before any noises escape.
“But Mommy,” Willow says, “Remy’s not a boy. He’s my brother.”
“Thanks, Willow.”
Mom whispers something, giggling. Then Willow shouts, “Yuck! No boys allowed! Leave, Remy!”
Perfect. Mom probably mentioned something to Willow about Ian. And kissing. Fifty cool points deducted from the House of Abby Cameron.
“Come join us, Clover!” Mom calls, still half-laughing.
Clover scampers to the living room. I can imagine Mom and Willow sitting on the floor with candy spread around them like a teeth-rotting castle.
“And Remy,” calls Mom, a warning in her tone.
“I know, I know. No alcohol. No drugs.” She’s given the same speech since I was fourteen.
“That.” There’s fondness in her voice. “But, also, if you’re not home by curfew, I make no guarantees I won’t demolish your bounty of Reese’s from tonight.”
I shut my eyes and inhale deeply. This is torture. But I know she’s not lying. Mom and I share a peanut butter addiction. When I open my eyes, Ian’s still leaning against the door, still staring at me.
“So.”
“So?”
Back to square one. Both of us hesitant and twitchy and nervous.
“Party?” Ian offers. He’s already slipped back into his shoes.
I want to think of something great to say, something funny, a way to tell him I’d give anything to keep this night going. But I don’t have to. Ian’s hand is extended toward mine. With a choked voice, he asks, “Can I hold your hand?”
I guess that’s the Universe’s stamp of approval.
16
The Cowen’s house is three neighborhoods over from mine. There are distinct differences between Ballard Hills and this gated community. Here are newly-built brick houses with long driveways. Everything is brown and gray and modern. Every car is a sleek, new model; every hedge is trimmed by the gods’ hands. Inside is furniture meant for looking, not touching.
Andrew’s kitchen is a fifty-car pile-up, also known as half-drunk high schoolers on a Friday night. I’m in the middle of it. It’s not so bad; I’m shoulder-to-shoulder with Lucy. The tips of her hair are dyed dark green like Ian’s. She’s dressed as a character from the only anime I’ll ever recognize: Sailor Moon. She’s Sailor Pluto.
Even in the overcrowded kitchen, where people shout and laugh, I can hear the music. It’s so loud, it vibrates under my feet: techno, hip-hop, corny pop, then EDM. I assume the DJ is one of the Liu twins.
“This is wild,” I yell to Lucy.
She sips a room-temperature beer she’s been nursing for twenty minutes. Everyone has a red plastic cup filled with something foamy or colorful. Carly Johansson spills into the room, giggling. She has a thing for Fireball Whisky. I have a thing for not dying, so I typically avoid her. I’ve stuck to off-brand lemon-lime soda since arriving.
Fun fact: I’m cool with being the sober one at these things. Like, what’s the big deal with getting hammered? I’m just as sociable clear-headed as all the other people chugging beers and sneaking shots from the Cowen’s bourbon collection.
“This is gross.” Lucy makes a face.
“You can stop.”
“I could.” Lucy swallows more of her drink. “But then I’d be like you.”
“A beast at Scrabble?”
“An oversized kid dressed as Tigger.”
“Hobbes.”
“Who?”
I shake my head. “Never mind. Keep drinking.”
“Oh, I plan to.” Lucy salutes me with her plastic cup. I respond with an equally cheery middle-finger. Why am I here again?
Ian. I’ve been spectacular at ignoring the fact that Brook snatched him away the moment we crossed the Cowen’s threshold. That’s only because Brook is dressed as Barack Obama: spray-painted gray hair and freshly-pressed suit and sunglasses. Also, it’s not as if Ian doesn’t have his own set of friends—mainly Brook’s swim buddies—to hang around.
It doesn’t bother me one bit. I haven’t spent the past five minutes daydreaming about messing up Ian’s over-styled green hair with my fingers, kissing his chapped lips, learning the words to all of Ian’s favorite ’80s songs just to impress him. That’s stalker-level creepiness.
I’m cool with my current activity: People-watching. A semi-circle of sophomores is passing around something that definitely isn’t a cigarette. They inhale, choke, giggle, then pass. Girls gossip by the fridge. A freshman yells about a frantic game of Beirut in the basement. Something inappropriate is happening near the pantry. Something very inappropriate is probably happening in the Cowen’s master bedroom.
Joslyn, Andrew’s older sister, is in charge. She’s done a decent job of frightening kids off the front lawn to keep the cops away. But her main concern is this muscle-head with a mohawk, dressed in an Atlanta Falcons jersey, sipping a Corona.
“I heard he used to go to our school,” Lucy tells me. “Seven years ago.”
“Seven?”
Lucy nods and hiccups, then adjusts the hem of her garnet-colored skirt. Joslyn is a freshman at Georgia Tech, the college of Jules Littleton, so my expectations were fairly-low.
I entertain myself with all the sick costumes. Chloe is Dorothy Gale from the Wizard of Oz, except she’s wearing this cool, blue gingham button-down instead of a dress. Her dark-cherry Doc Martens are brushed with a layer of glitter.
Next to her, Jayden’s Glinda the Good Witch—fuchsia hair and a lopsided glitter crown. His bubblegum-pink T-shirt reads: “Fairytale Nightmare.” He manages to pull it off in this chic-masculine way, not that he’s out of place in this group. A girl dressed as Legolas from The Lord of the Rings is two feet from him. A line of college-aged guys wears flirty nurse costumes with skirts far too short against their hairy legs. None of the soon-to-be-frat bros here would give Jayden any trouble about his outfit. All the jocks at Maplewood love him. Once, I overheard a few of the football players after practice:
“Jayden’s a beast.”
�
��I mean, yeah, he’s a cheerleader and wears really out-there clothes sometimes, but it’s all for fun. Dude’s not serious about it.”
“Plus, he’s into girls!”
“Dudes and girls, bro. That’s what bisexual means.”
“I know what bisexual means! Anyway, he’s still a legend. He’s not dainty and shit. And he can belch the alphabet when the occasion calls for it.”
For the record: There’s never an occasion for that. Ever. Period.
“I’m surprised you came,” Lucy says over the rapid-fire beat of a hip-hop song.
I give her a halfhearted shrug. “I can be social.”
“Yes, you can. But you don’t party.”
“I party. I party so freakin’ hard, Lucia.”
“You do not.”
“I do too!”
“What are you, Willow’s age? ‘I do too’? You sound whiny.”
“And you sound jealous that I’m having more fun than you and I’m sober.”
Lucy snorts, then takes a long swallow of her tepid beer.
It’s a fact: Overcrowded parties like this aren’t exactly my scene. I mean, I’ve been to a few, mostly because of Lucy. It took a while for me to shed my freshman skin and become comfortable around alcohol and loud music and people dry-humping in public. I’m more of a small-group-cramming-into-a-booth-at-IHOP guy. But I’d rather be here than spending Halloween night at one of Darcy Jamison’s Holy Teen Night events. Not that she’d invite me.
“You coming tonight has nothing to do with my boyfriend’s best friend, right?” Lucy asks with a smirk that should not be worn by anyone’s best friend.
“Nothing at all.”
“I saw you walk in with him.”
“Total coincidence.” Jesus, even my lie falls flat.
“You two looked cozy.”
“The weather’s nice tonight.”
“What?”
I pointedly look away from her suspicious glare. From the kitchen, there’s a clear view into the Cowen’s living room. In the middle of a lush gold sofa is Silver. He’s dressed as the Mad Hatter—not the sadistic Tim Burton adaptation, the pure Disney version. Sorority girls try to flirt with him. Quiet and curled in on himself, he ignores them. He’s so out of place—like me, but more noticeable. Part of me wants to walk over to him. Maybe talk. The problem is Silver’s only ever spoken six times to me. Four of those were “door” when he was trying to sneak away for his daily smoke break, and I just happened to be in the way.
Lucy clears her throat. I guess our conversation isn’t over.
“I needed to get out,” I finally say.
“It had nothing to do with Ian Park?”
By the fridge, something drops and shatters. Andrew barges in, parting the sea of seniors blocking the keg. He shouts, “Mom’s teacups!” clearly having a mini-heart attack.
I turn to Lucy. “Just a lot on my mind. Didn’t want to stay at home and turn emo.”
“Remy Cameron, Emo Kid? I’ve seen that version.”
“It’s not pretty.”
She almost chokes on beer. “It’s not.”
Something in Lucy’s glazed eyes tells me she understands. I don’t have to explain the way, sometimes, it feels as if the walls are closing in, and the air is so damn thin. She gets what it means to be a high school junior trying to survive the semester.
“I still think you’re deflecting,” she says, tipping her nearly empty cup to her lips.
“I’m not.”
“I call bullshit.”
“I’m calling your mother and informing her your vocabulary has been reduced from the PSAT drill words you’ve been working on every weekend to basic, Adult Swim lingo.”
I give Lucy extra credit. She’s able to side-eye me, sip beer, and flip me off all at once.
“I need some fresh air,” she says.
Ah, yeah. “Fresh air” is code for “cigarette break.”
Lucy doesn’t invite me to join. She never does. Secondhand smoke and I aren’t friends. She downs the remains of her beer, then carelessly places the cup on the counter behind us. Something wistful passes over her eyes, as if for a millisecond she wants me to come along, as if she doesn’t want to be alone. But it disappears.
“See you soon?”
I nod at her. She vanishes into a crowd of people exiting the back door.
Alex or Zac plays more EDM tracks. Fantastic. All this party needs is a drunken round of Twister and some kid vomiting in the bushes, and we’ll have reached Netflix-levels of teen parody.
A guy wearing a child’s size Gryffindor T-shirt and scarf bumps into me. Pink liquid spills from his cup onto my shoe. Un-freaking-believable.
I glare at him. I don’t recognize him from my year or even Maplewood’s halls. His lips are puckered. A galaxy of freckles is spread across his face. His hair is on fire—whether dye or naturally, I can’t tell.
“Who’re you supposed to be?” he asks.
“Hobbes.”
“Excuse me?”
“Hobbes, the tiger?”
“Jesus Christ Superstar, what is that?”
“I’m Tigger,” I say, deadpan, and he snaps his fingers excitedly.
“Winnie-the-Pooh is my Patronus, my dude!”
“I bet,” I sigh, then scoot around him before I lose more braincells talking to this guy.
My options for a new conversation partner are limited. I know a lot of people at the party by face, but not on a real level. I have my circle of friends. And then there are all the Maplewood students who nod and wave at me during school: the ones that know me as Remy, the Gay One, Lucy’s Best Friend, The GSA Club President, Rio’s Sidekick, and, my favorite, the Openly Gay One Who Used to Get It On with Dimi, the Hot Soccer Player. All these labels make me think about the Essay of Doom, and that kills my buzz. My sober buzz.
I look around for anyone other than Lucy. Jayden and Chloe are cuddling in a corner. Zac is… dancing? Or having a stroke. It’s hard to tell. And there’s Sara, who strolled in an hour ago dressed as Storm from X-Men, in thunderbolt earrings and an iridescent silver hijab. Sara and I talking at a party? That’s not happening unless Lucy’s involved.
The house is so congested. It’s as if all of Dunwoody decided to simultaneously descend on the Cowen’s. In the heart of it all, Brook is leading a conga line. I spot Ian, shimmying with the other swim team guys.
Our eyes meet. Something in his expression relaxes, as though it’s just for me. I’m probably imagining that. But a tingle races from my arms to my toes. I watch his dimple, then his eyes. I watch until the conga line disappears into the kitchen. And then I exhale.
“Well, this situation just got real gay.”
It’s Sara, next to me. A row of gleaming gold bracelets jingles as she drinks from a red plastic cup. She’s wearing opaque contacts, and it’s kind of scary, but truly epic too.
“Every good situation is gay. Real gay,” I say.
“True that.”
We laugh, low and to ourselves, then Sara freezes. I do too. As if she’s just realized what came out of her mouth. I pretend it didn’t happen. For her sake, not mine.
“I need more gin,” she mumbles.
“I need to pee.”
We don’t exchange goodbyes. Hell, we don’t look each other in the eye. Sara shoves her way to the kitchen, and I trip on my shaky feet trying to locate a bathroom—or a time machine to erase the last thirty seconds.
The line to use one of the upstairs bathrooms is much shorter than the one downstairs. It’s a small victory. But it means I’m forced to stand between two girls, who alternate between texting and making out, and a sophomore soccer player. Kip? Keaton? I can’t remember. He obviously recognizes me, judging by the way he won’t make eye contact for more than five seconds without flinching. The curse of Dimi’s ex-boyfriend
strikes again. Luckily, I have my phone out, watching old Steven Universe episodes on YouTube.
I think about texting Rio. She wouldn’t approve of me attending Andrew’s party. Also, she’s enjoying her own Halloween tradition—laughing her ass off at campy ’80s horror movies. I’m chickenshit when it comes to Michael Meyers and Jason Voorhees. But Rio? She’s a brave little toaster.
“Quick. Pretend you were holding my spot in line.”
I startle, nearly dropping my phone. To my right is this guy, grinning lazily, his shoulder pressed to mine.
“What?”
“I can’t stand all the way in the back. My bladder will malfunction.”
A quick look over my shoulder tells me the line is much longer than it was five minutes ago. It stretches down the hall, onto the stairway.
I glance back at the guy. Thick, wavy hair is pulled off his face by a hair-tie. It’s the same color as his eyes—maple brown. He has a square jaw with a rose-hue to his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. He’s taller than me, older than me too, I think. Cute.
Correction: This guy’s hot.
Functional words float in the ether rather than out of my mouth. “Uh…”
“It’s cool.”
“It is?”
“We’ll just do the buddy system,” he says as we inch forward. His cologne smells like cedarwood. His breath smells like beer and lime.
“Like, go in together?”
“Promise I won’t look at yours unless you want me to.”
I sputter. He pats my back, then his hand lingers between my shoulder blades. I don’t know how to react. His palm is hot, and his eyes have that glassiness that comes from drinking too much.
“We can’t—”
He cuts me off. “Whoa, nice eyes.” He leans closer. I draw back, right into the wall. He chuckles, then says, “I mean—dude, nice eyes.”
He says it in this straightforward way. His lips curve up enough to show his white teeth; his eyes run over me. Definitely not straight.
How to Be Remy Cameron Page 16