Two Broken Souls

chapter fifteen

Jake's house was less than half a mile from Paige's, so we decided to walk there. I didn't go to school the next day after I left and now I really don't want to go to a party, but it means something to Paige.

"I really don't want to be here. Everyone is just going to be talking about me." I mumbled to Paige as we shuffled down the empty sidewalk. The evening still has a bit of blue to it, but the streetlights are already on.

"One hour and then we can leave." Paige pleaded.

I've obviously never been to Jake's house, but as soon as we turn onto his block, it becomes clear which one is his.

There's the music, of course, pummeling the evening air with its obnoxious bass, but also the layers of voices floating out on top of one another, punctuated by shouts and squeals. The front shades are drawn, but the back window is illuminated, and through the curtains, you can see people crowded around a table.
When we walk through the front door, the man himself is waiting to greet us.

Jake does not behave as if it is at all weird that we have shown up on his doorstep, despite the fact that neither of us has spoken a word to him in the last year we've been at school together.

"Mia Stovall!" he says, stepping aside to let us in. "The newspaper girl!" He is being facetious, but in that way that is past ridicule. He either has had enough to drink or is more good-natured than I realized.

Aubrey comes running and immediately envelops Paige and me in a tight hug. "Heyy!" She smells like cool-girl shampoo. "I'm so glad you came," she says.
Paige loops her arm through mine, then Aubrey's. This is going to be a long night. We run into Jessica and Emily on our way to the kitchen, which earns us another round of high-pitched greetings and hugs.
I already want to go home.

"Drink?" Paige waves her arm in a flourish over the island counter, which is covered with an assortment of alcohol. I shake my head, but Aubrey agrees.
Paige pours about a half inch of vodka from a near-empty plastic bottle, filling the rest of the cup up to the brim with orange juice. She hands this to Aubrey before freeing another red tumbler from the plastic, which she holds out to me. "We need to make a toast," she orders.

I comply by serving myself some orange juice, and then we raise our cups in the air, bolstered by Paige's salute: "To senior year!"

My juice is room temperature and leaves a sour taste in my mouth. "Is it any better with vodka?" I ask Paige. She tilts her cup toward me, and I take a sip. Now the aftertaste is bitter, but it does taste better so I fill my cup up with some vodka.

"Hey, Crowell!" Dylan Stone is over at the dining table. "You wanna join my team or what?"

Paige smiles coyly. "Sure," she says, like a magnanimous grand dame. "I'm bringing Mia, too."
Aubrey just disappeared and I tried to explain that I should go after her, because I'm not any good at drinking games.

"It doesn't matter." Paige sets my orange juice on the table. "You'll be fine." And because Paige says it's okay, I trust that it'll be okay.

"Okay," says Dylan, as we move into place next to him. "Do you know the rules of flip cup?" I have played flip cup once but I don't remember, so Dylan gives a refresher anyway.

Basically, there are two teams, each forming a line on either side of the table. Once the game begins, the first person in each line has to down their drink, place the cup on the edge of the table, and then flip it so that it rests upside down. Then and only then the next person down the line does the same thing, and so on, and so on. The team that gets through everyone first wins.

The referee is a junior, I think. "On your marks," he says, "Get set. Go!"

Dylan is up first, and he's a real pro. He drains the beer like it's water, and then, in one expert swoop, he's flipped the cup.