When All is Null and Void

Chapter Twenty-Four

Caitlyn guffawed at her. "Jason Riverswants to talk to you, and that's all you can say?" She plugged her phone into the aux cord. Katy Perry's Dark Horsestarted blasting over the speakers. Danielle turned it down.

"Well, it's not like he got down on one knee and offered me a ring," Danielle replied. The thought of Jason Rivers offering her anything, let alone a ring, sent a shudder down her spine. There had been a time, back in eighth grade, when she'd had a massive crush on him, but he'd been a different sort of person back then. They pulled into the line of cars waiting to leave.

"It's high school, Danni. Relationships don't start like that." Caitlyn gave herself an appraising look in the visor mirror. "Do you think my roots are showing?"

"I know how relationships work," Danielle retorted with a subtle bite. "I'm not a nun." She'd broken up with Ezra Schiller during the summer, because he'd decided she was too pure for him. He'd actually resigned himself to the fact he might cheat on her, simply because she didn't want to have sex with him. She'd been a mess for weeks before coming to grips with the fact that she didn't need a douche like that in her life. "No, your roots aren't showing."

"You need to get your life together, missy," Caitlyn said. She skipped the song, and a musical theatre ballad from a show Danielle had never seen started to play. Caitlyn sang along with it, her siren song voice harmonizing with ease.

"My life is perfectly fine," Danielle said under her breath, and Caitlyn didn't hear.

"Will you pleasego?" Caitlyn whined. "If you don't, I don't have a reason to."

Danielle lolled her head to look at her friend. "There's no reason to go to a party where people are going to get drunk and vomit in a bathtub in slutty costumes."

"Just because there are slutty costumes doesn't mean you have to dress slutty. Go as a Starbucks barista or whatever." Caitlyn went back to harmonizing; her voice cracked on a wrong note and coughed to cover it up. "Wow, high," she said, manicured fingers on her chest.

"I'm not going," she said. When Caitlyn turned to offer a suggestion, Danielle cut her off with a pointer finger. "No chance."

"Fine," Caitlyn sighed. "But please tell me you're going to at least do something funtonight."

"I was going to go on a run," she said. Running was an activity Caitlyn would deem totally un-fun, and Danielle regretted saying it the moment the words left her mouth.

"Danni," Caitlyn said. "We get it, you're a runner, but seriously, you have to live your life sometime."

"Is it really living to get caught drinking?" They pulled onto Lockhaven. Danielle might have lived in what everyone deemed the "upper" part of town where most of the wealthier people lived, but Danielle's house was smaller and older than the others. Just because they lived on a hill didn't mean they were rich.

"No one said you have to drink..." Caitlyn said. "I wasn't going to. I just want to go."

"Guilty by association," Danielle retorted. "I would get into so much trouble." She tapped on her breaks when someone pulled onto the road a little too late. She wouldn't hit them, but her heart danced in her chest.

The song ended, and it was quiet in the car for a few moments before another musical theatre song played. This time it was "Watch What Happens" from Newsies, and Danielle knew all the words by heart. She started singing immediately, and Caitlyn glanced over at her with a huge grin. "What if," she said, "I bought us tickets to Newsies, if you went to the party with me,"

"Don't play around," Danielle deadpanned. "You, of all people, know what Newsiesmeans to me."

Caitlyn crossed her heart. "Let lighting strike me where I stand—" she glanced out the window "—er—sit, if I'm lying to you."