Meanwhile, Marcus, Dusty, and I are all looking at Mom because she’s the one who tells it like it is. But she doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t even look at us. She’s staring at some point just past our father, who is still talking.
Finally, Dusty raises his hand and goes, “Are you getting divorced?”
Dad’s face crumples, and I can’t look. Now no one’s saying anything, and finally, in this very quiet voice, Mom says, “Your father and I think it’s best to separate for a little while. We need to work on some things in our marriage, but those issues have nothing to do with you.”
The conversation doesn’t end there. Dusty has questions, and Marcus wants to know what this means for us, like, where will we live and can we still go to college?
Meanwhile, I’m here on the outside—always on the outside, even as the world crumbles around me—face pressed to the glass that divides us, looking in.
We’re on our way to pick up Iris, and Jayvee is driving because she’s the only one with a license. Bailey and I sit in back. Bailey says, “Dave Kaminski’s having a party. I promised I’d stop by, just for a minute.”
Jayvee catches my eye in the mirror. “Libbs? It’s kind of up to you.”
Bailey says, “Jack won’t be there.”
I say, “How do you know?”
“He doesn’t really go to parties.”
We roll up in front of Iris’s house, but Iris is nowhere to be seen. Jayvee shoots her a text, and we sit there. When she still doesn’t appear, Jayvee swears under her breath. “I’ll be back.” She leaves the engine running and goes marching up the walk.
“Libbs?” Bailey is peering at me, eyebrows raised like banners, mouth in a half-smile, eyes wide and shining.
“Okay.”
Because I mean, why not? What do I have to lose?
And then, because I don’t have anything to lose, I say, “Why didn’t you stick up for me when I was bullied? Back in fifth grade. When Moses Hunt started banning me from the playground. Why didn’t you do something or at least come talk to me? I stood there every day, too terrified to set one foot on the playground, and you never once came over to talk to me.”
I say it matter-of-factly. I’m not emotional. I’m not upset. I just genuinely want to know. At first, I’m not sure she hears me. But then her eyebrows sink back into place and her half-smile disappears and her eyes go cloudy.
“I don’t know, Libbs. I think I told myself we were friends, but not best friends, and that you seemed like you were okay. You’re still like that. You get letters from some horrible person, and you brush it off. Jack tells you he can’t go out with you anymore, and you’re ‘fine.’ ”
“But it was a big deal back then, and it was kind of obvious, but no one did anything.”
“And I felt awful because I didn’t, and then one day you were gone. You didn’t come back.”
“Is that why you’re so nice to me now?”
“It’s why I came up and said hi to you on the first day of school, but it’s not why I’m nice to you. I’m nice because I like you. I’m just really, really, really sorry I wasn’t a good friend then.”
And it doesn’t change anything, but it’s enough.
“I could have been a better friend too. I could have talked to you. I could have told you how I was feeling.” And then she hugs me, and I inhale her hair, which tastes like rainbows and peach pie, exactly how you think Bailey Bishop’s hair would taste.
When we walk into Dave Kaminski’s, the first person I see is Mick from Copenhagen. He’s in the living room, dancing in this circle of girls, and his black hair is shining blue-black like crow feathers. Next to me, Jayvee goes, “Hello, Mick from Copenhagen,” in this throaty voice, and then pretends to faint into Iris’s arms.
I follow Bailey through the crowd, and Dave Kaminski’s house doesn’t look like a house but some sort of fraternity. It is literally crammed with so many people, we can barely move. The music is loud, and people are doing their best to dance, but it’s more like jumping straight up and down in place.
My first high school party.
The music is good, and so I’m shaking my hips a little as I walk, and when I accidentally bump some guy, he yells, “Watch it!”
I tell my hips to be still and behave themselves, and finally we break through into the dining room, where Dave Kaminski is playing poker with a group of guys and a couple of girls. Bailey goes up to Dave and says something in his ear, and suddenly he’s grabbing her until she’s sitting on his lap, and she’s laughing and play-hitting him, and then she hugs him and comes back over to us. “Dave’s really glad we’re here.”
I say, “Apparently.”
And then Dave Kaminski catches my eye and gives me this nod, and there’s something in it that feels almost like an apology.
Caroline (dark skin, smells like cinnamon, beauty mark by her eye) and I are in Kam’s sister’s room. Literally every inch of wall is covered in posters of Boy Parade, so it’s a little like sitting in the middle of a very small arena full of twenty-year-old guys. Their faces are everywhere, and their eyes are glued to us. They are smiling these unnaturally white smiles that glow in the dark.
She thinks I’ve brought her in here to make out. But instead I’m trying to see once and for all if I can trick sweet Caroline into coming out and having a real conversation with me. Because I miss Libby. Because I miss talking to someone the way I can talk to her.