.10.

Lorraine crept into my room right after dinner right when I was about to start reading a story for English class. She was dressed in blue sweatpants from our middle school back in Pennsylvania and a white tee-shirt that was almost too small for her. When she saw me sitting on my bed with my huge English textbook on my lap, she flashed me a sheepish grin.

“Hi, Lindsay,” she greeted me. “Do you think you could do my makeup now?”

I looked down at my English book and sighed. It wasn’t like I wouldn’t have time later in the weekend to read the story.

“Sure,” I told her. “Just sit down.” I gestured for her to take a seat on the floor, which she did, looking around my room as if she’d never seen it before.

I went over to my dresser and began collecting all the makeup products that were scattered about the top to put into my makeup bag.

“Your room looks different than in Pennsylvania,” Lorraine commented.

I made a noncommittal noise as I put the last of the makeup products—a blush brush—into the bag. With that, I turned around and sat on the floor across from Lorraine.

“Hold still,” I ordered as I gently spread foundation across her face. I could feel her brown eyes watching me, but I kept my own gaze concentrated on the other parts of her face that I covered with foundation.

“Lindsay?” she piped up when I started twisting the cap back on the bottle.

“Hm?”

“How come I didn’t get green eyes like yours?”

“It’s genetics,” I explained as I swirled blush around on the brush. “Smile.”

“Is that why we both have blonde hair?”

Without thinking, my eyes darted up to look at her hair, which was the same color mine had been before I dyed it brown. The same color my mother’s was. We may have had completely different fathers, but we’d both managed to inherit the same hair color from our mother.

“Yeah. Now smile so I can put blush on your face.”

She obeyed, pulling back her mouth into a forced grin. “Lindsay?” she repeated through the smile.

“What?”

“Do you think Cameron will ask me out?”

I concentrated on spreading the blush smoothly across her cheekbones, focusing on the apples of her cheeks. “Who’s Cameron?”

“He’s the ninth grader, remember? The one who Ellie said likes me? She said he’d probably ask me out tonight. Do you think he will? I’m so excited!”

“Smile,” I ordered again as I finished up with the blush. As soon as I pulled back and started putting it away, she began speaking again.

“I’ve never had a boyfriend before,” she worried. “Do you think it’ll be obvious? What if he kisses me? Lindsay, I don’t know how to kiss!”

The last time I had kissed a boy had been back in the middle of my sophomore year. Soon thereafter, I’d decided boys were an unnecessary hassle and declared a personal moratorium on relationships. They weren’t worth the time when all they ever did was end.

Yet the first time I’d kissed a boy I’d been in seventh grade, and my friend Robbie and I had decided to practice kissing by kissing each other. A week later, he’d had his friends ask me out for him, as is the custom in middle school, and I’d agreed because I didn’t care. He’d been my first boyfriend as well as my first kiss.

“You’ll be fine.” I picked out some eyeshadow. “Close your eyes.”

She did so, but continued talking. “But what if he thinks I’m a freak, Lindsay? Or that I’m really weird for not kissing anyone yet? When was your first kiss?”

“Stop worrying.” I carefully swept the eyeshadow across her lids, then pulled back. “Open your eyes.”

Her brown eyes flew open, peering at me with anxiety. “When was your first kiss, Lindsay?”

I rummaged through my makeup bag for my eyeliner pencil. I didn’t use eyeliner too often, so it was way at the bottom. “Seventh grade.”

“See? I’m a freak. Cameron’s gonna think I’m a freak.”

“Thirteen is a perfectly normal age to get your first kiss.”

As I finished up with eyeliner and mascara, Lorraine continued fretting about Cameron asking her out and kissing and, in general, things I never thought my sister would ever fret about. I guess I figured she’d never start to care about boys and other related subjects. It was unreal to see my little sister growing up. One of my earliest memories was actually of staying at a neighbor’s house for a couple days without understanding why, and then being driven to the hospital to meet my new baby sister.

“There,” I declared as I leaned back and stuck the mascara wand back the tube. “Done.”

Lorraine hopped to her feet and peered in the mirror on my desk. When she grinned widely, I knew she was pleased.

“Thanks, Lindsay!” she yelped, making faces at herself in the mirror. Happy. Mysterious. Flirtatious. One with pouted lips, which I guess was a kissy-kissy face.

“You need to go get clothes on,” I told Lorraine as a polite way of shooing her out of my room.

“Right.” She grinned once more and skipped out of my room, into her own right next to mine. When she left, I shut the door and stared at my own reflection in the mirror. The time was 6:45, so Amelia wouldn’t be here for another hour and fifteen minutes. Even so, I was bored and I didn’t feel like reading that English story, so I set my makeup bag in front of me and began.

.x.x.x.

By the time Amelia arrived, I had nearly completely changed my appearance. I’d gone overboard with the makeup without making it look as though I actually had gone overboard. In other words, I was a lot prettier than I usually was. My eyes were lined heavily in eyeliner, the foundation made my face look flawless, the blush gave me a rosy-cheeked look. As for my clothes, I’d gone for a jean mini-skirt and a shirt with a deep v-neck. Tonight, I was not Lindsay Callahan. Tonight, I could be anyone. The only thing ruining the ensemble was the three inch bright blonde roots in my brown hair. I know that blonde hair is supposed to grow back a different color when you dye it, but my hair seemed to be an exception to that rule because it grew back the same color every time.

But tonight was the first time in a long time that I actually wished I had my natural color back. If I could go back to my unnaturally blonde hair color, the transformation—the hoax—would be complete. I could officially leave Lindsay Callahan back at home.

My mother was shocked to see my appearance when I emerged from my room. Even when I’d gone to parties back in Pennsylvania, I’d never dressed up quite to this extent. I might have worn makeup and dressed in nicer clothes than what I wore to school, but I never transformed myself like I had tonight. But back in Pennsylvania, I’d never had a reason to become a different person.

“Whoa!” cried Amelia when I hopped into the passenger’s seat of her car. “Don’t you look hot!”

I grinned. “Thanks. You look good too.”

And she did. She wore makeup, but not as much as me. She was also dressed as I would have dressed under ordinary circumstances—jeans and a spaghetti strap shirt that showed off her petite shoulders.

We didn’t talk much on the way to the party mainly because neither of us had anything to say. The small conversations we did have were about the location of the party or the name of the band whose CD was currently in the CD player. When I asked her who else was going to be there, she just shrugged her shoulders and told me that it didn’t matter. I had a bad feeling that this included Sam Montaigne, the Freaky Blue-Eyed Gossip, and hoped that Amelia wouldn’t expect me to hang out with her. Especially when I had to ditch her and whoever else I was with to go meet with Thrasher at nine. I honestly didn’t need any more gossip to be spread about my befriending Thrasher.

We finally arrived at the party around eight-thirty, and I couldn’t help but feel relieved. I could be unknown, anonymous, someone other than that crazy girl who befriended Thrasher, someone whose name was not Lindsay and hadn’t recently moved. I was anyone. As I looked at the dozens of cars lining the street and the house full of light and people, I resolved that I was going to have a good time, no matter what. Nothing could stop me.

.x.x.x.

Five minutes had passed by the time Amelia parked the car and we walked to the doorway of the house. When we entered, the inside was nearly identical to any party I’d ever been to in Pennsylvania. Rap music was playing loudly, people were holding cups of beer or cans of soda (though these were less frequent than the beer), and tons of people were milling about the house, talking or dancing. I smiled at the familiarity of it all. The individual might be different, but no matter where you go, teens were going to party the same way.

Amelia tucked her car keys into her pocket and pulled out a cell phone all in one fluid motion. I listened carefully to her half of the conversation, straining my ears over the loud music.

“Hello? . . . Yeah, I just got here. Where are you? . . . Okay.”

She shot me an expectant look and started making her way down a nearby hallway. I followed, observing all the people around me. I began to wish I’d worn more modest clothing. Sure, I wanted to be someone else for a night, but I was starting to feel over-exposed with the majority of my leg showing underneath my skirt and the v-neck that showed way more cleavage than I’d ever show on a day-to-day basis. Of course, because I was hoping that no one would look at me, it felt as though everyone was looking at me. In a futile effort at some sort of decency, I tried to pull my shirt up a little higher, but it wouldn’t stay up. It would just fall right back down to the point with too much cleavage.

“Who are we meeting?” I shouted to Amelia, who had put her phone away and was now scanning the room we were in—what looked like a family room—as if searching for someone.

“My friends from another school,” she answered. “She said they’d be in the kitchen, by the keg.”

Frowning, she started shoving through people towards an open doorway, through which we could see a room that was definitely a kitchen. There were a lot of people in the kitchen, but Amelia determinedly marched over to a group where a girl with light brown hair, about the color of my own dyed hair, stood with three other guys. The girl was talking animatedly with her hands, smiling as her mouth moved. Amelia tapped the girl on the shoulder.

“Amelia!” shrieked the girl when she saw who’d tapped her on the shoulder. She threw her arms around my newest friend. “Ohmigosh! Hi!” She pulled back and looked Amelia in the face. “It feels like forever!”

Amelia said something that I couldn’t hear, to which the girl nodded and smiled. Then her eyes darted beyond Amelia and saw me standing awkwardly as Amelia reunited with her friend.

“Hey!” she greeted me warmly, taking a few steps towards me. The circle she’d been in morphed and expanded, and I could feel all three of the guys she’d been talking to check me out. I tried not to flinch under their gazes. This was part of who I was for tonight. Not Lindsay Callahan. Some other, daring girl who enjoyed the lascivious stares of boys she didn’t know.

“Oh!” Amelia turned towards me as if she’d forgotten I was there. “This is my friend Lindsay. She just moved here.”

“Ooh, really? Where from?” she chirruped. In fact, she struck me as the sort of person who is always happy and who always sounds excited. Unless she’d already had some beer, in which case it was probably just the alcohol.

“Pennsylvania,” I told her.

She grinned. “Cool. I’m Allie.”

I nodded. “Hi.”

“And those—” she gestured at the three silent boys “—are Dumb, Dumber, and Dumbest.”

“Hey,” the second tallest and best looking one protested. He had dark brown hair and equally dark eyes, wearing a striped button-down shirt and dark-washed jeans. “That’s not fair.”

Allie giggled. “It’s okay, Jordan. You’re only Dumb.”

“I’m smarter than him,” spoke up the shortest one, who appeared Hispanic.

“Which makes you Dumbest,” Amelia jumped in, smiling flirtatiously.

“I’m Jordan,” the cute one said to me. “And I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t call me Dumb.”

I smiled, forcing forth a more outgoing version of myself. For tonight, I was not myself. “Will do.”

“That’s Alejandro.” Allie nodded her head at the Hispanic boy. “And that’s Trevor. He actually goes to your school.” The two of us looked up at the tallest boy, who had hair that had obviously been dyed black. He was, we both noted, watching me, and I immediately averted my gaze from him.

“Trevor, put your eyeballs back in,” Allie joked, elbowing Trevor in the waist.

I snuck a glance back at him, and when he saw that, a slow, easy smile spread across his face. He wasn’t as cute as Jordan, but I would admit that he wasn’t bad looking.

“Lindsay,” he called in a voice that was probably supposed to be seductive. “You wanna go dance?”

Under ordinary circumstances (meaning, if I were back home in Pennsylvania), I would have said no thanks and continued talking to my friends. But tonight was not an ordinary circumstance, and I was not Lindsay tonight. I was someone else. Someone different. Someone who wore revealing clothing and danced with boys she didn’t know.

I took a quick peek at the clock on the oven: I had twenty minutes until I was supposed to meet Thrasher at the upstairs bathroom. Plenty of time to dance with Trevor.

“Sure,” I agreed with a coy smile. Allie grinned at my acceptance, while Amelia only smiled and looked slightly confused. Trevor took my hand and led me to the family room, where most of the dancing was going on. He went to my school, Allie said. That meant he either didn’t know that I was the crazy girl who sat with Thrasher at lunch—or he didn’t care. It was a relief to have someone from the same school as me not judge me immediately based on my lunch company.

Trevor weaved our way into the throng of dancers, then pulled my back to his front. I didn’t have a lot of experience dancing with the opposite sex, but I’d seen it done before and I could dance on my own.

“Are you sure we go to the same school?” Trevor breathed into my ear a couple minutes into the dancing.

I frowned, unsure of what he was doing. Until he continued.

“’Cause I’ve never seen you before. I think I’d have noticed someone like you.”

He didn’t even know who I am. That’s why he didn’t care that I sat with Thrasher lunch—he didn’t know that I was that same person. He thought I was a completely different girl. A “hot,” slutty girl with too much makeup and too much cleavage who was new in town from Pennsylvania. Not that psycho, crazy chick who took her life in her hands by sitting with the red-haired freak at lunch.

But tonight, I was not the latter girl. I was the former. I was “hot,” desirable, new. Not psycho or crazy.

I sighed like I was bored. “That’s so hopelessly unoriginal,” I told him dully. And then I moved more suggestively against him, as if in a contradiction to my words.

The flirtations continued. I led him on and danced to please him even though I had no interest in talking to him after this night. This was just part of the persona I was assuming tonight. I was trying to be someone different, and for me, this was about as different as different got. I was so caught up in this pretending that I didn’t even realize how much time had gone by until my cell phone vibrated in my back pocket. Before leaving the house, I’d set my cell phone alarm for nine o’clock, knowing that I’d most likely forget to check it at the party. I had to make sure I’d meet Thrasher at nine, because I wasn’t going to miss this opportunity to prove my trust if I had to drag myself up the stairs using only my arms.

I slowly pulled away from Trevor, and he frowned down at me. “I have to go,” I told him in my feeble attempt at a sultry voice before fighting through the crowd to find the stairs. Eventually, I made my way upstairs and spied Thrasher and his Ronald McDonald hair leaning against the wall next to a closed door. After shoving my way past a few more people, I stood in front of him.

“I’m here,” I announced.

He stared at me in bemusement for a few moments before comprehension slowly dawned on his face. “Lindsay?” he said incredulously, scanning me from head to toe. “Shit! You look . . .” I raised my eyebrows and crossed my arms over my chest. “Different,” he finished. “Way different.”

“I said I’d be here,” I responded simply.

“I know, but damn.” He couldn’t seem to draw his eyes away from my overexposed skin. “I didn’t think you’d show up like that.”

“I never pegged you for the horny type to slobber over girls wearing skimpy clothes.”

He scowled, and his purple eyes darted up to meet my level gaze. “It’s just unexpected to see you look like a whore.”

He probably expected to get a rise out of me with the whore comment, but I judiciously chose to ignore it instead.

“I’m here now,” I pointed out. “Isn’t that what you wanted me to do? Meet up with you?”

“That’s not all I want you to do,” he snapped in his condescending tone. “Do you honestly think I’d ask you to prove your trust by showing up on the second floor where no one’ll see you, saying hello to me, and then going back to whoever you’re with?”

I didn’t say anything; that was kind of what I had been hoping.

“It’s not gonna be that easy, Lindsay. I want you to walk around with me like we came here together.”

“What’s that gonna prove?” I pouted, putting all my weight on my left leg in the classic “pissed off teenager” pose.

“I already told you: that you’re not afraid to be seen with me.”

“And if I said no?”

He smirked and smugly crossed his arms over his chest, as if he’d expected this. “Then I’d know you’re not serious about wanting to be my friend.”

I was beginning to understand what Lorraine meant when she said that I was Thrasher’s servant—though I still maintained that I was not a servant. But if it weren’t for this trust thing, I wouldn’t even have been standing here talking to him, let alone preparing to walk through a party with him.

But I did. I took a place next to him, and we ambled together through the party. I could see the looks we were getting. I could feel people’s eyes following us, judging Thrasher for looking the way he does, judging me for walking with him. I was hoping and praying that Amelia and Allie and those other people wouldn’t see me—but they did. They were no longer in the kitchen, instead standing right outside the doorway I walked through earlier with Amelia. Allie held a cup and was chattering with Jordan, who seemed to be intently listening. But Amelia and Alejandro—Trevor wasn’t anywhere near that I could see—watched me. Alejandro merely seemed puzzled, but Amelia’s eyes were practically bugging out of her head as Thrasher and I strolled through the family room.

And then I saw Trevor leaning against a wall watching us. We locked eyes, and I could read on his face as everything clicked in his brain. He’d realized I was the girl who sat with Thrasher at lunch. He recognized me. I was no longer the sexy, mysterious girl who’d danced with him and flirted with him—I was Lindsay, the insane girl who sat with the creepy boy at lunch. My cover was blown. I was back to being Lindsay Callahan, new to Maryland, friendless, alienated.

Thrasher ended our promenade at the same place it began—outside the bathroom on the second floor.

“Okay,” he pronounced with that smirk. “I’m done. You can go back to whatever.” And he disappeared into the crowd.

I stared at the spot where he’d gone, burning with humiliation. Tonight was my one night of anonymity, where I was anyone, someone who wasn’t myself. But he’d ruined it by forcing me to walk with him. It destroyed the illusion my revealing clothes created. I thought of all the trouble he’d caused: my having no friends, my arguments with Toni, watching my sister go have a social life while I was stuck at home.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I needed to forget. So I hurried downstairs, poured myself a cup of beer from the keg, and downed the contents of the cup. And then I got another. And another. Until lines were blurred, and I felt giggly and content. Until all my problems, everything crappy that had happened to me since I’d moved from Pennsylvania, disappeared.

.x.x.x.

I was dancing with a cute boy. I wasn’t sure of much else besides that, like the boy’s name, or the time, or the whereabouts of Amelia and Allie. I was dancing with a cute boy, and I was having a good time. I felt lightheaded and happy—happier than I’d felt in a long, long time.

While dancing with the cute boy, the fronts of our bodies pressed up against each other and his leg somehow between mine, I felt something hard poke me. Huh. I pulled away from the cute boy and looked down, only to see exactly what had pricked me.

“Hehehe.” I giggled uncontrollably and pointed. “Penis!”

The cute boy scowled and tried to pull me back into him, but I danced away from him.

“I have to pee!” I yelled at him as I stumbled through the crowd in search of a bathroom. But first, I was going to get another drink. I giggled my entire way over to the keg, messily poured some beer into a plastic cup, and then left the kitchen in search of a bathroom. I wasn’t really sure where to look, though, so I wandered aimlessly around the house drinking my beer, giggling at the people dancing. They looked so funny wiggling up next to each other like that.

But watching the people dance was boring, so I looked somewhere else. Among the browns and blondes I spotted a bright red head of hair that belonged to someone leaning against a wall. Bright red hair like a beacon. Somewhere in my head, I connected the red hair to a bathroom. I had to pee. The red hair would help me find a bathroom. Like a beacon. A beacon of hope.

I slowly stumbled over to the red hair. It was attached to a really scary boy with scary eyes and too many piercings. I knew this scary boy. Thrasher.

“You’re shcary,” I whimpered, cowering away from him. But not too far away from him because he was . . . my beacon of hope? It didn’t make sense anymore.

Thrasher raised his eyes at me. “Aren’t you Miss Observant?”

I whimpered again. “But you’re my beacon of hope. . . .” I didn’t understand anymore what I had been thinking about a beacon of hope.

He snorted. “Beacon of hope? Yeah, right.”

I hiccupped. “I have to pee,” I tried to explain to him.

Suddenly, he straightened and looked more closely at me. I flinched away from the scary purple eyes. “Are you drunk?” he demanded like a schoolmarm. I giggled at my comparison. Schoolmarm was a funny word.

“Maaaaybeeeee.” I drew out the word and grinned. Then I decided to tell him my comparison: “You’re like a shoolmarm.”

He drew his eyebrows together. “A what?”

“A shchoolmarm.” I giggled some more. “Aren’t I brilant? I mean, billant. I mean . . . what do I mean?”

“Okay, Lindsay.” He grabbed my arm. “You need to go home.”

“But I have to pee!” I insisted. I tried to yank my arm out of his, but it was too difficult.

“Fine.” He sighed heavily. “We’ll go find you a bathroom. And then I’m taking you home.”

He’d said he was taking me to a bathroom, and that was all I cared about. “Okay!” I agreed happily. I hiccupped, then went for another sip of my beer. I’d only just put the cup to my lips when Thrasher pulled it away from me and set it down on a table.

“That’s mine!” I whined. I tried to lunge for it, but it was too difficult to do without tripping. And besides, Thrasher was still holding my arm in a death grip.

“You’re gonna kill my arm,” I told him. “See?” I peered closely at where he held my arm in his hand. “Ish white!”

He glanced down at my arm only for a second. “That’s your normal skin color, Lindsay.”

“No! You’re killing me!” I inspected my arm again. “I think. . . .”

Thrasher pushed open a door, inside of which was a toilet. Someone was hunched over making horrible sounds, but I didn’t really pay attention to that. All I knew was that I needed to pee, and here was a bathroom.

“Bathroom!” I squealed, trying to move into the bathroom. But Thrasher’s hand kept my arm in his grip. I tried to explain to him that there was a toilet right there that I could pee in, but that seemed too complicated. Instead, I simply muttered, “Bathroom?”

“Someone’s busy praying to the porcelain god in that one.”

I stared at him with wide-eyed astonishment as he dragged me through more people. “There’s a porcelain god?”

He rolled his eyes. “Someone was barfing.”

“Oh.” I frowned. “What’sh that have to do with porcelain gods?”

“Never mind, Lindsay.”

I continued trying to work out what porcelain gods had to do with barfing until it hurt my brain too much to think about it anymore. I stopped thinking and noted that Thrasher was dragging me up the stairs.

“I fell down the shtairs once,” I told Thrasher.

“Did you.”

“I did. I was walking and . . . I fell.”

“Interesting.”

“And Lorraine screamed. It was loud. My ears hurt.”

Thrasher pushed open another door on the second level. Another toilet was inside that, but blocking my way there were two people kissing furiously.

“Out!” Thrasher bellowed in his scary voice.

The two people pulled apart, looked at him fearfully, and quickly scurried out of the bathroom.

“Okay.” Thrasher gave me a push towards the toilet. “I’ll wait outside.”

He closed the door behind him as he exited the bathroom, and I did my thing. While washing my hands, I stared at myself in the mirror. I looked different than I usually did. I remembered wanting to look different, but I couldn’t remember why. As soon as I opened the bathroom door, Thrasher appeared in front of me. He seized my arm again and dragged me away.

“Thasher—” I frowned. That wasn’t right. “No. Thrasher. Am I pretty?”

“Yes,” he responded quickly, like a knee-jerk answer, without even looking at my face.

“You didn’t even look at me,” I pouted.

He stopped dead in the middle of the hallway and turned to look me square in the face. Once more, I cringed and looked away from his scary purple eyes.

“Yes,” he answered again, then continued dragging me.

“You’re shcary,” I informed him.

“You already told me.”

“I did?”

“Yeah, when you first came up to me.”

“Oh yeah! You are scary.”

Thrasher opened the front door and towed me through it into the humid night air. It wasn’t too cold, but I felt chilly in my outfit and immediately pressed myself against him for warmth. However, before I even got the chance to appreciate his body heat he pushed me away. I frowned.

“Thasher?” I knew I wasn’t saying this right—it didn’t sound right—but I couldn’t be bothered to try and correct myself.

“Lindsay?”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up.”

I scowled. “You’re mean.”

A heavy sigh escaped his lips. “We both know that already.”

“You tried to kill me.”

“I wasn’t trying to kill you,” he objected, an annoyed tone in his voice.

“You took my drink from me.”

“That was for your own good.”

“You won’t be my friend.” I wasn’t entirely sure where that had come from because I hadn’t exactly been thinking anything along those lines; nevertheless, it was true. I remembered it was true, because I remember him arguing with my sister about it. Or something related to it.

When Thrasher stopped dead in his tracks and turned to face me, I wasn’t really sure anymore why what I’d said was significant. All I could think was that he was scary, why would anyone want to be his friend anyway?

“You don’t understand,” he growled, purple eyes boring into my own. “A lot of shit has happened in my life that I don’t see how it’s worth it to trust people, okay? You have no idea what the hell I’ve been through, so could you just stop pretending like you know me?” He let out a rough laugh. “What am I even talking about? It’s not like you’ll even remember this tomorrow.”

With that, he turned around and continued pulling me with him. And my butt started to vibrate.

“My butt’s vibrating,” I announced, puzzled.

“Is it your cell phone?”
“Oh!” I grabbed my cell phone from the back pocket of my jeans. Amelia was calling. “Yelloooooow?” I answered in a British accent.

“Uh, Lindsay?”

“’Tis I!” I cried in the same ridiculous accent.

“. . . Are you okay?”

“Peachy!” I responded, deciding to abandon the British accent.

“Right. . . . Well, you told me to call you when I was ready to leave. You need a ride?”

“I don’t need a ride!” I giggled. I don’t know why I thought this was funny, but I did.

“You don’t?”

“No, silly! I’m going with Thasher!” Then I noticed that Thrasher had stopped walking and was watching me intently. He was still partially ahead of me from pulling me, like he’d just wheeled around on the spot.

“You mean Thrasher?”

“That’s what I said. Thasher.”

“You’re getting a ride with him?”

“Of course, silly!”

She was silent for a few moments. “Okay, then. I’ll see you later.”

“Hasta la vista!”

I stuffed my phone and looked back up at Thrasher. He appeared uncertain. When he saw my eyes on him, he abruptly turned around, pulled me to a dark green sedan, and opened the passenger’s side door for me.

“You’re opening the door for me,” I pointed out. Somewhere in my brain, I knew this was significant, but I couldn’t seem to make the connection. So instead of saying anything else, I hopped into the seat before Thrasher could respond. As soon as I was seated, a wave of exhaustion overwhelmed me.

“I’m tired,” I slurred to Thrasher once he was behind the wheel.

“And talkative.”

“Hmm.” I closed my eyes and slouched down in the seat. During the ride to my house, I drifted in and out of sleep, wavering in the no man’s land between sleep and wakefulness. Everything in the car was silent save for the hum of the engine. I felt a poke in my left shoulder.

“Lindsay, which house is yours?”

I pried my eyes open. We were idling on the side of a street. A street I recognized. My street. The one on which my house was located.

“Um.” I thought hard. ”Three.”

“Three?” he repeated in strained voice.

“Three . . . five, nine . . . two.”

“Three-five-nine-two?” he repeated. “That’s your house number?”

“Mm.” I closed my eyes again

A couple seconds later, the engine turned off. A car door slammed, a gust of fresh air hit me, and I felt another poke in my shoulder, this time on my right shoulder.

“Lindsay.”

I opened my eyes again. We were in my driveway. My door was open, and Thrasher was bending down so that he could see me.

“Here. Come on.”

I outstretched my arms towards him. “Carry me.”

“No.” His response was immediate.

“Please?” I begged, giving him the puppy dog eyes, though it didn’t matter because he wasn’t looking at me. His arms were crossed over his chest and he looked away, to his right.

“No.”

“But I can’t move,” I whined.

“I’ll bet you can.”

He seized one of my hands and attempted to drag me out of the car. But I really was like a dead weight, and he only succeeded in pulling me at an angle, so my torso almost hung out of the car.

“Lindsay, come on.” He gave a tug on my hand, but I remained motionless. After a moment of pause, he realized that he was going to have to carry me whether he liked it or not. “I hope you know that the only reason I’m doing this is because I don’t want you in my car all night long.”

With that, he scooped me into his arms, carrying me bridal-style, and walked towards my front door, kicking the car door shut with his foot. I shut my eyes once more and leaned against his chest. Its smell was unidentifiable, sort of how people always have specific but indescribable smells. As he walked, I was jostled around a bit in his arms. Then he unceremoniously dumped me on my front porch. I sunk to the ground without opening my eyes.

“Lindsay, I’m ringing the doorbell.”

The sound of the doorbell rang softly in the distance. Thrasher’s feet pounded away from me and his car started from the driveway. As soon as he began to drive away, the front door opened.

“Lindsay!” shrieked my mother in a shrill voice. I forced my eyes open and looked up at her from my position on the ground. She seemed like such a giant from down here.

I smiled sleepily.

“What the hell is going on here? Are you drunk? Stand up!” She hauled me to my feet and supported me as flopped onto her. “You smell like alcohol. Dammit, Lindsay.”

I was only semi-conscious as she dragged me into my bedroom and tucked me into bed. “See if I’m sympathetic tomorrow when you’re hung-over,” she denounced harshly, though I hardly paid any attention to her. But as she was exiting the room, she said more tenderly, “Goodnight, Lindsay.”

The lights shut off, and I sunk into a deep and dreamless sleep.

A/N: This chapter was fun to write. :) On that note, however, I have little experience with drunkenness, so please forgive me of any egregious errors. (Although my beta thought it was okay.)

Chapter Eleven next Saturday.

Okay, sorry I never got the chance to reply to your reviews!! :( I had the majority of my IB exams last week, so life was pretty psycho. However, my last day of school was yesterday and I only have one more IB exam, so I’m home free!! Done with high school, at least. :D

Humongous, super ginormous thanks to my reviewers!!

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