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“I try not to listen.”

I can dig that. I’ve overheard things I definitely wish I hadn’t. I suddenly remember Branley, her shiny, waxed legs stretched out in front of her while she talked about Alex loud enough to be heard, shooting snide glances and waiting for her to take the bait. And Alex reading Dostoyevsky like it was nothing, her own world blossoming around her.

Her own world. Population: 1.

When we get in my car, I jack the heater up, the stale air blowing out of the vents and fanning Alex’s hair away from her face. She gives me directions to her house and I flip off her car, resting in the ditch, when we pass it. She actually laughs at that. It’s funny to hear such a natural sound when her conversation comes out so stilted. As soon as I think it, I hear my mom’s Sunday school teacher voice in my head, about how a smile is the same in every language. I guess that goes for laughing with the socially awkward, too.

I sneak a glance at her when I pull into the driveway. We kept the conversation on the drive to shelter talk—who we hoped would get adopted next, and Rhonda’s creative non-swearing insults (friend-eater is my current favorite; Alex likes sweater-unraveler). I put the car in park and open my center console to grab the last senior picture I have.

It’s an awkward pose, the one I liked least. I’m leaning against the stone wall at the local park, my mouth stuck in a grimace that suggests I’m at the end of my shoot and patience at the same time. Mom loved this one, a traditional shot that she ordered more of than necessary, the pose I pawned off on freshmen who asked if they could have one.

“Hey, want one of my pictures?” I ask impulsively, and Alex pauses, her hand ready to unlock the passenger door. She thinks about it a second, as if accepting it might mean taking an irreversible step. And maybe for her it kind of is.

“Yes,” she says.

I take a pen off the dash—turquoise ink—and am about to scribble “Peekay” and our graduation year on the back, but I stop. Instead I twist the pen in my fingers for a second, the unfamiliarity of writing my given name making my hand awkward. It actually takes concentration for me to write it in cursive, the handwriting shaky and childish. But Alex smiles when she accepts it and nods when I tell her I’ll see her in school on Monday.

And the truth is, I’m kinda looking forward to it.

17. JACK

I’m in bed with Branley again.

She dragged me upstairs even though I was so drunk I didn’t think it would be worth her effort. But the girl knows me, and while the party music from downstairs pumps so loud I can feel it vibrating the floor in Park’s bedroom, Branley climbs on top and does what she wants. She’s over-the-top with a push-up bra and her hair a wild mess while she makes noises straight out of low-budget porn.

I’m man enough to know I shouldn’t let her do this shit to me, but enough of a boy to be completely turned on.

She shrieks dramatically and falls forward, heavy and panting onto my chest. I let my eyes slide closed as her breathing evens out, and the dark clouds of unconsciousness gather in my brain. I’m fading, but I know that my mouth is hanging open and I might have just snored a little when Branley starts drawing little circles on my chest with her finger.

“Tickles,” I mutter, shoving her hand away.

“Fine.” She rolls onto the other pillow. I don’t need to look to know she’s pouting.

I’m supposed to do something now. Reach out. Tell her I’m sorry. Touch her hair. Instead I ask her where her boyfriend is.

“What?” She sits up, her necklace pooling in her cleavage. “Why?”

I shake my head, and can’t pinpoint exactly when it stops moving.

“I said, WHY?” Branley shoves me.

Jesus Christ.

“Because maybe we shouldn’t be doing this, okay?” The words smell like everything I’ve drunk, mixed with stomach acid. “How do you not get that?”

An easy smile—a Branley smile—slides across her face. “But this is what we do.”

“Maybe not anymore.”

She leans in, the necklace swinging away from her chest and slipping down to touch mine. “As long as there’s a maybe,” she whispers, and then her mouth isn’t talking anymore, and all I can think is Why’d you say maybe, dumbass?

But I know why. It’s because I’m addicted to her and have been ever since we discovered things together in junior high, all sloppy and confused in the backseat of her brother’s car. She’s gotten a lot better since then, and I’m still a drunk idiot fumbling in the dark.

And it is dark. And I am drunk.

It’s so dark that Branley’s hair isn’t catching much light when her face hovers near me. It could be any color as it cascades around us. Not the blond I’m so used to seeing splayed across the pillow, but dark, like the strands that were left behind on my passenger seat. I’m so drunk that when I touch skin all I have to do is imagine freckles and they might as well be there.

And then they are. They just are. And I pull her down to me and roll onto her, wishing the smell of rain and cold air into the room with the misfiring of a synapse. We’re skin to skin, and I’m into this with an urgency that didn’t exist before and she’s making noises I’ve never heard. Never heard because they’ve always been practiced and perfect, and I’ve taken her by surprise. She’s loving it and I am too. But I’m not just in it for the fuck right now. I want this. I want her. I want to see the smile that flashed ever so briefly at me in the hall the other day. I want—