“Why are you talking to her?” he asks Paige, putting his face on her neck, not looking at me, and she pushes him a little. We all seem to sway back and forth and back again.

“Shut up,” she mumbles.

“Make me,” Aidan growls into her hair.

Dee makes a grab for his arm but just ends up swatting him. “Leave her alone,” she says, barely audible.

He turns his head and laughs in my face. Paige looks at me over his shoulder and sighs. She takes Aidan’s hand—“come on”—and they walk back into the house. He puts his hand on her ass as they go.

We turn back and look at the people below, watching them silently for a while.

“These people,” Dee mumbles finally, gesturing over the banister. “They are all such … assholes.”

“Yeah,” I say.

“We could jump off this thing, and no one would care.”

“Not Lottie, not Pete, not my mom,” I slur.

“They’d dance on our bodies.”

“Use us as a mattress.”

“A blanket.”

“Firewood.”

I laugh sourly and put my head down on the railing.

Times passes, and it could be minutes or hours. It’s nice here. I smile.

“You okay?” It’s a different voice. I look up.

Someone has their arm around Dee. I see through the buzzing fog that it is one of the dude-bros from the kitchen. He has a nice face. Her head is nodding, but no words are coming out. Or I can’t hear them. He’s saying something, and they are moving back into the house. My feet have come off the floor, and I am floating behind them, trying to catch up but just letting things happen now, letting things happen because it feels so relaxing and I could just sleep like this, moving.

There is a basement, and there are couches. I watch as she lays down on one of them. There is laughing from somewhere. There is talking nearby. Someone brushes her hair out of her face. My eyes are closing because I am comfortable.

Someone says my name and I say yes.

Chapter 26

26

I dream about a lot of things. But first, nothing at all. First, I am empty.

Then, it is like there’s a white screen behind my eyes. It is thick, and almost sticky, as if I am swimming through glue. And then I am pushing through, slowly, trying to move, trying to speak. I am gliding on top of ice, but I am warm, hot almost, just moving forward, but again, slowly; as though someone is holding on to my boots and pulling me back, or I am dragging them with me. I am making such an effort for so little. For so long. I am left behind.

*   *   *

It is very early morning. Not even light out. Birds are chirping somewhere.