“April?” he says, like there might be someone else in here yelling to him.

“Yeah.”

“Are you okay?”

“Fine. Just stupid.”

“What did you do?”

“I don’t want to show you.”

“I’m sure it’s fine.”

“It’s stupid.”

“Did you cut your hair?” He sounds amused.

“No.”

“Dye it purple?” He’s laughing.

“Uh uh.”

“Volunteer for a medical trial?”

“No.”

“Get a tattoo of a screaming eagle across your butt?” I hear him snort.

“Adam!”

“Did you eat at that truck stop by the interstate? Because that would be stupid. Those hot dogs look like they’ve been there since—”

I open the bathroom door.

He stares at me for a second, like he hasn’t quite picked out what’s different.

“Oh,” he says, touching the side of my face. “It’s not stupid. It’s really hot.”

Making love on the bathroom floor is actually a lot sexier than it sounds.

— Chapter 26 —

Adam has finals to grade before winter break, so I’m home by myself a lot after work. It’s funny, I spent so much time alone in the motorhome and I was used to it, but now, when I’m alone in Adam’s apartment, I can’t stand how empty it feels. I tell Carly how I get antsy while we’re refilling the milk thermoses during a lull at the cafe. She says, “Let’s go out tonight. Cat Skin is playing at The Haunt. You’ll love them.”

And even though the shit Carly listens to makes me want to puncture my eardrums, I say yes, because the prospect of going out is too hard to pass up. She makes me sign a napkin:

I, April, promise to rock hard.

She pins it up next to Bodie’s anti-manwhore proclamation and the stack of other vows we’ve taken, promising everything from the courteous replacement of register receipt paper to the finding of existential enlightenment on one’s own time.

There are no nightclubs in Little River. And it’s not like any of us could have gotten away with chalking a license and going to Gary’s bar. He knows which kid belongs to which parent and nine times out of ten the parent is already sitting at the bar. Going out in Little River meant the deer blind with flashlights and a nicked six-pack, or hanging out in the gas station parking lot, watching the boys flip their skateboards. I was always just a hanger-on. I came as a package deal with Matty. No one ever invited me out. Margo took me to the movies in Springville sometimes, but that’s different.

I tell Carly about how there are no nightclubs in Little River and she gets it. Where she grew up isn’t much different. So she tells me to come to her place before and she’ll let me borrow some of her clothes. That’s even more exciting than going to a club.