Chapter 7

7

DAYS SINCE SHARA LEFT: STILL 6

DAYS UNTIL GRADUATION: STILL 37

Upside-down margaritas, apparently, is the name of a party game with no winners and a very basic set of rules. Dixon stands at one end of the yard while a football bro pours tequila and margarita mixer directly into his mouth, and then two more football bros grab him by his outstretched arms and throw him across the yard.

“That’s it?” Chloe asks Summer as Dixon goes careening head over ass into a pile of pool inflatables. “That’s not a game. That’s a concussion.”

“It’s usually more of a face-first impact than blunt force to the head,” Summer points out from beside her. She has really nice dimples, Chloe notices, and little silvery charms sparkle in her braids. “I wasn’t joking about losing teeth. You should ask Tanner to take his fake ones out for you. It’s his favorite party trick.”

Chloe stares at Tanner, the guy holding the margarita mix. “The crash zone is a new addition, then?”

“At least they’re not driving out to cow pastures to do it anymore,” Summer says. She leaves to refill her drink, and Smith sidles into the space she leaves behind.

“Where’d you find it?” he asks, voice low.

“Does it matter?” Chloe says.

Smith sighs. “I guess not. What does it say?”

“I don’t think you’re gonna like it.”

Smith takes a second with that. Then he releases a low chuckle and shakes his head.

“Okay,” he says, “tell me later.”

She nods, and Smith waves over another two cups of Coke for them, and the party rolls on.

Chloe watches jocks fly across the yard and lowerclassmen play ping-pong on the outdoor kitchen island and wonders how Shara fits into it all. Does she sit primly on the edge of the jacuzzi like Emma Grace Baker, her silver cross necklace dipping down between her bikini cleavage? Does she swing her hips to the beat with Mackenzie Harris and the other dance team girls? Does she elbow in with the guys like Summer?

Maybe she does what Chloe’s doing—trying not to think about homework and instead, letting the noise and the sugar high and Smith’s warm presence at her side convince her that she could learn to enjoy this.

Ace’s turn for upside-down margaritas comes right as somebody switches the playlist from SoundCloud rap to The Killers, and she watches Smith watch him fly across the yard, missing the inflatables entirely. Ace staggers to his feet with sod stuck to his bare chest and margarita mixer dripping down his chin, and Smith laughs so hard, he almost chokes on his pizza. This is Smith unguarded, she realizes—she never even considered he might have his guard up around her.

Ace bounds over, slinging his arm around Smith’s shoulders and wiping his face on Smith’s shirt.

“Man, I love this song!” Ace announces, shaking his shoulders in gratitude to the playlist. “You know what’s funny? By the end of the song, he never says if he’s jealous of the guy or the girl.”

Chloe arches an eyebrow at him. “I’m surprised you know it.”

“Chloe,” Ace says, smirking, “everyone knows ‘Mr. Brightside.’”

She stares at him and Smith. They’re being so nice to her. Like, suspiciously nice. She wonders if this is that sneaky type of shittiness, the mocking, popular-kid fakery. But it’s impossible to look at Ace’s big dumb cabana-boy-at-Margaritaville face and Smith’s wide, pretty smile and see bad intentions.

“You’re up,” Smith tells her.

“No,” she says. “No way. I don’t drink.”

“Bro,” Ace says, “I don’t either. I did mine with the mixer.”

She squints at him. “But you seem drunk.”

Ace shrugs. “That’s just my personality. Come on.”

And the next thing she knows, she’s being whisked away to a corner of the yard, where some girl from the track team takes one of her arms and Ace takes the other.

Summer steps in front of her, margarita mixer in hand.

“Keep your arms and legs loose and you’ll be fine,” she says, almost businesslike.

“Have you done this before?” Chloe asks.

Summer snorts. “No, I’m smart.” She tilts Chloe’s chin up with her free hand, raising the jug of mixer. Chloe has to respect a girl who gets straight to the point. “Open up.”

And then Chloe’s flying across the grass.

She gets a second of airtime, lime burning in her sinuses and a flash of starry sky, before tumbling into a pile of donuts and palm trees and red-white-and-blue popsicles. For a moment, all she can see is neon vinyl, and then she flails out onto the wet ground.

There’s silence, until she pulls herself to her feet and raises her arms over her head, opening her mouth wide to show that it’s empty, and the onlooking crowd erupts into cheers.

So, Chloe parties.

Ace yells about ordering more pizza, Smith and Summer pull her up to dance on the ledge of the hot tub waterfall, juniors document everything for Snapchat, and Chloe parties. At some point, by complete accident, she ends up in the pool fully clothed, and Smith pulls her out and wraps his letterman jacket around her shoulders. She fishes the card out of her skirt pocket and dries it off on the backup quarterback’s T-shirt before tucking it safely away again.

She slips in and out of the crowd, into the area where the softball team is watching the Auburn game on an outdoor TV. Summer leans her head on the shoulder of a teammate and laughs, and a memory hits Chloe: Shara, at a pep rally last football season, huddled on the other side of the bleachers with her friends, confetti in her hair and Smith’s football number painted on her cheek, laughing.

She pictures the two cherries from Midsummer, her and Shara sitting side by side in class after class, taking the same notes and then walking out into the hallway in opposite directions. How many times has Shara worn Smith’s jacket like this? She looks down at her fingertips peeking out of the too-long sleeves, her bitten-down nails, and imagines Shara’s perfect, pastel pink manicure.

This is Shara’s life, and for half a second, it feels like it could be Chloe’s too. A girl with a perfect academic record and more friends than can fit in one pool.

“Nah,” she overhears from a nearby group. Dixon, talking too loud as always. His light brown hair has dried from the pool in the way he favors for school: flipping out in every direction like he just took off a football helmet. “I’m telling you, we can do it with four-wheelers.”

“Where are we gonna put it, though, man?” Tanner asks him.

“We can borrow a trailer to haul it. My dad has like, five.”

“There’s no way we don’t get caught though.”

“If we do, we’ll make Mackenzie call her dad.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Chloe interjects, too curious to ignore them.

Dixon looks at her like she’s something that crawled out of the robotic pool vacuum before switching on a wide grin. “This one yours, Smith? Shara’s only been gone a few days. That’s cap.”

“She’s my friend,” Smith says. “And you’re not using ‘cap’ right.”

“Tell her to mind her business.”

“You were basically yelling,” Chloe points out. “I didn’t realize it was a secret.”

“They’re talking about the senior prank,” Smith tells her. “They want to steal the Bucky the Buck statue from the town square.”

“Dude,” Dixon yells. “The point of a prank is that it’s a secret!”

“You talked about it in front of Shara last week, and her dad’s literally the principal,” Smith says. He holds his hands up, letting out a laugh. “It’s no big deal, man. She’s chill.”

“That’s it?” Chloe says. “A statue?”

“It’s—we’re not just gonna steal it,” Dixon says. “We’re gonna bring it to school and leave it in the middle of the courtyard.”

“I mean, it’s fine,” Chloe says. She shrugs Smith’s jacket down to her elbows so she can rearrange her wet T-shirt. “You could do better though.”

Dixon laughs and sidles in next to her, putting an arm over her shoulders.

Chloe’s body goes stiff.

“I’m willing to let that slide due to the Rachel Rule,” Dixon says with an overly friendly smile.

“Bruh,” Smith says, suddenly looking panicked. The guys surrounding them are snickering. “Don’t.”

“What’s the Rachel Rule?” Chloe asks.

“It’s a rule the seniors made last year for Rachel Kennedy, who was a huge bitch but still got to come to parties because she had huge boobs,” Dixon says. He’s looking down now. At her chest, and her wet shirt. Her hands clench into fists at her sides—ever since she sprouted D-cups in tenth grade, a guy staring at her chest has never ended well. “So, as long as you keep wearing that, the Rachel Rule says you can stay.”

It’s impossible that the party stops, or that sirens start screaming in the distance, or that every drop of Chloe’s blood actually rushes to her face, but it feels like it.

She wrenches herself out from under Dixon’s arm.

“What did you say?”

“What?” he says. He looks around at his friends, who are laughing behind their hands. “You know that’s how everyone knows you, right? ‘Who’s Chloe Green?’ ‘Oh, she’s that girl from LA with the huge boobs.’”

All Chloe manages to say is, “Wow.”

“It’s a compliment! Look, before they came in, everyone just called you a lesbian, so I’d call this an upgrade. You should be proud of them!”

Smith steps in, touching Dixon on the shoulder. “Dixon, man, shut up.”

“Come on, she knows what she looks like! It’s a joke, man!”

“You’re being a jackass—”

“No, no, it’s okay,” Chloe says. “I do know what I look like. And one day, when Dixon’s fifty and his second wife has left him because he’s a balding middle school football coach with the personality of a frozen meatloaf, and his kids hate him because he’s never expressed an emotion that’s not impotent rage or horniness, he’s gonna look back on senior year of high school and realize that being prom king was the only thing he ever achieved in his life, and that at his absolute peak, before everything went to shit, that girl from LA with the huge boobs still wouldn’t have slept with him.”

She wraps the jacket around herself and storms out of the yard, snatching up her boots on the way. She throws open the gate and keeps going, away from Dixon and the other guys whooping after her like she’s the hired entertainment.

What was she even doing? Some popular kids were nice to her one time and she forgets everything she’s ever known about the Willowgrove food chain? She’s not Shara. These people mean nothing to her. The whole point of beating Shara is proving she can win in the way that matters. She always knew she’d never win the Willowgrove way.

Infuriatingly, embarrassed tears prick at the corners of her eyes.

“Chloe, wait up—”

Smith freaking Parker and his future-Heisman-winner speed.

She whips around in the middle of the front lawn, boots swinging wildly from her hand by their laces. “You should have let me handle it. It was humiliating enough without you swooping in to save me.”

“I wasn’t—ugh,” Smith groans. “Okay, fine.”

“I don’t understand why you hang out with assholes like him. You clearly know better.”

Smith pulls a face. “Do you like everyone who’s in the spring musical with you? Is there not a single dickhead that you put up with on the Quiz Bowl team because it’s easier to do that than make things weird?”

“That’s different,” Chloe says. “Our dickheads aren’t homophobes.”

He rolls his eyes. “Do you really think Dixon Wells has never been racist to me? You think I don’t hate his guts? But I was stuck with him on the team for four years, and I’m stuck with him until we graduate, and there’s pretty much nothing I can do to change that. You pick your battles. He’s not worth it.”

She remembers what Ace said earlier about Smith needing more friends. Hanging out with someone is not the same as being friends with them.

“What are you doing?” she asks as Smith takes out his phone.

“I’m texting my sister to come pick me up,” he says. “It’s her turn with the car, and I’m tired.”

She sighs. “You want a ride?”

“Can I ask you something?” she says after a few minutes of quiet. Smith turns to her, and their eyes lock for a second, brown on brown. “What do you see in Shara?”

Smith’s expression turns wry. “You for real right now?”

“I’m curious, okay? Indulge me.”

Smith sighs. She senses him close his eyes without having to look at him. “This is gonna sound weird, but she’s kind of like … my best friend.”

Chloe’s brow furrows. “Isn’t that what everyone says about their girlfriend?”

Smith folds his arms, and Chloe sees his bare forearms reflecting a passing streetlight and realizes she’s still wearing his jacket.

“I mean I feel more comfortable around her than I do around almost anyone,” Smith says. “I’m not thinking about what everyone expects me to be. Sometimes we don’t even have to talk. It’s just like, an understanding. But at the same time, there’s always more going on in her head than you can ever guess, and she’ll never tell you exactly what it is. You still have to figure her out.”

“Sounds to me like she’s kind of frigid.”

“Yeah,” Smith says, and he smiles at her. “Because you’re so much fun yourself.”

“I am, actually. I’m a blast.”

“What about you?” Smith asks. He leans his head back on the headrest. “What do you see in her?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Chloe says. Her cheeks feel warm. She adjusts the AC dial. “She’s the one who kissed me.”

“But you’re here,” Smith says. “You came to this party even though you’d obviously rather be anywhere else. You decided to look for her.”

Chloe’s fingers tighten on the steering wheel. “Just because I’m queer doesn’t mean I’m in love with every beautiful girl who pays attention to me.”

“I didn’t say you were in love with her.”

“It was implied.”

“So you think she’s beautiful?”

“A mole would think she’s beautiful, Smith. That’s not an indicator of anything except that I have a pulse.”

They’re pulling into Smith’s neighborhood now. He doesn’t live in the country club like Shara or Rory or most of the popular kids—he lives one subdivision over from Chloe, one of fifty identical houses in a development that, according to her mom, didn’t exist ten years ago. False Beach is like that: country clubs, trailer parks, and retired cow pastures outfitted with cookie-cutter houses that still smell like fresh paint.

She glances over at Smith, expecting to catch another amused smile, but Smith looks thoughtful. “For the record, you being gay wasn’t what made me think you were in love with her.”

“I’m not gay.” She bristles. “I’m bisexual. That’s a thing.”

“I know it’s a thing,” Smith says doggedly. “I just didn’t realize you were.”

“Well, I am.”

“Okay, cool.”

A pause. Smith waits.

“And I’m not in love with her,” Chloe grinds out. “She’s the only person in this school who can keep up with me, which is … unexpected. She surprises me. Okay?”

“Yeah,” Smith says. “She can be surprising.”

Chloe puts the car in park in front of Smith’s house and admits, “And she’s hot.”

“Yeah, she’s hot.”

“Why does she smell like—”

“Lilacs?”

“Dude,” she groans, and Smith laughs. “Is this weird?”

He thinks about it. “I feel like … it should be, but it’s not?”

A muscle in Smith’s jaw flexes before relaxing into its smooth right angle. Usually the only people in False Beach who are this cool about her being queer are other queer people.

Hm.

“How do you think Rory would answer that question?” Smith asks.

“I don’t know,” Chloe says. “You should ask him.”

Smith reaches out and boops the dashboard lucky cat on the nose with one finger.

“Maybe.”

“What’s the deal with you and him, anyway?”

Smith shrugs. “He’s in love with my girlfriend. I feel like the deal is pretty obvious.”

“To be honest, you don’t really strike me as the jealous type,” Chloe points out. “Like, you seem fine with me.”

“It’s different with Rory.”

“Because he’s a guy?”

“Because Rory used to be my best friend.”

Chloe’s head whips around.

“What? When?”

“Back in middle school,” Smith says, still focused on the lucky cat’s waving paw, “when I first started at Willowgrove. We had the same homeroom, and we clicked, I guess. Him and Summer were the first two friends I made. And then I joined JV football, and Rory decided he was too cool to be friends with a dumb jock or whatever, and we kind of drifted. We haven’t really talked since. It sucked.”

“Does Shara know? About the two of you?”

“She was there the whole time,” Smith says. “Rory’s always had a crush on her. And he’s still pissed that I’m dating her, even though all that stuff was a million years ago. Like, you should have seen his face the first time he looked out his window and saw me picking Shara up for a date.”

“But she picked you,” Chloe says. “Why does it matter?”

“It’s hard to explain,” Smith says. His brow pinches. “I haven’t talked to him since we were fourteen, but I haven’t been able to get rid of him either. It’s like he was always gonna come back to mess things up for me, and now he has.”

The whole thing sounds kind of dramatic to Chloe, until she remembers the feeling in her gut the first time she saw Shara, like the universe had dropped a personalized time bomb into first-hour world history. Maybe some people are supposed to hate each other.

“I guess that’s fair,” she says.

Something settles into the air between them, an unsteady truce. They have almost nothing in common outside the fact that they’ve both kissed Shara Wheeler, unless there’s something else.

After he climbs out the passenger side, Chloe rolls down the window and yells, “Hey!”

Smith pauses on the curb. “What?”

“You forgot this,” she says, shrugging out of his jacket and holding it toward him. He leans back through the window and takes it. “Card’s in the pocket.”

“Thanks,” he says.

“Congrats on being the only member of the football team I would save in a fire.”

Smith folds the jacket over his arm and laughs. It’s a warm sound, like sunbaked earth under bare feet. She doesn’t have to wonder what Shara sees in him. It’s objectively obvious.