14. Mina

After the first and only date I've ever been on, I shut the door and sit on the floor. I put my head in between my knees. I tell myself—this, whatever it is I'm feeling, is not bad.

I repeat it to myself, holding my shins. This feeling is not bad. I realize I am smiling. I am on the edge of a laugh, but I can't remember what was funny. Only that we were sort of laughing and sort of kissing. This feeling is not bad.

Of course in great works of film and literature, kissing is like fireworks. I don't feel any fireworks. Then I remember, as a child, I used to sob every year on the Fourth of July because they were too big, too bright, and too loud. So this is all for the best.

I close my eyes again and send my brain all around my body. Everything seems in order. I don't even have a stomachache even though I ate a hundred Twizzlers.

When I go upstairs, my mom's light is on, spilling out into the hallway. I peer in, but she's asleep. I go to turn off her lamp.

"I tried to stay awake," she mumbles. "I wanted to hear about your date."

"It's okay. Go back to sleep, Mom."

"I know you said it wasn't a real one…" She sighs and tucks her hands under her cheek.

"I think it was, actually. A real one."

"A real date?"

"Yes."

She smiles without opening her eyes. I wait for her to say something, but she's fallen back asleep. I go to the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth but get stuck looking at myself in the mirror, trying to decide if I look any different. My lips are swollen and my face is flushed. I feel split open. I feel embarrassed, but I also feel pretty. My mouth looks different. Maybe it just feels different, I don't know.

Then I get under the covers without doing any of my nighttime routine. I have texts from Caplan asking how it all went. I tell him I'm sorry for my behavior earlier and thank him for calming me down. I tell him it was really fun and that maybe I'm going to grow up to be a normal person, after all.

The next day, I feel like I am walking around inside of someone else's life. Quinn walks with me between classes, so close that our shoulders are touching.

"People are staring," I say to him.

He tries to hold my hand, and I push him into a trash can. I don't even really have time to mind that people are looking at me, because I can't stop laughing.

We arrive at history, and I realize he has walked me to class. He pauses in the doorway, in full view of everyone at their desks. Our teacher isn't there yet. They watch us like a movie.

"This is sort of crazy," I say, wishing I'd worn my hair down and only he could see my face.

"Not in a bad way, though, right?" he asks.

"I don't really know yet."

"Well, you let me know." He takes a deep breath like he's hyping himself up, shoves his hands down into his pockets.

"What?"

"I was gonna kiss you on the cheek or something."

"Don't do that. I'll die of embarrassment."

He gets a glint in his eye and does it, so fast he bangs his chin into mine, and then literally runs away.

"Hi!" Caplan shouts at me as I sit down in front of him. He's leaning so far forward that both back legs of his chair are up.

"Calm down," I whisper.

He drags his chair up between my desk and the one on my right. It's Lorraine Daniels's, and she is, blessedly, sketching in a notebook and completely ignoring us.

"So, give me all the gossip."

"There isn't any gossip. I told you, it was really nice."

"Are you going steady?" He scoots his chair closer to me.

"Stop it."

"Ms. Cane isn't even here."

"You're being a show-off."

"What, and you're not?"

A substitute walks in, dragging an ancient TV on wheels. She kills the lights, and something clicks off inside of me. I look straight ahead and try not to cry. It's one thing to feel like I'm pretending to be someone else. To feel foolish. It's another thing to look it.

"Mina," Caplan whispers. I shake my head. "Mina, I'm sorry, I was just kidding."

We sit there in the dark, watching a documentary about the bubonic plague. I can feel Caplan looking at me the entire time. Eventually, I can't stand it, so I ask to go to the bathroom. I know immediately he's going to follow me.

"Caplan, drop it."

"Mrs. What's Her Face says we need to walk together cause there's only one hall pass."

"How convenient."

When I finally look at him, his eyes are wide, and he's chewed his bottom lip to shreds. There are dark purple moons under his eyes.

"What's going on with you?" I ask.

"Oh, you know, the Black Death doesn't really do it for me."

I laugh by mistake.

"You're not showing off. Quinn is. And he should, because you're—you know—yeah. I'm sorry. It was a stupid thing to say."

"It's all right," I say. "It is kind of weird. It's totally weird."

"It's not."

I roll my eyes.

"Stop it. It's not. Can I hug you?"

This is something else, left over from when we were younger. For years, I would jump if anyone touched me. Caplan would always ask. As I got better, I told him he didn't need to anymore, but he does it still, every now and then. I never know if it's an accident, or an instinct, or something in between.

"Sure," I say.

"Friends again?" he asks, holding on to me for longer than I expect him to.

"Just don't be a dick," I say.

"Got it. Can do."

We break apart and walk back to class.

"Didn't you have to pee?" he asks.

"Didn't you?"

"No," he says, smiling, "not really."

"Me neither."

At lunch, I feel nervous that Quinn will act like my boyfriend and it will be awkward, but he can't really, because everybody talks to me. I do sit next to him, and if I ever can't think of what to say, he jumps in. People who have never spoken to me before call my name across the table. I think that people are noticing me and being nice to me just because of Quinn, because of a boy, and that's how high school works. I type this out in a note and hand my phone to Caplan. He types back that maybe it's actually because I put my book away today.

I shake myself as Ruby says my name for the second time.

"Wanna come, Mina?"

"Sorry, I spaced out."

And then she smiles at me, like I've done something classic and endearing. Like she knows me. "We're gonna pre at my house tonight," she says. "Are you coming?"

"Oh." I look at Quinn, sure that if he'd wanted me there, he'd have told me about it. This is the strategy I employ with Caplan. I used to not even go on field trips unless he specifically asked me to, in case he wasn't in the mood to babysit me. But Quinn doesn't tell me what to do. He's just smiling at me.

"Sure, yes, that sounds fun," I say to Ruby. "Thank you."

"How sick is it Mina's coming out?" Quinn says to Caplan, with an arm loose around my shoulders as we leave lunch.

"Yeah, it's great! It's so great."

"What's the pregame for?" I ask.

"Oh, some house party a St. Mary's kid is throwing."

"Are you sure I'm invited?"

Quinn laughs like I've said something cute, so I look at Caplan, but he says nothing. He's looking at our sneakers. When we get to French, I realize they've both walked me to class.

"Caplan, wait a sec?"

Quinn tugs on my ponytail and lopes off down the hallway.

"Is this okay?" I ask.

Caplan blinks. He opens his mouth and closes it and opens it again. We talk at the same time.

"What, you and Quinn?"

"The party tonight?"

He stares at me.

"I don't have to go," I say. "To the party or the pregame, I mean, this is your life and your friends, and I don't need to—"

"What are you talking about?"

"You were so quiet during lunch—"

"Mina, this is all I've wanted, for you to be around. I ask you every single Friday to come out with us."

"So this is all okay with you?"

He looks at me with this strange face, biting down on his lip again, nothing like himself. I'm about to say that I actually don't want to go, if it's such a thing—

"Yeah. Yeah, it's more than okay."

Then the bell rings, and I watch him jog off down the hallway, just to be stopped at the corner and given a late slip.

In French, I have my computer open because we're playing some sort of online trivia. Out of nowhere, I have a million iMessages, dinging and dinging. Madame glares at me, and I quickly mute my computer. A number I don't recognize has added me to a group chat of numbers I also don't recognize.

I have never been in a group chat that wasn't for a school project before.

YAYyyy Mina!!!someone says with the firework emoji. Something very intense happens in me, not unlike a firework. A silent symphony of shock and awe.

Everyone say names, says the number who added me. Everyone does. It becomes clear the first number is Hollis. My hands are shaking and I type and delete and type and delete, and eventually land on the seminal classic—OMG hi!

The group chat is called NO BONERS. I spend the rest of French watching a play unfold on my laptop:

What are we wearing

when are we leaving

Noah just burped in class

My stomach hurts I'm being so brave

I'm waiting in the bathroom to take nudes but these bitches wont leave I hate this place

I love it here is Mr. Ochoa hot or am I just really hungry

He's daddy and you're hungry

can we skip 8th and get food

no lets go after school

who has cars

lets go to Quickstop I want a hotdog

disgusting

that sounds so amazing you're a genius

Mina will you come!

We're definitely overwhelming her.

You're not! Yes to quickstop!

WOOOO

Do we have enough cars?

We'll squeeze

After school, I report to the side door where I always meet Caplan, but he texts me that it was his fifth tardy, so he has detention. I'm standing off to the side looking at my phone when the door bursts open, and they all spill out into the afternoon sun. Quinn tries to take my arm, but Hollis loops hers through mine and pulls me off with the girls.

"No fair!" Quinn calls out.

"Meet us there!" Hollis says.

I end up in Hollis's car, and she gives me shotgun.

"The trunk is the rite of passage," Becca says, her voice muffled as we pull off down the street.

"We're not hazing her!"

"Thank god," I say.

"Well," Hollis says.

She reaches across me and opens the glove compartment. There's a Smirnoff Ice inside. Everyone cheers for me as I take it.

"Do I have to chug it?" I ask.

"If I chug bubbles, I throw up immediately," says Ruby.

"You don't have to drink it at all," Hollis says. "It's ceremonial."

I crack it and take a sip. It isn't bad. Fake sugar, a tiny bite of alcohol, but nothing I recognize. Everyone is barely in their seats talking over each other about the thousand tiny triumphs and failures of the day, and hopes and dreams for the night. I spill a little bit on myself. My stomach tightens, and then I realize it'll just dry, and the thought makes me want to laugh out loud and roll the windows down, so I do. Hollis is a good driver, carving neatly through the mass exodus of kids leaving the school on foot. She tells me to pick a song, handing me her phone, and I briefly panic before realizing she has about a thousand playlists. I shuffle one called Girls Getting Ready. "Roses" by the Chainsmokers plays, which is a song I thought I hated. She turns the volume up so loud I feel the bass in my feet and my throat, something like happiness vibrating in my bones.

On the corner of the middle school, Hollis slows down and pulls up in front of a gangly freckled girl holding a gym bag. She peers into the car at all of us.

"So I'm walking home?"

"I'm sorry, Kel. I'll make it up to you—"

"Here," I say, opening the door. "We can squeeze."

She doesn't miss a beat, swinging her bag down at my feet and sitting right on my lap. She rebuckles the seat belt around us both.

"If you get me a ticket—" Hollis is saying.

"You've got two girls in the trunk! It's for two minutes!" Kelly says.

"Fine. Just slouch if you see a police car." I put my arms around this girl who I assume is Hollis's sister, because there's nowhere else to put them, but she seems perfectly comfortable with this and chats with me for the next few minutes. Her weight is foreign, but not bad.

"So, do you have sisters?"

"No," I say.

"Lucky you," she sighs. "I love your shoes." She looks down at my Converse. "So, who are you?"

"Kelly!" Hollis says.

"What? Sorry!"

"That's fine," I say. "I'm Mina."

"Nice to meet you, Mina. Thanks for letting me squeeze."

"Of course. I'm learning it's kind of your sister's policy."

"Yeah, when she's in the mood to feel like she's being nice—"

"Okay, for that, you can walk the last block," Hollis says.

Kelly rolls her eyes and jumps out.

The boys pull into the parking lot as we're getting out of the car. Quinn is hanging on to the side of Noah's Jeep. He swings off and lands on the ground like Spider-Man as they slide into a spot. On our way into Quickstop, I see Lorraine Daniels sitting on the low wall out front with kids I don't recognize. I'm feeling giddy and a little manic with all my newfound social energy, so I wave at her. She looks surprised, and then Quinn drags me away.

Inside, he takes forever, sitting cross-legged in front of all the chips. He slanders each flavor: barbecue is for sluts, plain Lay's is for virgins, obviously, Cheetos are for nose-pickers, Fritos are for people who clap when planes land.

"Come on!" Hollis calls from the checkout line, waving at me from over the aisles. Quinn reaches from the ground and plays with the bottom of my skirt. Suddenly, I feel like we're alone. His fingertips pause, so light, above my knee. I force myself not to look away first.

"GUYS!" Hollis calls again.

Quinn rises up then, without uncrossing his ankles, all joints, still fluid, and grabs the big bag of Lay's.

"I'm going to say hi to my friend outside," I say as he joins the congestion at the register.

Lorraine doesn't look up until I'm standing right in front of her.

"Hi," I say.

She's smoking a cigarette. "Hey." She holds it out to me.

"No thanks," I say.

"Good for you, I guess," she says.

"Oh. No, no judgment, I've just never smoked before."

"I meant your ascent."

I blink at her.

"You got everything you ever wanted."

"Sorry?"

"You're breeding with that one now, right?"

Quinn bursts from the store, swinging his chips and a six-pack with obvious pride.

I stare at Lorraine. "I just wanted to say hi."

"Right." She turns to the boy to her left, who's been staring at the blinking neon sign for the duration of our conversation with his mouth hanging open, and asks him for another cigarette. Someone honks for me.

"His name's Quinn," I say, talking to her shoes.

"I know."

"So why'd you pretend not to?"

I turn and leave before she answers me, feeling dramatic and sort of embarrassed. I sit in the boys' Jeep with Quinn, the world roaring past all around us as we fly down the street, the afternoon sun turning everything slanted and gold. We go over a speed bump too quickly, and one of the boys standing in the back tips his chocolate milkshake all over me by mistake. This is the mess of other people, I think, all banging around too close together. Something always spills. But I lick some off my finger, and it's delicious.

When we get to Ruby's, she and Hollis rush me upstairs and strip me out of my white-and-chocolate shirt. I sit down on the bed and cross my arms over my stomach, but then Ruby comes over to me with a damp washcloth and starts to dab at the milkshake on my neck and collarbones. The gesture is so gentle and the expression on her face so sweet and focused that my arms unfold on their own. Hollis is combing through the dresses in Ruby's closet.

"Don't go wild, please," I say. Someone downstairs is yelling that they can't get the liquor cabinet unlocked, so Ruby goes, and Hollis turns around with a tiny piece of pale blue fabric.

"Very funny," I say.

"I'm not joking."

"If I walk down in that, everyone is going to laugh at me."

Hollis raises her eyebrows.

"What?" I say.

"You are the stupidest genius I ever met."

I suddenly feel miserable and homesick, not a ten-minute walk from my own bedroom. But I'm naked and sticky and completely at the mercy of the most terrifying person I've ever met and Caplan is god knows where and Quinn is downstairs probably expecting me to drink more and sit on his lap again and all I want to do is go home, but I can't stand up, because I'm not wearing a shirt and these two things are connected for some reason. Also if I make any sudden movements, I may cry.

"Oh god, don't make that face," Hollis says. "Look, just put it on, and if you look in the mirror and hate it, obviously I won't force you to wear it downstairs. No one will ever see it, not even me. I'll shut my eyes."

"But I know I'll hate it."

"Then why are you scared to try it on?"

I take the dress and turn away from her.

"So what was that girl's problem? Outside of Quickstop."

"You heard her?" I ask, messing with the straps.

"It's a halter, just step into it. No, but she rolled her eyes at you like four times."

"She's a school friend. Or, I guess not really, just a person from school. She was making fun of me for hanging out with you guys."

I think I say it to be mean, because I'm angry and humiliated that she's playing dress-up with me.

Hollis just snorts. "Revenge of the nerds," she says. Then: "I'm sorry, that's such bullshit of her. That's like—like social slut-shaming. People only shit on you if you've offended them or if they're jealous of you, that's it. And did you ever offend her?"

"Not that I can think of," I say.

"Exactly. So don't let her ruin your fun."

"If that's true, then why were you always shitty to me?"

I hold very still, appalled with myself. Can I be drunk from one drink or one drop of attention? She puts her hands on my shoulders, and I flinch. She turns me around so I can see myself in the mirror.

"Come on, Mina. Why do you think?"