23. Caplan

I don't realize how afraid I am that Mina might not show up to my grad party until she does. And then she is there, early, as always, pushing open the back door with her hip and carrying a tray of brownies. She's wearing a white dress with little red flowers around the bottom, and she's washed the gel out of her hair. It's all loose around her face, with two tiny braids in front. She looks like one of the hot elves from Lord of the Rings. I go up to her and take the tray.

"I had it," she says, but she still follows me. I'm trying to set it down when my mom takes it from me and moves it somewhere else. Mina hands me a package I hadn't noticed under her arm, wrapped in tissue paper.

"Happy graduation," she says. It is a knit scarf with blue, red, and yellow stripes. It looks old but clean, and it's very soft.

"That's an odd gift for June," says Gwen, Mina's mom, coming up to us.

"Oh, these two," my mom says, "they only make sense to each other."

I still haven't said anything, so Mina takes the scarf and wraps it around me.

"I can't take this," I get out.

"It's impolite to refuse a present."

"Mina."

"I want you to have it, and if someday I want it back, I'll just ask for it, right?"

I hug her.

"I'm gonna go put it somewhere safe," I say.

I want her to follow me, so we get a second alone. I want to say sorry for, I don't even know what, for all of it, in no particular order, but Ollie needs her help plugging in the music. Then when I get back, Quinn and his family are arriving, and Mina is shaking everyone's hand and I wonder if he's introducing her as his girlfriend and I suddenly don't feel sorry at all. I hover on the back steps, like a stupid little kid in time-out, and then Quinn calls me over. The parents take some pictures of us, and I try to remind myself that none of this is really his fault. Then he reaches out a hand for Mina, who says, "Oh, no, no," shaking her head, but my mom ushers her forward. She comes to stand in between us, and we take a humiliating photo I hope I never have to see. I go inside to pull myself together. I try to take some deep breaths, and when that doesn't work, I slip a beer from the cooler waiting in the kitchen. By the time I'm back, more people are arriving, and I lose track of both Quinn and Mina in the crowd. When I wander inside for a break, my mom is there.

"Help me?" She nods at the cooler. We each pick up a side. "So why didn't you mention Quinn and Mina?"

I resist the urge to drop my end. I shrug.

She's navigating down the steps backward, looking over her shoulder. "Are they an item?"

"An item?" I scoff.

"Wow. Okay. Sore subject?"

"Nope."

"So they are dating?"

"Ask them," I say.

She doesn't say a thing, but her expression makes me feel like shit.

I know Hollis will show up, cause she never misses an opportunity to disrupt my peace, but when she arrives with both her parents, neither of whom I've seen since we broke up, they're all incredibly kind. Her mom gives me a real hug. Her dad is scary, but then he always was. Hollis herself rolls her eyes at me and then straightens my collar and says, "Well, congratulations." I'm trying to figure out what to say back, some way to thank her for coming, for still being here, but then she steps to the side for other guests. I do my best to say hello to everyone and to thank them all for coming, to carry my hosting weight for my mom's sake. The folding tables draped in mismatched cloth groan under the trays from Meijer's, but I never make it over to try any of the food. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Mina on the hammock with her mom, sharing a plate of dessert. I hope it means they've made up and that they've come to some kind of understanding about college. I vow, all bullshit aside, to ask her about it as soon as I can.

Sometime after it gets dark out, when people have started to dance in the driveway, Quinn's older brother slips me a flask with a wink. It's engraved with the word Dumb. I have a feeling Dumber is around here somewhere, but I haven't seen him in a while, and I'm tired of talking Michigan football with other people's dads, so I go looking.

I find him with the other boys at the end of the driveway, passing around his flask, which does indeed say Dumber.

"So, is tonight the night?" Noah asks.

"Nah, we're thinking prom."

"Why wait?"

"What's prom?" I ask.

Quinn looks at me, but everyone else is too busy falling over themselves, laughing. "Nothing—"

"A fucking fairy tale, a virgin on prom night."

"What?"

"Maybe not like, at prom," he says, shaking his head, but he's loving it, "maybe after."

"Start the engine at prom, though," says some older guy, one of Quinn's brother's friends. He makes a gross gesture with two fingers, and even before I understand what he means, my knuckles turn white on my flask.

"God, wonder how she'll be."

"Stiff as a board."

"No way. She's a freak. I can always tell."

"Hey, I'd take stiff. Then you know she'll be tight."

It isn't Quinn who says it, but something splits open inside of me. He's laughing along, not looking at me, when I shove him. He falls into the trash cans. One of them rolls, spilling garbage in a perfect arc.

"What the fuck?" he says, looking at his scraped hands, getting to his feet.

No one is laughing now.

"Cap, we're just messing around," someone says.

My hands are shaking. I push through them and walk farther up the driveway.

"Hey!" Quinn yells after me. "Look, if you're jealous, that's fine. Just talk to me about it. Don't fucking—"

"If that's how you're talking about her," I say, working to keep my voice even, "I don't want to talk to you."

"Oh, are you fucking kidding me?" Quinn laughs terribly. "You're too good now to talk about girls? Since when, Cap?"

"BUT IT'S MINA." I turn around. "It's Mina, and you can't talk about her like that."

"Mina isn't some weird different species, Caplan."

"And you can't just—just have sex with her." I'm forcing myself to whisper. I wish the other guys would fucking leave.

Quinn stares at me. Then he says, in a normal voice, "I mean. I can. If she wants to."

"She doesn't fucking want to."

"Yes, she does. We talked about it."

"But if you pressure her—"

"I'm not fucking pressuring her, oh my god—"

"No, you don't get it." I know I'm being too loud, and the boys are all listening, but I feel myself spinning out. "You don't understand."

"I can just tell, okay? I can tell by the way she acts when we hook up, by her body and her breathing and stuff—"

I hit him as hard as I can in the face. He staggers backward, with one hand over his eye. We look at each other with matching shock. I think he's about to break down, and then he swings his other arm and hits me in the nose.

"Okay, fuck this," Noah says, "I'm getting someone."

A sick white pain forces my eyes closed. I try to think what it feels like, to lodge myself in some familiar comparison, but there are some things, I guess, that don't feel like anything else.

"What don't I understand?" Quinn is yelling at me. "You think you have some fucked-up claim over her? Some magical connection, just cause you both don't have dads? Because that's bullshit, Caplan. Your dad isn't dead. He just left."

When I open my eyes again, there is blood all down my shirt. It's the button-down my mom bought me for graduation, I think, and then Hollis is there.

"Oh my god," she says. "Oh my god. Come on. Now. Stand up, Quinn. Yeah, I'm sure it fucking hurts. Get up now."

She drags us both to my front door.

"I'm fine," I say, "stop it."

"I'm fine, too," Quinn says.

"Grow up, both of you. You're not fine."

"Fuck off," he says, shoving her away. He stomps off to the driveway.

"He's mad at me, not you," I say to her.

"Yeah, no shit."

I try to inch away from the door. "It doesn't even hurt," I say.

"Caplan, you're covered in blood. If you go back now, you'll cause a scene."

I'm still resisting, but she's got my wrist in her hand.

"You'll upset your mom."

I let her bring me inside and straight upstairs to the bathroom. She has me take my shirt off, and then she starts to clean me up. I slip the flask from my pocket and take a sip. When she protests, I say, "My face fucking hurts, okay?"

"Well, you said you were fine."

"Well, I'm not."

Something in the way I say it gets her to drop it. She's just starting on the blood in my hair when someone calls my name. I stand up.

"It's fine—"

"That's Mina," I say. I push past her.

Mina is storming through the house. She stops when she sees me on the stairs, shirtless, still pretty bloody.

"What did you do?" she says.

I open my mouth, then close it again.

"What did you say to Quinn?"

"I just—I don't—"

"Caplan." Her voice is as hard as ice. "Tell me now. What you said to him."

"I—well, they were talking, the guys, about prom night, and about him and you, and I just—"

"What did you tell him?"

"Nothing!"

"Well, you told him something, because he dumped me."

All the air leaves my body. "He… he dumped you?"

"He said—he said you'd made something clear to him, and we had to stop, and we shouldn't go to prom together anymore." Her voice is rising, and I can't help but go to her. "You told him," she says, pushing me away with both hands. "You told him about me, about everything, and now he's freaked out."

"I didn't!" I stumble backward as it clicks—what she's accusing me of.

"Well, what else, then? What else did you make clear to him—"

"I just lost it, okay? And I didn't like how he was talking about you, and I just—but I would never tell anyone that, Mina, you know that."

"Then why," she says, pushing again, "why did he dump me?"

"OH MY GOD!" Hollis yells from behind me. "That's enough. You, come here, yes, yes, I am sure Caplan did something stupid, but there is no point in guessing. Sit." She sits Mina down on the bottom step. "And you," she says, "you, too. Now don't talk. Don't yell. Don't touch each other. Don't hit each other." She glares at me. "Just sit still."

"You can't put us in time-out," I say.

"Watch me."

"Where are you going?" Mina asks.

"I'm going," Hollis says, "to get Quinn. So we can ask him what happened."

I stand up. "I don't want to see him!"

"SIT."