Authors: S. Stevens
Tags: #General, #Fiction
ALEX
SADIE, DON’T BE A JERK.
SADIE
LEAVE ME ALONE, ALEX. BESIDES, HOW MANY HAVE YOU HAD?
ALEX
THIS IS MY SECOND.
(HE MANEUVERS BETWEEN SADIE AND THE COOLER, STILL GRASPING HER WRIST.)
SADIE
WELL, THIS IS MY SECOND. WHY CAN’T I HAVE A SECOND IF YOU CAN?
ALEX
BECAUSE I WEIGH FIFTY POUNDS MORE THAN YOU, THAT’S WHY.
(ALL SIX FEET OF ALEX BLOCKS THE COOLER. SADIE CAN’T GET PAST HIM.)
SADIE
YOU CAN’T GUARD THE COOLER ALL NIGHT, ALEX. GIVE IT UP, WHY DON’T YOU?
(EXIT SADIE.)
I
HEADED BACK TO THE DECK, getting even more annoyed when I heard Kristina gushing over Alex as I walked away. Who was he to tell me what to do?
Leaning over the railing, I inhaled the misty air, clearing my head a little.
“Here. We Brits aren’t as uptight about alcohol as you Yanks are.” Nigel came up behind me, popping the top of a fresh beer and handing it to me. “I’ve been drinking in the pub for years. It’s not such a big deal, you know, if it’s not forbidden. You just have to know how to pace.”
“I know how to pace,” I said angrily. “It’s not like I’m going to grow another head, or lose all sense, if I have two beers.”
“Really? Damn, I was kind of hoping you’d lose all sense, actually.” He smiled and turned up the collar of his leather jacket against the cool air, looking far too sexy for my own good.
“And why is that, Nigel? You like your women stupid?” I teased, forgetting about Alex.
“No, I just figure if you’re out of your senses, you’re more likely to let me do this.” And he kissed me. I saw it coming, but still I was surprised by how soon his warm lips were on mine. My embarrassment that he did this in front of the other people hanging on the deck evaporated when a quick sideways look showed most of them were making out too. Nigel pulled back to see what was wrong. I smiled and leaned into him, clutching the lapels of his jacket and feeling like an actor in a movie. We kissed again, and again. He smelled like leather and a musky cologne, and tasted like beer. My insides turned from simply warm to hot mush. The more he kissed me, the mushier I got.
Something wet hit my cheek, and I stupidly wondered if he had somehow spit on me. A surreptitious look revealed raindrops starting to fall, so faintly that you couldn’t see them in the sky but you could make them out in the halo around the deck’s floodlight.
His lips still on mine, Nigel opened his eyes and looked up at the rain. He laughed, and I felt the rumble through his shirt. “Blimey, it’s only rain. For a second, I thought you were drooling on me.”
“Hey, that was my line!” I giggled.
I wanted him to kiss me again, but he grabbed my hand and moved toward the back steps. “Come on, let’s go for a walk and find some shelter. Don’t forget your beer.” As we walked past the kitchen slider on the way to the back yard, I saw Adrienne trying to get my attention. I shook my head at her, pointed at Nigel behind his back and grinned. She shook her head madly and motioned for me to come in, but I ignored her. This was the best night of my life.
Two hours later, it turned into the worst night of my life. Nigel and I had continued to talk as we walked around Nick’s back yard, eventually settling under a huge oak tree. I don’t remember everything we talked about. I just remember feeling increasingly “pretty and witty”, to steal a line from
West Side Story
, thanks to his continued attention and the beer he kept bringing. Mid-kiss in one of our make-out sessions – “snogging” he called it -- my stomach rolled, far more than the romantic kissing called for. I pulled away from Nigel and the oak I was leaning against, and stepped away seconds before I doubled over and puked. My stomach cramped, my head spun, and I started sweating in the cool air. I fell to my knees to retch again, unsure if I really heard Nigel mutter a sarcastic “brilliant” or if it was my imagination.
I definitely heard him say, “Get it all out, Sade,” in a resigned voice.
“Sadie, oh my God, Sadie,” Adrienne said in an increasingly loud voice. When she reached me, she kneeled on the wet grass and held my hair back. “It doesn’t look like you’re much use, Nigel. I’ll take it from here.” I didn’t understand why she seemed annoyed with Nigel but was too sick to care. Adrienne handed me a tissue to wipe my mouth and helped me stand back up.
The rest of the night was a blur. Adrienne must have texted her sister to come get us. I vaguely remember Adrienne leading me through Nick’s house, and seeing Alex surrounded by girls who laughed as I went by. And I vaguely remember getting in the car and into Adrienne’s house, where I spent the night.
6: Two Stupid Things
“
U
GH, DID YOU GET THE NUMBER?” I asked Adrienne in the morning, my dry mouth barely able to form the words.
She opened one eye from her berth on the other couch in her family room, where we’d crashed after the party. “Feel like a truck hit you?” She smiled. “No, I didn’t get the license plate number, but I’m pretty sure it was an English truck.” She scrambled out of her sleeping bag. “Don’t move yet. It will only make it worse. Let me get you some water, ibuprofen, and dry toast. I think that’s supposed to help.”
“I don’t deserve you,” I mumbled into the pillow.
“I know you don’t,” she said good-naturedly, “but you’re in my house so I’ll have to deal with you.” She bounced out of the room, her movements making my head pound. I closed my eyes.
I must have dozed because it seemed like she was back seconds later.
“You’re going to have to at least sit up at some point, so you might as well try now.”
I stalled, picking bits of crusty mascara off my eyelashes. “Where are your parents?”
“They went shopping. They’ll be out for a while, so it’s safe to show your hangover. Now get up.” She motioned up with her hands.
A strong urge to pee gave me incentive. I dragged myself off the couch. Once I started moving, I really did feel like I’d been hit by a truck. My stomach muscles ached from the puking, my headache was beyond what I thought a headache could be, and I think even my bones hurt.
Back in the family room, I sat on the couch and nibbled at toast while Adrienne slurped a bowl of cereal, her straight hair repeatedly slipping out from behind her ear to dangle in the milk.
“So, how are you feeling?” Adrienne asked. At first, I thought she was giving me a hard time, but one look showed she was genuinely concerned.
“I’ll be okay, in a few days,” I groaned.
“I hate to say it but, um, you did bring this on yourself.” I braced myself for a well-deserved lecture, but Adrienne quickly changed the subject. “Anyway, are you really awake now? Because I have two big things to tell you from last night.” She put her empty bowl on the coffee table and wrapped her sleeping bag around her shoulders.
I nodded.
“First, Kristina is spreading a rumor that the CDC show isn’t going to happen this year.”
The thought made my headache jump to a new level. “Hmm?” was all I could muster. I tried to twist my hair into a messy bun so my brain would function better, but that made my shoulders hurt so I stopped, letting my mass of hair fall where it wanted.
“She heard Ellison and Lord arguing in the principal’s office, and she heard Mrs. Zowicki say ‘This bickering has to stop now, or I’ll put a stop to it myself.’”
“That doesn’t mean they’re cancelling CDC, though.” I pointed out.
“There’s more. She also heard something about how it was going to be hard enough to pull off this year’s show without the two of them making it worse, and that maybe it would be better to cancel altogether.”
“That doesn’t sound good. Maybe we can talk to Ellison on Monday.” Emboldened by the toast, I swallowed the pills with the water. “What’s the second thing?”
Adrienne took an unusual amount of time to re-settle herself on the couch under her sleeping bag.
“Do you like Nigel?” she asked, picking up her empty cereal bowl and fishing around for flakes she may have missed.
I nodded. “He’s adorable, don’t you think?” I started to smile but the movement made my face hurt.
“He is really good-looking.” She was staring at me now. “But I have to tell you something.” I waited. Adrienne inhaled and released her bad news. “I overhead him talking to some of the senior guys last night, before you two went for your walk out back. I was waiting for the bathroom, in the hallway around the corner from them, and they didn’t know I was there.” I massaged my forehead and waited. “Nigel was asking which girl at the party would be easiest to, you know, get in bed – ‘who would give it up easily’ is what he said.”
I stopped rubbing my head. “What?! And they said me?”
“Not exactly. First they mentioned Lucey, but she was hanging all over Nick last night. Then they mentioned a senior who wasn’t at the party. Then Nigel asked about you.”
Just the thought of him asking about me sent a warm shot of satisfaction through my throbbing veins. “What did he say?”
“He said something about the girl needing to be pretty, he wasn’t desperate, but at the same time, he was in a foreign country and wanted to have some fun. Then he said, ‘What about Sadie?’”
“And?”
“One of the other guys – I wasn’t sure whose voice was whose – said he didn’t think you had a boyfriend. Then the other one said you were the history teacher’s daughter, so be careful. Then the first guy said you were kind of cute but definitely a little different.”
My fuzzy brain struggled to process this. “I don’t get it. Were they saying I’m easy? Because there is no reason for them to think that.”
“I know. And they never said you were. But Nigel ended by saying something about you being a wallflower and wallflowers being grateful for attention.”
“Wow. What do I do with that information?” I wasn’t prepared to give up on Nigel because of one offhand comment. We really clicked last night. I knew I wasn’t imagining the chemistry.
“Sadie, you don’t want to date a guy who just wants to get into your pants.”
I laughed.
“How can you laugh about that?” Adrienne asked in horror.
“I’m not laughing at that, exactly. But according to Jesse, they all want to get into your pants.” Adrienne’s eyebrows shot up. “The week before he left for college, he was out late with his friends one night. When he got home, he sat next to me on the couch – I was watching
Chicago
again -- and he put his arm around me. That’s rare for him, so I knew he had something important to say.”
“And?” Adrienne asked, pulling the sleeping bag more tightly around her shoulders.
“He said: ‘Little sister, I have to give you a warning before I leave you all alone in Smalltown, without me to watch over you. Boys are all jerks, and we’ll do anything you let us do. So you can’t do two stupid things at once, like get drunk at parties and then hook up with guys. Or drink and drive. Or have sex without a condom. You have to be the smart one, and the sober one. So be careful, because guys won’t be, okay? I know, because I am one.’”
“Smart boy, your brother,” Adrienne said, grinning. “You should listen to him.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. So I got drunk at a party. But it ended up okay. I didn’t let Nigel take advantage of me.”
“If you consider vomiting self-defense, then I guess you can take credit for that.”
I ignored her sarcasm and asked what else I’d missed while I was out back with Nigel. She said two guys almost got in a fight because they were drunk, Ben and Emily seemed to hit it off, which we agreed was too cute, and girls clung to Alex all night.
“I can’t believe how gorgeous geeky Alex Holman is now. You were crazy to let him go,” Adrienne said.
“Let him go? What are you talking about? He was never mine. We were just friends.” I lay back down on the couch. Sitting was too much work.
“Really? Everyone thought it was something more. You guys were practically joined at the hip for years.”
I pulled the comforter over my head.
“So what is up with you guys, anyway? How do you go from being best friends to practically enemies? I mean, you were at least best friends, right?”
I sighed. She wasn’t going to let this go. I emerged from the comforter. “Yes, he was my best friend for a long time—since second grade.”
I wondered if she would admonish me for ruining the friendship, like my mother, but she just stared at me, her mouth twisted in thought.
“Is it weird, being best friends with a guy?”
“Huh? Alex isn’t like other guys. I mean, he’s not your typical boy. Don’t get me wrong, he loves sports and bugs and getting dirty, and there’s nothing feminine about him--”
“That sounds like a typical boy.”
“—but he would also act out shows with me, playing whatever role I asked him to and wearing whatever stupid costume I put together.” This wasn’t completely true. I remembered the time I insisted he be the princess so I could try being the knight in shining armor, but most of the time he refused to play unless he got to be the knight.