The Most Dangerous Place on Earth(67)
Damon’s head and face were wet from the rain. He grabbed a fuzzy white blanket from the back of his couch and rubbed its soft face on his. “Fuck, I gotta get me one a these,” he said. “This shit is the bomb.”
“Ima get one a these couches in my dorm room,” Ryan said. “And put like cozy-ass shit all over it. Ima have all the bitches up in there.”
“What dorm room?” Damon said.
“Fuckin’ college?” Ryan said. “Hello?”
“You’re going to college,” Damon said, and laughed.
“Fuck yeah I’m going to college. My grandpa’s on the board at Pepperdine. Know where that is? Malibu, motherfucker. Ima do my classes at the beach.”
Damon’s heart began to disturb his ribs. Like, When the fuck did this happen? He tried to have his face not show it.
After Ryan, everyone started bragging. Jonas Everett was going to CU Boulder to snowboard. Nick could get in anywhere, everyone said so, but wanted something in The City. Abigail Cress was talking East Coast Ivy League. Dave Chu had scraped the SAT and seemed pretty sure about Berkeley. Emma Fleed had some dance thing in New York. They all knew their GPAs by heart. Took the SAT two, three times already.
Like, When the fuck did this happen?
Out the window the beach kids were crazy dancing in the middle of the storm. Cally Broderick and this hot piece Alessandra Ryding and these weird-ass hippie dudes he knew but didn’t know. They all were soaking wet and the girls’ shirts turning see-through like some kinda magic and it was a good distraction from the inside conversation, Alessandra’s little brown nipples and Cally’s broader pink ones perking through as they spread their arms and licked the sky. Were they going to college too? he wondered. Were they in this secret get-your-shit-together club like everyone but him?
No one had talked to Damon about the SAT. His parents had talked a couple times about the community college that was fifteen minutes away. And he’d said, “Whatever.” Who cared about college, anyway. Sounded boring as fuck.
Now he saw it. Everyone was going but he was not. This was the last big party of the year. It was gonna be summer, then senior year. It wasn’t too late to apply to places, but D’s and C-minuses weren’t getting him anywhere good. Plus three years of summer school. Getting wrapped. Going to rehab. Not even taking the SAT—was it too late? Could he take it in September? He was so far behind already.
He was an idiot. The fuck did it matter if he did this little homework assignment or that one. Big deal he could stay sober for twelve weeks. Like that meant anything to anyone.
There was one year left before his friends left him behind. Even Ryan, who wasn’t any smarter than him—Damon always thought they’d get an apartment together, hang out and host functions and get all the girls from there to Terra Linda with no problems. And have the time of their lives. But no. Ryan out of nowhere was going to some school on a L.A. movie set. Ryan all of a sudden had a plan. Now he was talking about going to visit. Talking actress girls everywhere, hot tub parties, bonfires on the beach.
What was Damon working so hard for? Since rehab he’d been torturing himself, for what? He cocked the forty to his lips and drank until he felt like his gut and heart and lungs were full of it. Wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Let’s get housed!” he yelled, and all around him a cheer went up.
—
Then he was jumping in the BMW with Ryan in front with him and Nick in back with Cally Broderick, Alessandra Ryding, Emma Fleed. He was driving the dark, curvy streets in full confidence, skimming his thumbs on the leather wheel, kicking back and enjoying the feel of the driver’s seat he’d been kicked out of for so long.
When they got out of the canyon, Cally said she saw a cop, so Nick pushed Emma down and over until she was lying with her head on Alessandra’s lap and her torso stretched over Cally, who petted it. Emma’s ass and legs were still on Nick and she was wearing this, like, ballerina skirt and in the rearview Nick slid his hand under its ruffly hem and she let out a little animal moan and was quiet.
In the passenger seat, Ryan put on this rapper Earl Sweatshirt. He was their age only he was a fuckin’ genius. His voice was deep and it stretched out of his throat like thick black paint pulled over glass, filling all the empty silent spaces that none of them could stand.
“Crank that shit,” Damon said, and Ryan pumped it till there was no room left to think.
In the backseat, Alessandra started to bitch. “Ugh, no. This song is so sexist, you guys.”
Ryan turned it up. The bass shook the car and thrummed in Damon’s chest. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” he said, riding the beat. “That is the fuckin’ bee’s knees.”
“Fuck you guys, he’s talking about fucking rape!” Alessandra yelled.
“Turn it off, asshole!” Cally said.
“Why do you always gotta be such a bitch?” Ryan yelled back, and Damon remembered how he and Cally had a thing back in eighth grade, which suddenly seemed so long ago he had to squint to remember it even existed.
“You’re a pig,” Alessandra said.
Emma said nothing. Nick’s eyes were closed and he was making this math-test grimace and Damon wondered what it was that he was concentrating on.
He swerved before he knew it was there. Cally screamed. A deer in the road, standing there staring at him with its shiny eyes. Veering right he felt a thud, a far-off crunch of metal and cracked glass, a push against his seat, a thrust, a tree trunk glossed with rain, a balloon exploding in his face.