I'll Stop the World (31)
Lisa tugged her fingers free, stepping away from him. “Actually, Shawn, I’m sorry.” Her voice trembled, and it took everything she had to keep it from breaking. “I just remembered I need to—Can I find you later?”
“Oh, sure. I’ll just—”
“Thanks.”
She walked, then ran, around the back of the house, away from Shawn, away from the revelry around the fire, away from Charlene and her sparkling eyes and her trembling mouth and her aching whispers. And when she was away from it all, where no one could see, she finally let herself cry.
Chapter Nineteen
JUSTIN
Half an hour into the bonfire, mild intoxication therapy has turned into moderate intoxication therapy. Dave’s flask is now empty, the remainder of its contents dumped into the red Solo cup of lemonade in my hand, which is also mostly empty. I’m pleasantly buzzed, and don’t care about my mom or Stan or Alyssa or any of it, which is exactly what I was going for.
The sun has long since finished setting, the dim orange glow of the fire the only real light, the dancing flames sending up sparks that twirl through the black sky and disappear above the treetops. I sit in a lawn chair by the fire near a group of kids I share a couple of classes with, nodding here and there but paying little attention to the conversation, which has circled back to the body in the river. A passionate debate has arisen between Team Accidental Drowning and Team Unidentified Zodiac Killer Victim, neither of which appears to have anything supporting their positions outside of whatever is in their Solo cups (which I’m beginning to suspect is similar to what’s in my Solo cup).
Personally, I’m rooting for Team Zodiac Killer. At least that would be interesting.
On the other side of the fire, Alyssa sits on the edge of a wide blue cooler, sharing a ziplock bag of PTA cookies with Danny, a guy I work with who I don’t think has shown up to a school function since we were sophomores. Up until junior year, Danny presented as female, but as soon as he came out, some kids made it their mission to make school impossible for him, and he eventually withdrew to take online courses instead. Now he’s laughing, and Alyssa is smiling, and I am the worst because the sight of her enjoying herself so much with someone who is not me makes me want to vomit.
I know I should be glad that he’s here. Danny is a good guy, and he deserves to have some fun with what’s left of high school. If I were a good person, I’d be happy he felt comfortable enough to show up, and that Alyssa was the person who made him feel welcome.
But alas, I’m just my usual petty self, and every time Alyssa’s arm brushes against his, I find myself wishing he would get hit with a sudden wave of explosive diarrhea.
I’ve been trying not to watch them, but occasionally I’ll hear her laugh and I’ll glance over to see her face lit up by firelight, dark curls bouncing as she talks animatedly, waving her hands to illustrate whatever point she’s making.
All that pleading with me to come to this thing, and she doesn’t even care that we haven’t hung out since we got here.
Suddenly, I don’t want to be here anymore. I mean, I never wanted to be at this stupid fire in the first place, but now I specifically don’t want to be here, sitting with people I don’t even like, watching Alyssa hang out with another guy.
I stand, not really sure where I’m going until gravity does its thing and I realize I have to pee. Throwing back the final remnants of my drink and tossing my cup in the general vicinity of the nearest trash can, I make my way toward the colossal house to locate a bathroom.
The inside of the Derrins’ house looks like the “after” tour in one of those HGTV makeover shows my mom is always watching (which has always felt a little masochistic to me, considering our house is about the size of my gym locker, and only half as nice). Derrin Family Jams moved the actual jam-making business out of their kitchen and into a factory thirty miles up the road decades ago, but the money has always stayed right here.
Chalkboard signs covered with artistically scrawled script point the way to the various bathrooms like they’re announcing the specials at a coffee shop. I follow the directions to DOWNSTAIRS BATHROOM, NORTH like it’s a normal thing to have so many bathrooms in your house that you need a freaking compass.
There’s a short line, so while I wait, I study the family portraits lining the walls in their dark wood frames. The first one is Dave and his siblings with their parents: a short, unsmiling man with wiry hair and hard features, and a thin, Stepford-looking woman in heels and pearls. In the next one, I recognize his dad again but this time as a kid, probably around eleven or twelve, with a pretty older sister and parents who look at least marginally happier than the one he’ll grow up to become.
More portraits continue on down the hall in matching frames, each a generation older than the last, until the final black-and-white image captures a brood of smiling Derrin children, each holding a jar of homemade jam. They sit in front of the much more normal-size farmhouse that used to sit in this spot, before it was replaced by this sparkling modern monstrosity with its cardinal-direction bathrooms.
When I’m done, my hands smelling of organic lavender soap that probably cost more than my shoes, I start to make my way out of the house—but I’m stopped on the porch.
“This is him?” asks a stern-looking man I recognize from the picture in the hall as Dave’s father. He’s frowning at me but talking to Dave, who looks way too happy for my liking.