A List of Cages(26)

“Emerald!” Camila hops two feet off the ground. “We have to hire a stripper!”

The girls are laughing as Adam forces them out of the room. As soon as he shuts the door behind him, I quickly change. The shirt and jeans both fit. I can’t remember the last time I wore something that really fit.

I open the door, startled to find everyone waiting right outside. The three girls burst into applause, then order me to spin around. Adam laughs and shrugs, so I do it.

When they all clap again, my mouth spasms into a smile.


“Is there going to be a magician?” I ask. The last birthday party I went to had a magician.

Adam shakes his head, smiling as if I said something funny. I glance around Emerald’s living room. It doesn’t look like a party. There aren’t balloons or streamers or a pi?ata or anything.

Adam and I take a seat on one of the long couches, and soon the house fills up with seniors. I recognize a few from the concert, but most are strangers.

Some girls walk through the door, carrying four-packs of pink glass bottles. Beside them a group of boys hold up their huge boxes of beer, and everyone cheers and hands them cash.

“I don’t have any money,” I whisper.

“It’s cool,” Adam says. “I’ll cover you.” But he looks uncomfortable, like maybe he really doesn’t want to. That expression intensifies when I grab one of the cans. It only takes one swallow for me to realize it’s disgusting. I don’t want any more, but I’d feel bad not finishing since Adam is paying for it.

Camila’s eyes zero in on me as if she knows what I’m thinking. “Gross?”

“No, it’s good,” I lie.

“Have this, much better.” She hands me her pink bottle. There’s lipstick on it, which is kind of gross, but I don’t want to offend her, so I take a small sip.

She’s right. It is much better, like carbonated Kool-Aid. “It’s good.” She hands me one from her cardboard container. “I’ll pay you back,” I tell Adam, even though I have no idea how I’m going to do that, since I spent my savings on Emerald’s gift.

“Those actually have more alcohol than the beer,” he says, loud enough to be heard over the music someone just turned on.

“They do?”

“Yeah. You should probably just stick with the one beer.” He takes my unopened pink drink and returns it to Camila.

“Can I just have soda?” There are a few three-liter bottles that some kids are pouring into red plastic cups.

Camila starts laughing. “Stop babying him, Adam.”

“He’s fourteen.”

“I’m almost fifteen.”

“Your birthday’s in July.” He laughs.

Camila seems to lose interest in the conversation and wanders away.

Adam grabs a cupful of soda and hands it to me, then he’s off too, weaving in and out of different groups. I wish I had the ability to talk with people that way. Talking is a talent; he probably doesn’t realize it, but it is.

I watch as the crowd swells and whirls around me. There is a cluster of dancing girls. In one corner a boy and girl are kissing. In another some kids are passing around a pipe—it’s red, like the toy bubble pipe I had when I was little. I see Adam. He takes a puff from the pipe, passes it, then disappears into another crowd.

Minutes tick by and I keep sitting on the couch alone and drinking my soda, feeling so awkward I want to leave, but feeling so lonely that I can’t.

I’m finishing my third cup when suddenly everyone fills the living room, squeezing onto the couches or sitting on the floor. They argue for a minute about whose turn it is, and eventually Camila wins.

As she looks around the room, it gets tense and quiet. Then she says with a smirk, “Charlie.” Allison is sitting in Charlie’s lap, and she pets his back when his name is called. “All right, let’s see…take off your shirt, then—” The words are barely out of Camila’s mouth before he has his fists at his hem and he tears it off, looking very pleased with himself. “Then take off Adam’s shirt, then—”

Charlie’s smile becomes a scowl. “Oh, hell no.”

“Come on, Charlie.” Adam gives him an exaggerated wink. “Get your sexy abs over here.”

“Hell. No.”

But everyone starts calling Charlie lame and telling him he has to do it, so in the end, he pulls Adam’s shirt off and endures the screeching and whistling while he presses his palms to Adam’s chest as ordered. Then, looking thoroughly disgusted, he puts his shirt back on and crosses his arms.

The next dare also involves some level of nudity and embarrassment, and I realize it’s only a matter of time before I’m forced to do something awful or someone is forced to do something awful to me.

I don’t want to take off my clothes. I can’t do it. But if I refuse, everyone will get annoyed and tell me I’m being lame.

Adam hops up from the floor and sits on the couch beside me. “Julian is under my protection,” he announces loudly, making me squirm. “He gets to watch us act like idiots, and that’s it.” When no one protests, I start to relax.

After almost everyone has been forced to do something horrible, someone turns the music up again and they all drift off into corners, into shadows. I’m left sitting alone, thinking about getting more soda, when Camila falls onto the couch beside me. Her neck is swaying like her head is too heavy. She leans in close.