Once and for All(21)

Breathe, I told myself, closing my eyes for a second. You’re here, you’re okay. But the images kept coming, wide shots, narrow ones, helicopter view. And then, suddenly, something totally different: a boy on the beach in a white shirt, hand reaching out, an instant of comfort, safety, home. Even though it hadn’t happened in months, I could feel what was about to happen, the panic rising like a liquid, filling me up. I pulled away from Jeff again, and as he yanked me back, my vision started to blur.

I closed my eyes, saying that familiar prayer. Ethan, I thought. Ethan. Then I felt someone standing right in front of me. I blinked, and found I was face-to-face with Ambrose Little.

“Conga!” he yelled past me at Jeff, who just looked at him, confused. Then he reached for my hand and without thinking, I grabbed on tight and let him pull me away.




“Did you see the ears on that guy? You think the world sounds really loud to him, like, all the time?”

I was trying to catch my breath, which was made harder by the worry that I might not be able to do it. For once, I was glad for Ambrose’s nattering, if not clinging to his stupid words with every inhale.

“I mean, I’m all about distinctive features,” he continued, as I glanced over to see his own trademark curl, damp with sweat, tumble over into his eyes. “And it’s not like he can help it. Cards you’re dealt, and all that. But I bet he got called Jughead a lot as a kid. And if he didn’t, someone was falling down on the job. Hey, are you going to drink that?”

I blinked, then looked down at the cup in my hand, which I’d forgotten I was holding. “It’s blue,” I managed to say.

“Pie in the Sky, i.e., Blueberry Yum Punch and vodka. Cheap, strong, and yes, blue. What, you don’t like it?”

I handed him the cup, still focusing on inhaling as he took a big swig, winced, and then set it down between us. We were outside the A-frame, on the front deck, where we’d ended up after our conga exit from Jeff and the dance floor. Nearby, a keg stood, surrounded by crumpled cups; in a dim corner, a couple was making out. It wasn’t cold outside at all, but I had chills. Still.

“Ambrose!” One of the boa girls, tall with red hair and freckles, stumbled through the door and over to us. “There you are. I lost you!”

“And now I’m found,” he replied, smiling. “You’re amazing, Grace.”

She beamed, her face seeming to almost light up in the dark. I had a flash of that girl in the country club parking lot, looking at him in the same way. Attention from a cute boy—you could power the world with it.

“Dance with me,” she said now, extending a hand to him. The lone outside light was behind her, catching the feathers of her boa as they trembled in the mild breeze. Too much, all at once, again. I looked away. “You promised, remember?”

“I am a man of my word,” Ambrose replied, reaching out to her. Instead of taking her hand, though, he opened his palm flat, prompting her to do the same. “But Louna and I here are talking business. I’ll come find you.”

Grace dropped her hand, her mouth forming a pout. “I don’t like waiting.”

“Five minutes,” he told her. He spread his fingers, and I watched the mechanics of her moving her hand into his, suddenly so intimate, so quickly. Then he let go. “Meet me at the punch bowl. I’ll be the one about to sweep you off your feet.”

There was that look again, like a surge of electricity moving over her face. “I’m counting on it,” she said, and then turned, walking away slowly the way someone does when they want to be watched, and know that they will be.

Once she was back inside, Ambrose picked up my cup again, finishing off the contents. As he crumpled it in his hand, I said, “Are you serious, with all this?”

“What this?”

I nodded at the door, which Grace had left slightly open behind her. “The way you talked to her. Is it a joke, or not?”

“I never joke when it comes to pretty girls,” he replied.

Of course he didn’t.

“Don’t feel bad about not understanding me, though,” he said. “I’m kind of an enigma. Mysterious, hard to know.”

“People that are hard to know don’t often announce the fact they are hard to know,” I pointed out.

“That’s part of the enigma thing. Always staying unexpected. So what happened to you back there?”

I blinked, surprised by this sudden left turn in conversation. “It was hot,” I said. “I got light-headed.”

“So old Jughead groping you wasn’t an issue.”

I reached up, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. “It was a grope, wasn’t it?”

“More like a grip.” He stretched his legs out in front of him, leaning back on his palms. “If you have to clutch a girl, you’re doing something wrong. Definitely not a mysterious enigma.”

“My friend set me up with him,” I said.

“Might be time for a new friend.”

I shook my head. “No. She means well. I haven’t . . . I’m not that social lately. She’s trying to change that.”

“Not social? What’s that like?”

As if on cue, the door slid open again. At first I thought it was Grace, as the figure that emerged also had a boa and tiara. As she got closer, however, I realized it was one of her friends, a shorter girl, curvier, with dark hair. “Ambrose! Are you hiding from me?”