The Storm King(57)

“I’ll get drinks.” Tom snaked out from Nate’s hold.

Lucy lobbed a smirk at him as Nate closed his hug of her with the arm Tom had vacated.

While he, Nate, Johnny, and Owen had gotten pizza after school, Lucy had metamorphosed into something else. In addition to the manicure and pedicure, she’d gotten her hair cut and styled. She’d worn a sundress and heels under her graduation gown. She hadn’t bothered with such delicate things since the days before her friendship with Lindsay and the Sarahs collapsed. If anything, her recent style tended toward grunge. But this was the New Lucy. Since the ceremony, she’d changed into short-shorts, a white tank top, and a jade kimono wrap that matched her eyes. Things are about to change was the message Tom gleaned from the plunge of her neckline and the careful auburn waves that bounced at her shoulder. She even wore a trio of white calla lilies in her hair.



There wasn’t a line at the keg. He pumped it a dozen times before it released its beer in a flaccid trickle.

Red and orange paper lanterns were strung from branch to branch along the edges of the glade. A shoulders-high bonfire crackled at one end of the clearing while speakers pumped from the other. Jim must have rented a generator for the lights and sound system, but if there was ever an event for which to go all out, this was it. Their class had shared good times together. If this was to be their last, it should also be their best.

Once he’d filled two cups, Tom returned to find his friend listening intently to Jim Tatum. Someone had given Nate a joint, which he casually rested in the hand wrapped around Lucy. He held it for her as she took a hit. Jim must have reached the punch line because Nate leaned back and laughed. A rich, deep, genuine sound that made Tom smile.

Tom handed Nate his cup and was about to clink his own drink against his when—

“You’re a doll,” Lucy said as she plucked the beer from his hand. She gave him a sidelong glance and blew a flute of smoke from the corner of her mouth.

Tom felt a flare of anger, though he knew this was wasted energy. Lucy could get away with just about anything. Maybe he’d get another beer or maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe he’d hang out with Johnny and Owen, or maybe he’d just walk home. If he did, Nate would eventually notice he was gone. Eventually, he’d wonder where his best friend had disappeared to on the greatest night of their lives.



Tom had almost decided to stalk away when Nate took note of the beer in his own hand. It was strange how the pieces of him so often seemed to be in different places. Nate glanced at the beer, looked at Tom, and raised the glass to him. As he began to tell Jim a story of his own, Nate removed his arm from Lucy and held the joint out to Tom.

Tom shook his head, but Nate ignored this. His conversation with Jim didn’t falter, but Tom sensed the full focus of Nate’s attention on the fingers of the hand that grasped the joint held out in offering. Long moments crawled past when Tom did not move and Nate did not budge. If Nate had the patience to wait, Tom would accede. They both knew this.

When he couldn’t take it any longer, Tom snatched the spliff fast enough to send a flash of sparks to the grass.

He loved Nate like a brother, but sometimes he thought he might hate him, too.

He took a hit. A reckless hit. Sucking in as much as he could as deep as it would go. And then he took another. And another. Tom wrecked the joint, burning it down to a crisp of paper without wasting a speck of it. Then he flicked it to the ground. He spun around to go back to the keg. Tom didn’t see if Nate had noticed, but he caught Lucy’s gaze as he left.

She grinned at him, and it was the kind of look that could mean anything.

Someone was handing out pills, and Tom gobbled three or maybe four on his way to the keg. He never did this. Was four too many? Must have been, because everyone around him gasped. They were either blue or yellow.

Maybe it was the pills or the pot, or the strange sensations of beginnings and endings that collided inside him, but for Tom the next hours passed like a series of slides oversaturated with sound and color.



He talked to Sarah Carlisle. He stood near Lindsay Stone. Tom was conscious of Johnny and Owen together, as they often were. One moment they were by the keg and the next they were on the periphery, watching the people at the center of the glade and talking about what, Tom could not imagine.

He, Nate, and Johnny had been as one for nearly their whole lives. But fault lines had formed between them over the past year and a half. Lucy and Owen’s additions had changed things, and the ever-shifting hierarchies of high school had pulled others into various ranks within their circle. The three of them were still best friends, but some best friends were better than others. Would Johnny miss him next year? Would Nate really meet up with him a few times a week once they were in the city? Tom didn’t know. The constants in his universe were about to become variables.

Like the cars of a racing train as it begins to slow, Tom’s syncopated senses gradually blurred back into a stream of linear experience. He was standing on a stump at the edge of the clearing and his arms were out as if he’d been giving a speech, and indeed he seemed to have the full attention of the three underclassmen girls who stared up at him.

He jumped to the ground, just managing to stick the landing. His shoes were gone. Winston Chu, wearing an eye patch for some reason, thrust a bottle at Tom’s chest. He dutifully took a chug before passing it back. It tasted like sunscreen.