All the Inside Howling (Hollow Folk #2)(47)

“Yeah? You’re best friends with the guys that beat the crap out of me on my first day at school. It’s not really a stretch to think I wouldn’t want to talk to you.”

“I didn’t have anything to do with that. And I apologized. And I tried to explain that, if Austin and Colton were assholes, I didn’t want to be lumped in with them. But you know the real problem? You’re dating Austin and you still don’t want anything to do with me. He was the one that picked the fight, and now you’re dating him. So I know you can move past it, because you already did with him. I get that you don’t like Colton. He can be an asshole, especially if you didn’t grow up with him, if you’re not used to it. But I’m really trying. I got you out of jail, damn it, and it’s like I’m the worst fucking thing you’ve ever seen, like you’d cross the fucking street six times before saying hi.”

I could tell him: I could say, my boyfriend lights up like a Christmas tree in a furnace whenever you walk into the room. I could say, my boyfriend’s had a crush on you since he knew what sex meant. I could say, whatever you’ve got, I don’t have it, and it makes me angry, but mostly it makes me afraid because one day Austin will realize that too.

But instead, I just said, “You nailed it. I’m hard to talk to.”

His face darkened, and he left the kitchen without a word.

Well, shit, there I went again. Give me five minutes alone with Gandhi and he’d probably be hating my guts before the time was half up. I poured myself another drink and pounded it back; the sting brought tears to my eyes. The girls, still leaning against the counter, stared at me and whispered. I needed to clear my head, but I couldn’t stand going through that crowd again. Instead, I tried one of the doors: the garage. Perfect.

I left the garage and walked to the front of the house. The temperature had dropped, and the Wyoming wind had picked up again. It wasn’t a howl or a shriek, just a steady thrum, like the whole city was this big bass and someone was plucking a low E. The sweater Becca had leant me was warm, but not that warm, and I wrapped my arms around myself and shivered. Every shiver sent a wave of aches through me. Still, it was a beautiful night. The moon had cleared the Bighorn Mountains, and it was waxing, almost full. The thing about Wyoming is that, with a few exceptions, it’s flat, and from the foothills I felt like I could see the rest of the world, all tinted silver and black. I had this strange feeling of standing at the top of the world, the feeling that if I died, my spirit or my soul or whatever it was would thrum out over the high plains with the wind, and that this thrum the sound of being dead and still being part of everything, of never leaving.

A lighter spun and clicked, and a tiny flame flickered between cupped hands, and then the red tip of a cigarette pulsed like one of those warning lights at the top of tall buildings. The ruddy light rolled over a young face and then retreated, then again, then again, in time with her puffing. It was the girl who had been sitting with Kaden on the stairs when Austin and I had arrived. Temple Mae. The girl who had stared at us in the high school.

“I’m not with Kaden,” she said. Even with the makeup, even with the wash-and-retreat of the cigarette’s light, she still looked so young. Her tilted eyes made me think she had the tiniest amount of Asian ancestry, and maybe that was part of it. “Just so you know.”

“Uh huh.”

She fidgeted with the cigarette, coughed, and then inscribed a circle in the air with the tip, and then another circle, and then another. “So you’ll tell him?”

“What?”

“Austin. You’ll tell him I wasn’t doing anything with Kaden. He just . . . he just put his hand on my leg, and I was going to tell him, but you guys walked in right then, and it looked like . . .” The hard slash of her mouth tightened again.

“What were you going to tell him?”

She looked furious, like I was trying to embarrass her on purpose and succeeding. “That I’m dating Jake, of course. Kaden didn’t know. Anyway, we were just talking.”

“Austin’s brother, Jake?”

She studied me for a moment, still tracing circles with the cigarette like her arm was on autopilot. “Jake was right: you’re an asshole.” Dropping the cigarette, she spun on her heel and marched back into the house.

“I’ve never met Jake,” I called after her.

Without looking back, she flicked me the finger.

I turned back to the wind. Another ringing social success.

At that moment, a car swooped up the drive. It moved like a bead of mercury, and it’s brilliant halogen lights cut enormous circles out of the night. Only one car looked like that and moved like that in Vehpese: it was Emmett Bradley in his black Porsche Carrera. The car swerved towards me, and for an instant I thought Emmett was going to run me over, that he’d finally decided he hated me that much, but the car coasted across the grass and jerked to a stop in the center of the lawn.

Jesus, I thought. Whatever this was, it wasn’t going to be good.

The Porsche’s door burst open, and Emmett tumbled out. He took a step, stumbled, and slid along the Porsche’s hood. With a burst of frenzied laughter, he flipped his head up to the sky and pounded on the car. Even from a distance, I could smell the alcohol on him. Not beer. Whiskey. The kid was blind drunk. Still laughing, he slipped along the hood of the car and staggered around it towards the house. And towards me.