The Truth About Keeping Secrets(41)

But I wanted to get drunk. Stupid drunk. It wasn’t that I had avoided drinking in the past; I had just never thought about it that much. But here it was. And I was willing to do anything to stop thinking.

The table at the back of the basement had the beer cans I had seen people drinking in movies and other stuff in bigger bottles that ranged from clear to a sort of unhealthy piss-coloured brown. Next to plastic bottles of Coke and Sprite and orange juice. Mixers, I guess.

‘What do you think you’d like?’ June asked, eyeing the table and idly scratching the back of her head. ‘Well, no one really likes any of this. What do you think you can tolerate?’

‘What do you, uh, put with the orange juice?’ I felt like an idiot. Na?ve. But if June was thinking the same thing, she didn’t let on.

‘Vodka, normally. Want that?’

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘I, uh, like orange juice.’ Oh, wow, that was cool. That was a cool thing to say.

June laughed. ‘Well, you won’t like vodka.’ She filled a red cup nearly to the top with orange juice, then dashed some Smirnoff in like an afterthought, then handed the concoction to me.

‘That’s all?’ I asked.

She smiled, her eyebrows furrowed. ‘Try it, then,’ she said, like a dare.

I did as she said, unhinged my jaw and practically downed the whole thing in one go. The orange juice was there but underneath was this sort of empty burn that clung to the back of my throat and fizzed up to my nose and made my eyes water. I had to conceal a retch.

‘Whoa! Easy, killer!’ June said, snatching the cup I’d just emptied. ‘The night is young. The night hasn’t even been freaking conceived yet. Relax.’ Someone behind us called her name. ‘Oh, hey! Here, come on, let me introduce you …’

When she left, I pressed the mouth of the clear bottle to mine, and sipped.

I remember clinging to June like a leech at first. Being too nervous to be left alone.

I recognized all of them but knew no one. Most were seniors, and I’d been in classes with them or our lockers had been close together. Others I remembered from freshman year. From over-the-shoulder glances and stifled laughter. Maybe this was my chance to change things. Not that I cared about being liked by the people who thought it was OK to behave the way they had, anyway. But we all want to be liked. I imagined the crowd opening up to me like an outstretched hand and then closing round me, swallowing me, taking me.

I got drunk faster than I’d anticipated. I kept checking myself, checking my reality, like I didn’t believe it would actually work. Right. As if repeatedly emptying low-dosage poison into my body wouldn’t do anything.

It wasn’t necessarily an immediate happiness – like, I didn’t really feel happy – but I felt like there was no reason not to be. Dad, firstly. But June, and the texts, Olivia, it all just kind of melted away, dribbled down the front of my chest, out with the sweat. Gravity seemed to have gone on a break. My guts twirled. My mouth went numb, which was probably to blame for the alarming rate that my words were tumbling out of it. It was kind of a wonderful feeling, to think that there was nothing more important in the world than my own words. Before, everyone in the room had been painted red, and now they were green, green, green.

I learned that I didn’t like to share her.

In the car I had June all to myself – and even when she was with Heath, I’d sort of convinced myself that I wasn’t allowed to be bitter. I was just a growth, anyway; they were here first, and really, I trusted Heath. But here, to all these people I barely even knew, June was the belle of the ball.

They all loved her. She touched them, danced with them and they all loved it, like she was some messiah that was gracing them with her presence, and at some point she took Kendall McIntyre aside and jokingly grinded on her and I honestly thought I might be sick. At least in my mind, Heath was the one I would always need to give her up to. Ha. Give her up. As if she was ever mine. But seeing her flouncing around with everyone else, I couldn’t help but feel alarmingly unprepared and painfully jealous.

The real reason it was painful, I guessed, was that there was nothing different about the way she touched them and the way she touched me.

But she didn’t take any of them to the River Styx.

And while I was looking at June, Bea was looking at me.

It was driving me insane. I don’t know if it was drink-induced paranoia, but God, every time I’d even glance towards her I swore she was looking directly fucking at me.

And now the texts flashed in front of my eyes.

Doesn’t sound like you’re all that upset.

A switch flipped in my brain, a giant switch I’d been ignoring and that the alcohol had masked, but only for a bit, only for a bit.

Do you really think someone killed him?

I shouldered through the masses to make my way to her, and before I could stop myself I had her cornered up against a wall. ‘What are you playing at?’

‘What?’ she said, recoiling.

‘I’m so sick of –’ I made some sort of primal noise, with my teeth clenched together. ‘I’m so sick of whatever it is you think you’re doing. Just – why now? Why are you doing this now?’

‘I – I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Dyke.

‘Yeah, OK. Healing Homosexuality? Really? You know what? You – you can go fuck yourself. Can I just know why? Like, why you’ve suddenly decided now’s the time to get some weird revenge?’