“No,” Sam protests, folding her arms and sitting on one of the kitchen stools. The entire room smells of rum.

  “She’s being stubborn because she’s pissed at me,” I say to Jesse before folding my arms and having a stare down with my friend.

  “Sam, it’s time to go.” I speak slowly, with an edge because yeah…now I’m pissed, too. All I get is a head shake in response. “You’re acting like a toddler.”

  Our exchange dissolves into a childish tug-of-war in a matter of seconds with me trying to force her arms to unfold as I pull at her wrists to get her to leave the stool. Muscles tense, she braces herself in the other direction, and every jerk I give seems only to make her that much more rooted to her position.

  I can feel Jesse growing more agitated behind me, which only stresses me out. I know if I don’t get Sam to leave in the next few seconds, he’s going to go without me.

  “Sam,” I level her with my gaze, grabbing her wrists and yanking her hands free from her body and holding them on her thighs. We haven’t even been here for an hour and she’s buzzed…hell, she’s one drink away from vomit.

  “I’ll let your boyfriend take me home.” She sneers through the words, and I’m sure Jesse and the few people looking on think it’s jealousy talking, but I know the truth—it’s a different kind of betrayal.

  I open my mouth to tell her “it’s not like that,” only I catch myself before the words leave my lips because maybe it is. I don’t want Jesse to hear me say that. It’s not like I was hiding whatever is happening between us from my friend to be cruel; I was hiding it to keep it safe, to figure out what to call it in the first place. I was hiding it to make sure it remained special. It feels fragile, this budding friendship that’s definitely more. People don’t swat at butterflies, they tread lightly.

  Before I can screw things up more, Jesse takes my friends stiff hand which relaxes the minute he touches it.

  “Fine. I’ll take you home. But I don’t have a car, so I’ll need your keys,” he says.

  With my eyes still square on Sam’s, I stretch out my hand and give the keys to Jesse. I lift a brow at her because her bluff was just called. Her eyes flit to Jesse, then back to me, and she smirks.

  “He says he’s your boyfriend,” she whispers, though not very softly at all. I nod with a tight-lipped smile, glad to see her standing and moving toward the door.

  “Yep,” I say, keeping my cool on the surface.

  Yep. He agreed to boyfriend. It’s not a verbal contract that would stand up in court, but it is a confession in a roundabout way that I’ll dissect with Sam when she sobers up and after my competition tomorrow…after I let her yell at me for keeping her in the dark.

  I hold the backseat door open wide so Jesse can guide Sam in without her hitting her head. I close the door when she starts to giggle and sing a song about Jesse and me sitting in a tree. My eyes widen with embarrassment. So juvenile, yet so mortifying somehow. What the hell?

  I move to the passenger side of the rolling coffin and look over the seat back to check on my friend who has decided to lay down. She’s still humming the tune, but the words are no longer leaving her lips. Jesse gets in and starts the engine, but he idles along the curb while he stares at the group of guys he just left impressions of his knuckles on. The main one—asshole number one—points at him through the window mouthing the words “You’re fucking dead.” Jesse starts to laugh as he pulls us away from the party.

  A tense silence takes over our space, and every word at the tip of my tongue begins a question. I want to know what that jerk did to my friend. I want to know why it made Jesse go ballistic. I want to ask him if he’s all right with being what Sam said he is—my boyfriend. Like all things with us so far, though, I decide to go at it the long way.

  “How’d you get here?” I ask.

  His mouth scrunches on the side closest to me and he glances my way before checking the mirrors.

  “Huh?”

  “To the party. You don’t have a car, and you know like…six people.” I laugh quietly and Jesse smiles, returning his eyes to the road.

  “Oh…I uh…I walked.” He glances at me again for half a second, just long enough to smile and pass off that it wasn’t that big a deal.

  Four miles.

  By foot.

  For a party he didn’t want to go to.

  I sink back into my seat and let his answer warm my chest while my boyfriend drives my drunk friend home.

  Chapter Nine

  Sometimes the rehearsed cluelessness of my parents is terribly obvious.

  My dad woke me up this morning, as promised, to get me to the school parking lot in time for the bus to take us to State. Sam lay beside me snoring—loudly—and she didn’t even flinch. Her face was practically self-suffocating in my pillow, her makeup smeared and hair a ratted mess. My mom and dad were teenagers once and I know for a fact they weren’t always innocent…thanks to Uncle Greg for all those stories two Thanksgivings ago. They must know what a dead-to-the-world, hungover teenager looks like.

  It looks like my best friend.

  My mom just had me leave a note telling Sam what was in the house for breakfast so “she could get her beauty sleep and wake up when she’s ready.” My dad moved her car closer to the curb, and then proceeded to clean her windows. They both wore stretched smiles. Everything was so plastic. One of these days, I’m going to see what happens when I’m the one passed out in my bed. I wonder if I’ll get the same reaction. I kinda think the act will get kicked up a notch.

  Welcome to the land where everything is fine.

  I run through our drills over and over on my knees, my fingers patting out the rhythm and the breaks. Josh does the same across the aisle from me as the bus makes its final turn into the Five Hills Junior College parking lot. The blare of trumpets and bellow of tubas hits our rolled-down windows and fills the bus with our competitions’ noise.

  The bus brakes hard and I slap my palms on the vinyl seatback in front of me with an “oof!” I rub the sleep from my eyes as I arch my back in a stretch and turn my head to scan our scenery. Rows of busses flank us on either side, windows blocked by empty instrument cases and hanging clothes that are either being changed into or have already been worn. Bands stand in circle formations, some tight to pack in the sound and others wide, to look massive—intimidating. Every group has their thing. Our thing is my line. We are the thing, and what we can do stays under wraps until the very last minute. Always.

  “Ari, here…hold this up high for me,” says Bonnie, one of our bass drummers. She hands me an enormous beach towel that I unfurl and lift to near ceiling-level toward the back of the bus. Changing for competition is a free-for-all. I wear shorts and a sports bra under my uniform, so I don’t bother much with being discrete, but a lot of the other girls do, so I usually end up being a human shield for them until the last minute.

  Bonnie gets her front jacket snapped shut and I twist to shield the next person waiting. I glance out of the other side of the bus while I hold the towel high, and a familiar long, blue car hood rolls into view just beyond the last bus in our aisle.

  My heart booms.

  “I’m gonna start unpacking the gear below. See ya out there?” Josh nudges his elbow into mine. I nod back.

  “Yeah.”

  Blinking and holding my breath, I wait for a familiar piece of clothing, more of the car to come into view—anything.

  My head grows dizzy the longer I stare out the double panes of the bus window. The car parked, pulled forward just enough to remain a mystery. It just has to be, though. It has to be Rag’s. And the only reason he would be here at all is Jesse.

  The last girl finishes zipping up her pants behind my shield. I roll the towel up and toss it into Bonnie’s seat and rush to dress myself. I wobble as I stuff one leg, then the other, into the very unattractive, stick-straight black polyester pants that are the bottom of our uniform. They come in four sizes, and none of those sizes are mine. The places I’m thin leave gaps and my curves stretch the seams; I’ve never really given a rat’s ass about the fact that I look like shit in these stupid pants but now? Right now, I’m trying to force them down my hips enough to fill the gap and leave room for my thighs.

  I’m sweating from rushing, and my fingers are fumbling with buttons on my undershirt and jacket. The right-side cuffs hang wide open on the jacket, proving impossible to catch with my trembling left hand. Eventually, I stop myself with a laugh. I’m alone on the bus, the light inside golden from the tip of the rising sun. I’m nervous about a boy and it’s all because I want to show off in front of him.

  “Come on, Arizona. Get a grip!” I laugh through my whisper to myself then flop down in the seat and force a long, deep breath. I take five or six of them before I finish getting dressed, and while the tremors may have left my limbs, my heart is still raging to break through my chest with dense, unapologetic beats.

  I time my steps out of the bus with every pulse until my focus takes over, and the cadence of the line fills my ears. I lift my harness over my head and join the others, falling in line for our warmups. My eyes closed, I get lost in the rhythm for the first pass then lean forward and gaze to my left and right to check our hands. There are a lot of cool synchronized things that people can do, but I’m pretty sure nothing kicks as much ass as perfectly coordinated rise and fall of bright white sticks. Our wrists have swung these sticks so many times together that it’s almost harder to get offbeat than to stay perfect.

  “Fucking amazing! Yeah!”

  I stand corrected.

  Jesse’s loud praise slices right through the count, and more heads look up and at him than don’t. We’ve withstood so many distractions, but it seems a seventeen-year-old—who I think might be a little high right now—is the perfect bullet.

  We try to keep it going, find the magic again, but it’s too late. It’s gone.

  “Kill it,” I say, grabbing my sticks in my right hand and waving them at everyone else. I leave our line to head toward the familiar voice. His hair is poking in all directions under a trucker cap, and he’s wearing the same dark jeans he had on the night we kissed until my lips were raw. A bright-white sweatshirt makes him impossible to miss…more impossible to miss.

  “Ari, I’m sorry,” Rag whispers at me as I come closer to them. He’s trying to get to me before Jesse does, like a warning. “We were just going to come show support, surprise you and stuff, but his dad sent over this big envelope with all these legal papers inside and shit, and…”

  Rag holds his hand out to the right where Jesse is now trying to wrangle a clarinet away from some poor freshman.

  I groan.

  “I got it,” I say, pulling off my drum and harness and leaving it by Rag in the middle of the parking lot.

  I’m not sure what Jesse I’m going to get. My heart is pounding again but not like it was before, on the bus, nervous about my freaking pants looking lame. I’m no longer excited to see him. I’m worried, and I kinda wish he wasn’t here. It’s a selfish thing to think, and thinking it makes me feel lousy. I still feel it.

  “Hey,” I wrap my fingers around Jesse’s arm, swaying with him while he attempts to play an instrument I doubt he’s ever touched before this moment. His hands look massive on the keys, and I think he’s just copying what he’s seen Squidward do with a clarinet on SpongeBob SquarePants. “Jesse,” I say his name, a little more sternly. His eyes shoot to me just as Mr. Williams’ voice stabs its way into the situation.

  “You have got to be kidding me!” My teacher’s steps are rapid as he practically bulldozes Jesse and me off to the side and away from the rest of our band. It’s not stopping everyone from staring at us, but at least over here, the eavesdropping will be minimal.

  “I knew you were trouble, Barringer,” my band director growls. Through it all, though—through getting scolded, being manhandled off to the side—Jesse’s eyes have stuck to mine. And I see it in him. Yeah, sure…he’s a little high. It’s how he gets through most of our rehearsals. But he’s also lost.

  Rag steps in and does his best to sound like an adult. I guess he sort of is one, or at least more of one than Jesse or me, but he’s still not going to get through to Mr. Williams. Today is his championship, and he’s the coach. They’re not just ruining my moment, but they’re ruining his.

  “You know what?” Jesse shirks off my touch where my fingers are barely gripping at the sleeve of his sweatshirt. He hands the clarinet back to its owner then takes two or three steps back, a cocky swagger to his movement, and he leans to the right and spits on the ground just before giving me a sneer of a smile. “Fuck it, man. Yeah…you’re right, Mr. Williams. I’m so much trouble. Boo!”

  Jesse jerks at my teacher, who remains perfectly still. I swallow hard, an instant dryness practically choking me. Rag faces his cousin and puts a hand on his chest, trying to calm him, but Jesse only jerks away again.

  “Hey, good luck, girlfriend.” My entire body sinks at his tone. He mocks the word, loudly, and even though nobody is really laughing, it sounds like they are inside my head.

  Rag holds out his open palms to me in apology as Jesse walks away.

  “It’s fine,” I mouth, holding up a hand with my lie. It’s so not fine. I don’t know if I’m pissed or deflated. I’m probably both. I’m definitely not fired up to be my best, and that sucks.

  “You need to seriously think about the people you associate with, Wakefield.” Mr. Williams doesn’t look at me, just speaks at me from the side of his mouth before turning curtly and heading back to the band.

  “You okay?” Josh asks, stepping up behind me.

  “I’m fine.” It’s so clear that I’m not. Josh knows it, too, and he holds his sticks out in front of me like a guard gate as I turn to walk back to my drum. My eyes flit to his and I soak up his genuine sympathy for a few seconds.

  “I’ll be okay. Let’s just try to run through it one more time.”

  His brow pulls in but eventually he nods, giving me my way. I lift my drum and join the line again, and we run through our drills as if chaos never happened. But it did. And it’s all I can think about, and I know that I’m off. We sound fine, and maybe we’ll be good enough, but I resent Jesse right now.

  Our time gets announced just as we finish our warmups, so I lead everyone to the edge of the field to join the rest of the band. We’re a-hundred-and-sixty-three members strong, which means there are so many of us, we don’t have to march very far to make a formation. It also means that we’re loud, and we can turn heads with our wall of sound. We’re rather shit at marching, so it’s good we have these other things going for us.

  I click off the count for us to take the field, and somehow, I don’t screw it up even though my ears are tuned in waiting for the familiar roar of Rag’s Camaro. I don’t hear it by the time we get to the edge of the field, so my eyes scan the stands. My mind is acting on a separate plane—my eyes go row by row looking for Jesse’s bright-white sweatshirt, for Rag’s flannel, for two people who don’t look anything like the rows and rows of over-zealous band parents. I don’t come back to earth until the middle of the second song, minutes before our drum break. I’ve been an autopilot, but somehow haven’t crashed.

  Our set is inspired by the World War II era, and our color guard has just picked up the giant propellers, more distraction from our messy footwork. I step up to the sideline and the rest of our corps follows until we’re a perfect hash mark of sixteen drummers all standing at attention, sticks up, and ready to blow everyone else away.

  That’s when I see him.

  Jesse didn’t leave. He’s directly across from me, fighting with his cousin. Like, as in, throwing punches, not just verbal assaults. A security guy in a white T-shirt and black combat pants is walking toward them both, his head cocked so he can talk into some radio on his shoulder. Through it all, my hands work on rote. I start to pound. We don’t have to march, so my brain stays divided with my arms doing their job and my mind racing with prayers.

  Do not get arrested. Do not get arrested. Do not…

  Shit.

  More people are starting to notice what I’ve been watching. The security guard has Jesse pinned to the ground. Rag is trying to break free of a hold from some other enormous muscle man who I think is just someone’s dad.

  My sticks are still flying, the rhythm is on point, but our baseline is slipping. They see it. It’s hard not to notice Jesse wailing with his face pressed down flat against the all-weather track. His hat came off. It’s sitting on the ground about five feet away from the place where he’s being dragged to his feet. Rag shirks off the guy holding his arm, flinging his hands in the air while he shouts.

  “You made this bad! He was fine! We’re leaving…all right? We’re leaving.” My head can’t help but turn just enough to follow them out the main gate. I lose sight when the round the bleachers, and I bring my focus back to the front, blurring the visual in front of me. I don’t need to see the clear faces of everyone watching someone make a scene.

  Jesse has demons.

  I knew he did, but it still doesn’t make it easy to watch someone battle them.

  We finish our break and I click out our next formation for the last song, catching Josh’s glare as I do. He’s pissed, but not at me—probably at Jesse, or maybe just in general, because he knows we just blew it. Our superior rating just went down in flames. The crisp ping we usually have was soft today. We were distracted. I was distracted.

  I was distracted the moment the moving van turned down my street a month ago.

  Six hours is a long time to sit on metal bleachers for a second-place award. The ride home on the bus was quiet up front. The people in the back amused themselves with Truth or Dare and talk about what party they were going to tonight. I sat by myself, my knees tucked up and balanced against the seatback so I could drum against my thighs. Funny how perfect I could play it all the way home. I wish I could get a redo; I wish we all could.