The Thrashers(67)

Hannah Mills reached for the bong from Nikita. Jodi forced her shoulders to relax. Emily had been dependent on other people’s opinion of her, but that was not Hannah. Maybe she should be more like Hannah.

Oliver was pouring shots with a few guys—some she knew, some she didn’t. A shot glass with a deep amber liquid appeared in her hand, but she handed it back to the guy next to her.

“I don’t drink.”

“Yeah, she’s the Thrashers’ DD,” one of them said.

Blinking to clear her eyes, she opened her mouth to respond, but it was full of cotton.

Oliver laughed, clinked glasses, and poured his down his throat. The temperature of the kitchen rose.

“Zack Thrasher’s not here, sweetheart,” the other guy said. “I’ll drive you home.”

They laughed. Oliver smiled and poured another round.

Jodi felt tired and full of air. Like she could float away at a moment’s notice. Zack Thrasher wasn’t here. He’d left her alone on New Year’s with Emily Mills’s ghost. None of them were here. None of them had been here in a long while. Maybe they didn’t want to be.

Oliver was the one to hand her the shot. And he knew about her dad. So if Oliver said it was okay—it was safe for Hank Dillon’s daughter to start drinking—then maybe it was.

It tasted just like she’d thought it would. Like something from the chemistry lab. Like poison. But the guys cheered her and gave her another, so she drank that, too, coughing.

She didn’t know what was the weed and what was the rum, but very quickly the world got fuzzy. She needed to lean on the counter and count the tiles on the kitchen floor.

Someone handed her another shot, and she said to no one, “My dad drinks Corona.”

“You’re gonna want to stick to rum, babe.”

Sometime later, on the couches with Nikita, she wondered if she liked it. She wondered if it was something that brought her any relief.

“Why do you think people drink?” she muttered to Nikita, but a redhead was sitting in her place. Jodi didn’t know when Nikita had left her.

The redhead had smoke coming out of her nostrils, like a dragon. “I think … because we’re not supposed to.”

Jodi blinked at her. No, that wasn’t it.

A flash of blond hair caught her eye, but disappeared before Jodi could turn her head fast enough. Her skull felt like a fishbowl, the top open and sloshing.

When it was time to throw up, Jodi found the upstairs bathroom empty. She tied her hair back and wet the hand towel with cold water. She had plenty of experience helping Paige and Lucy.

The splash in the toilet was loud against the quiet tiles. The violence in her throat pulled tears out of her eyes and snot out of her nose, and wasn’t it nice that no one was here for this? Wasn’t it nice that they would never know?

She’d gotten Happy New Year! texts in the group chat, but nothing else. Maybe that’s the kind of friends they were now. Holidays and birthdays, but once they graduated in June, there wouldn’t be anything but the reunions to bring them together.

She heaved again, spitting and dragging the washcloth over her face. She sat back on the furry gray carpet next to the shower, thinking of just climbing inside and going to sleep.

Maybe if she’d told Zack she was proud of her backdrop, he would have come to see Our Town. She liked painting things for a purpose. Not just a bowl of fruit on canvas to hang in someone’s kitchen, but something that told a story.

She’d been to all of Lucy’s track meets. She’d sat through a Model UN meet last year for Paige. She had pulled back both girls’ hair and pressed a cold towel to their necks whenever Paige or Lucy drank too much. She’d driven Julian and Zack home without a license whenever they were too blitzed. And here she was sitting in a bathroom alone, not even sure if she’d locked the door, but too far away to crawl to it to check.

She stared down at their group chat. Julian had sent a selfie with his tongue out and Zack asleep on the deck of the Napa house in the background.

Julian had come to Our Town for some reason. He was the only person who had been showing up for a while. She hadn’t thanked him. How was he supposed to know to come to the next one?

She flicked her screen to her contacts and listened to the ring until someone picked up. “Yo.”

“Thank you for coming to the play.” Her voice sounded hoarse and echo-y.

“The—the play? Yeah. I told you I liked your painting.”

“It’s called a backdrop. When it’s for theater, it’s called a backdrop.” She pressed the washcloth to her forehead and tilted her head back.

Spinning, tilting—

Humming, she sat up again, pressing her eyes closed until the ground was beneath her again.

“Why are you calling me at two A.M., Dillon?” There was a smile in his voice, and she wondered what she’d said that was funny.

“I should have thanked you. Before. And I thought if you didn’t know that I apprep—appra—appreciated it, you wouldn’t come to the next one.”

“Yeah, I’ll be there.” She heard sheets rustling. “You tell me the time and place.”

“It’s in May, I think. I can look it up, hold on—”

“Later, Dillon.” He laughed. “So, did you and your aunt do anything fun?”