The Creeping

Zoey’s on the opposite side of the bonfire, standing on a folding chair, surrounded by guys. She’s a queen addressing her subjects from a pedestal. One after another each boy in the crowd takes a shot of something clear, and Zoey knocks her own head back, lips suctioned suggestively around a bottle of booze. I catch her unfocused eye, and she beckons me over with a roundabout, inebriated wave. I motion for her to wait. So that’s how the night will end. Zoey will outdance, outflirt, and outplay everyone. I’ll have to drag her away from the party. What’s new? At least I won’t have to hold her pixie hair back when she hurls in the parking lot.

I make a beeline toward the crowd of dancers. I start searching for him before I even admit to myself who I’m looking for. I crane my neck and stand on my tiptoes, straining to glimpse Sam. This foul taste in my mouth isn’t going away until I apologize. If I can just tell him that I only said what I said because of Janey and Kate. He has to understand how it is.

Even though the shore is wide and long, my classmates are squished and sandwiched into one another, like invisible walls are pressing them together. His being on the dance floor is a long shot, and I’m not surprised that my search comes up empty. Small bunches of teenagers clot around the bonfire, but he’s not with any of them. Maybe I should yell his name? No, my voice won’t travel over the blaring music. And that would really get people talking about us.

There’s a group of twitchy-looking boys about ten yards removed from everyone else. While the rest of my classmates are half-nude, these boys are in glasses and long sleeves; beads of sweat clinging to their temples. They’re like the boys who wear T-shirts at the public swimming pool to hide their concave chests. One is actually sporting a sweater-vest—the kind with wooden buttons my father wears. I sidle up to them. I don’t mean any offense, but they are the only guys present who look like they’re friends with Sam. Four moon-shaped faces—three with acne and a fourth with sideburns that defy my understanding of how facial hair grows—gawk at me. The boy nearest actually scurries back, giving the impression of a shivering daddy longlegs, dodging my tennis shoe’s sole. “Are you here with Sam Worth?” I shout to be heard over the music. “SAM. WORTH. Have you seen him?”

“He left with Anna Young,” Sweater-Vest pipes up, brazenly holding my eye contact while his friends stare at their shoes.

I want to ask, Who the hell is she? But in my head it sounds more scorned than it should. I flash an awkward smile and mumble, “Okay,” and shuffle away from social Siberia. I fumble through my bag for my cell. A text to him will be better than nothing. Before my fingers can jab the touch screen, someone yanks on my arm, tugging me around to face them.

“Omigosh, you have freakish drunk strength,” I gasp at Zoey, rubbing my arm where her fingers dug into my skin. Her hair is disheveled, and a mist of sweat shines on her chest. She’s still wearing her bikini, and I feel an overwhelming urge to drape the hoodie I keep in my purse over her. “What’s wrong? You look like a possessed pixie,” I shout over the music. She’s furiously chewing her bottom lip; her eyes are almost watering with concern. I can smell the vodka on her breath. In a flash Michaela is there, towing Cole by the hand. How on earth did Zoey get Michaela’s attention on the dance floor?

“You’re not going to believe who is back in town,” Zoey yells, placing both hands on my shoulders. I don’t know if she means to hold me up or steady herself. “Jeanie’s big brother.” Michaela gasps, and a few junior girls turn to watch us, obviously jealous of whatever drama we’re enduring. Zoey pivots to face Cole and zips through the details. “He’s a total psycho, went off his rocker after Jeanie disappeared. Their parents sent him to some reform thing, but when he came back in middle school, he basically stalked Stella. Then he got sent away again because her dad complained to the cops. The last time he came back he got some barista pregnant and ran away. He was watching us at the cove today.” I hear every one of Zoey’s words, but they’re difficult to process. Every little bit I make sense of, my brain rewinds, and I find myself unable to get over the fact that Zoey got Michaela’s attention in that crowd of grinding dancers.