It doesn’t happen.

When she finally acknowledges my presence she says, “There’s a message on the answering machine.”

“So?”

“So listen to it.”

I walk over to the phone and press the play button. It doesn’t occur to me that I should prepare myself for what I’m about to hear, even though Beth is the one who told me about it. Half of me is thinking maybe it’s Culler. I don’t know why. It’s not.

“Uhm, hello Reeves family! This is Maggie Gibbard, at the studio. We have some things of Seth’s here that we think you might want to come down and get … as soon as possible. It’s just, we’re in the process of renting the space again and we don’t want anything lost in the shuffle. Also, we’ll need the key back. Okay, please call us so we can figure this out. Thanks.”

I stare at it.

“I don’t think,” Beth says carefully, pouring the green smoothie into a very tall glass, “your mother needs to hear that.”

I’m going to pretend I don’t know what’s coming next.

“You could get down to Delaney, couldn’t you? Milo could drive you or something? Get his things, return the key, drive back…”

Before I can tell Beth exactly what I think of that idea, Mom comes into the room. In Dad’s housecoat. Her lips are a thin line on her pale face and her eyes are as sad as they always are. She’s back to being a zombie. Beth hands her the green drink and gives me a look.

I delete the message from the answering machine.

Deacon Hunt is staring at me from his side of the room. His right hand is resting over his crotch and he’s pressing down hard and kneading it with his fingers and acting like no one else can see him doing it, and I really wish I were making this up.

This is a party.

I don’t like parties. Milo doesn’t even really like parties. But when Missy said Deacon Hunt invited her to a party, it was only natural that she would drag Milo to it and, I guess, only natural that he would drag me. It’s not natural that I would let him, but now that I share a living space with Beth, I can’t be really picky about what gets me out of the house.

Anyway, Missy is in her element. She was born to party. Being here makes her happy.

This wasted Friday night makes her happy.

She’s dancing with Milo. Grinding with him.

Deacon Hunt lives in a musty old retro farmhouse and I’m sitting on a grandma-style couch in the corner. It’s weirdly soft, like velveteen, and it’s striped orange and gold. It’s next to a grandma-style floor lamp with plastic crystals lining the outside of the shade.

This is so lame.

After a while, Milo extricates himself from Missy, or she gets pulled away by yet another old friend who thinks it’s so awesome she’s back and by the way, she looks fucking hot!

“Do you want to leave?” Milo asks, sitting next to me.

“God no,” I lie. “I’m having a great time.”

And I can’t make Missy leave before she’s ready. We sit there watching her free-float, and I feel lonely. After a while, I lose sight of her movie-star frame and bleached-out hair and watch the minute hand on the grandfather clock in the corner move forward. I glance across the room and Deacon is still massaging his crotch.

“Deacon’s hand has been on his dick and balls all night.”

“He’s wasted.” Milo grins and I realize how long it’s been since he’s actually really smiled at me and that makes me feel worse, but good. But worse.

“Hey, Eddie. Hey, Milo.”

Jenna Trudeau nods at us as she passes. I wave at her and then I realize something else: everyone here is talking about Missy’s return, but no one here has said one thing about my father being dead. Even though it’s nice not to talk about it, I think that makes these people assholes. I go to school with assholes. What kind of people wouldn’t ask me about my dead father? Assholes.

After a while, Missy comes back, sparkling sweat.

“They’re going swimming,” she says. “Down at the lake. Clothing optional.”

“Wow,” I say.

Milo holds up his hand. “I’ll pass.”

“Oh, come on.”

She grabs our hands and tries to pull us up. I think I hate her. And then I feel bad for thinking that because Missy has a huge heart that’s open to everything. She’s not cynical.

That should be a beautiful thing.

“Please?” she whines. “I’m not going without you.”

Milo glances at me. He waits for me to say it.

“Okay, sure.” I sigh. “Whatever.”

She squeals and grabs my hand. Grabs Milo’s. Her palm is warm and alive and I let her lead me out of the house, into a pack of semi-sober almost-seniors who want to take it all off and get all wet, and there are so many reasons this is a bad idea, but I’m not here to save anyone’s life. Milo is beside me. I can’t tell if he’s into this or not. I can’t read him around Missy. She finally lets go of my hand, but stays holding on to his. I look around. There’s about ten of us. The night air is sticky and smells swampy even though we’re nowhere near a swamp.

Aaron Romero bounds up beside me.

“Getting naked, Reeves? Vinton?”

She laughs and I roll my eyes. “You wish.”

“Of course I do. That’s why I asked.”

“I could get naked,” Missy says. “Are you, Aaron?”

“I hope not,” Milo says.

“Hey, fuck you, man,” Aaron says. He trips over a rock and does a face-plant. Milo laughs and we move past Aaron, trudging farther and farther away from the house, down the road, eventually turning onto the trail that leads to Orbison Lake.

As soon as everyone sees the water, they turn into lemmings, rushing at it, laughing, whooping. Clothes go flying. I glimpse Missy’s perfect ass and her perfect breasts before she disappears into the lake with the rest of them, having the time of her life.

“Weird,” Milo says as soon as we’re alone.

“What?” I ask.

“We’ll have seen most of our senior class naked before school even starts.”

I can’t help but laugh. “Yeah.”

Milo smiles at me again. I smile back and I get a weird feeling in my stomach. A smile and a laugh. These things feel wrong in their rightness. Distant splashing noises reach my ear. I look up. The sky is a black pool of ink, dotted with stars that look like they know where they’re supposed to be. It makes me sort of dizzy.

I lose my footing and bring my heel down on the toe of Milo’s shoe.

“Be careful.” He steps back.

“What would you do if I died?” I ask.

“Where the fuck did that come from?”

I shrug. “I just want to know. Have you ever thought about it?”

I glance at him. He’s staring at the ground, like he’s spacing out. He stays like that for so long, I think I’ll have to wave my hand in front of his face to bring him back, but I don’t.

“No,” he finally says. “I haven’t thought about it.”

“So think about it now.”

“Stop it.”

Moonlight is cast across the floating heads in the lake and there’s nothing truly interesting about it. Missy swims next to Dale Mugford.

“Is that what you like?” I ask Milo.

“What?”

I point in Missy’s direction. “That’s what you like.”

He doesn’t say anything. I kick a little dirt at him and take my sandals off, curling my toes into the grit and grass that bleed down into a dirty bank that turns into the water. I should go in. I imagine myself swimming, all my clothes on and how heavy they’d feel. I imagine diving under, swimming down, down, down with my eyes open and not being able to see anything in front of me. Not even my hands. I imagine forcing myself farther down, until I feel weeds everywhere, brushing the sides of my arms, my feet, and then I’m surrounded. Tangled up in them so bad the lake would have me forever. I imagine drowning and what that would feel like, if I’d be scared. If I’d let it happen or if I’d fight it. I read in a book once you can’t drown yourself. Your body will fight to survive, whether you want to or not.

But I don’t think it’s the same when you jump.

* * *

Aaron gets a bonfire going after the lake and by that time the crowd has thinned. It’s me, Missy, Milo, Deacon, Aaron, Jenna, Mary Lennon, and Jeff Kingsley. Missy and Milo sit next to each other, so I sit on the other side of the fire and watch them touch shoulders through the flames because it’s more dramatic that way.

I wonder if they’ve had sex yet.

Milo would die if he knew I thought that. Now and before. I thought about him and Missy having sex every single minute they were together the first time around, but not jealously. I am jealous of Missy in some ways, but not in that way. I just wonder about it. Imagine it. It might be weird, but it’s not jealous. I think it’s because I always thought Milo and I would be each other’s first time. I secretly wanted it. I wanted us to be clumsy and bad and awkward with each other first, practice until we got crazy good, and then we’d stop and go find other people to impress in bed. Or whatever. But his first time ended up being with Missy and my legs never opened for anyone, which in Branford is probably not a bad thing.

“Yo, Eddie,” Jeff says. I look up. He tosses a can of beer at me. I pull the tab and take a gulp. I don’t like the taste of beer, but there are worse ways to be a follower, I guess.

“You know, this time next year we’ll be getting ready to leave,” Jenna says loudly enough to silence everyone around her. “One more year at BHS and then grad.”

“Don’t say that,” Missy says.

“Do you like Pikesville High?” Milo asks her.

“It’s nice. I’ve met some really great people. I have friends,” she says. “But I don’t know, being back here … I just miss you guys … a lot.”