“Yeah”—he nods—“I had one too.”
“You did?”
“Yup.” Jeff takes another sip, which sends the signal for me to drink too. “But I didn’t do that Falter thing. That’s crazy. It’s a cool legend, but no, I’m too claustrophobic for that.”
“How’d you get it?”
Jeff shrugs. “I just got it one day. Woke up and everything had changed.”
“Damn.” I take a gulp of beer.
“Yeah, but I didn’t wait around for symptoms to really kick in. I had the exorcism two days after I started being haunted.”
Shit, makes me think about how long I’ve been holding that off.
“But I guess you’re planning on going through with it?”
Through with what? Do I play dumb? Do I actually know what he means?
Jeff’s like, “If you do, be ready, man. People do it but it’s basically like saying, ‘Yeah, I’m ready to die.’ Some people think it’ll make them transcendent. That there’s life beyond the body.”
“And what do you think?” I said that not because I want to know but because by asking that question, it’ll cause Jeff to carry the conversation, and I don’t have to say anything.
“Me? Well—”
But Jon-Jon interrupts us. Someone else, a girl named Melanie, wants to say hi to me.
Jeff shakes my hand. “Good luck with it. With all of it.”
“Yeah, thanks,” and then he’s gone, back into the crowd of the party.
Melanie smiles a lot and giggles. She asks me more about running than the demon. She says it’s really, really hot, a big turn-on, dangerous situations like that.
“Do you go to Meadows?” I ask her, just to change the conversation.
“I’m going next year.”
Her hand is on my leg. Oh, man…
“Next… year?”
“I’m almost done with eighth grade,” and then a giggle.
Oh god, hand off crotch now. Now, now, now. “Oh, cool,” I say.
She giggles, drinks more, and I want to ask her how she got into the party, but there are always ways. It’s not like there’s anyone paying much attention.
Thankfully this train wreck doesn’t last long.
Another group shows up and starts lecturing me on the ins and outs of demon hauntings. All sorts of stories about how demons can travel through time from one “unclean” place to the next. They talk about religious stuff, the fact that demons are from hell.
I don’t know much about it, but they are talking and I don’t have to really do anything but occasionally nod my head and say “Yeah.”
So it’s okay, but it’s also so absurd that this is happening.
That this is all happening.
After the group finishes, Jon-Jon sits down and asks me in that way he always does: “How much money do you think you made in the last hour, on a scale of one to ten, ten being raking it in like a fiend? What do you think?”
It’s hopefully enough to stop. I tell him, “Eight?”
Jon-Jon laughs, hands me a beer — not keg beer, but an actual bottle of IPA, some craft beer I don’t know. “You’re off the hook, friend.”
I stare at him. “So… I made money then?”
Jon-Jon tells me, “You’re off the hook. Debt paid. Next thing we do, you’ll be raking it in. But I got to take everything I’d give you as repayment and handling fees.”
“That’s bullshit.” Shouldn’t have said it but…
It’s okay because Jon-Jon just laughs it off. He must have made a lot. He’s happy. I haven’t really seen him like this before, all mellow and laughing, not playing up that crime lord crap.
I stand up and ask, “So I can go now?”
“Don’t forget your beer.” Jon-Jon hands me the bottle.
“Yeah, okay. Yeah,” I say. I sound drunk even though I’m not.
So I walk around the room once, determined to leave now, totally not digging this atmosphere; everyone’s trying so hard, you know? It just feels… wrong to be at a party like this, where everyone’s all about being amazing and dressed up and trying to get laid. It’s so much effort, for me it kind of takes it out of caring. I usually care. I’m here, aren’t I? I cared enough to make sure that they still notice me. Now I feel empty.
I really feel empty.
I just want to…
Oh.
“Hey,” I say, forgetting the concept of pickup lines.
Nikki Dillon walks up to me and hugs me like we’re dear old friends.
Of course Nikki Dillon is at a party like this. Of course.
“Hunter, so great to see you!”
It sounds so genuine it makes me blush. Probably doesn’t look like I’m blushing though, in this dark light, which is good, because I feel really nervous all of a sudden.
All of a sudden, it’s happening, what I could never bring myself to doing… talking to Nikki Dillon. No secret to anyone and I really don’t need to say it now, but here it goes: it’s no secret that she’s a longtime crush. I think she knows it as well, because in the past we’ve had too many encounters where we cross paths and exchange glances, do that thing that is everything about saying you’re interested but without actually putting yourself out there.
We do that stuff.
But now it’s finally happening.
She’s talking to me, doing all the work, and I don’t know what to say.
I don’t have to say anything.
I grin and forget everything.
She tells me, “You’re a hit.”
“I’m a… what?” Too nervous, and stupid, to think.
“Everyone loves you.” Nikki raises her eyebrows in a cute way as she brushes a strand of hair from her face. She does that so perfectly. I bet she practices these kinds of gestures in the mirror for hours.
“I guess so, yeah.” I laugh all nervously.
Stupid, so stupid.
Then she says something that I think she lifted from a romance film, or a spy thriller, or maybe I’m just thinking that she did.
“We keep trading looks. I feel like it’s time we trade numbers.”
That was so smooth I can die happy now.
And then we do. I trade numbers with Nikki Dillon.
Nikki hugs me again, plants a kiss on my right cheek, and says, “Call me.”
This party’s not so bad after all. But it’s peaked, it’s over.
I’m glad I’m here. I’m glad I showed up. I’m not going to think about how she’s into me maybe just because of the demon.
She’s always liked me.
That’s what I choose to believe.
But I get the hell out of the room, posthaste. It’s like if I stay there, everything will be second-guessed and ruined.
In the back of my mind, I’m thinking, “When is it time to trade photos of ourselves naked?” Then I hate myself for being an asshole. That’s something Brad would do.
I drive around aimlessly, up and down the neighborhood streets. I’m actually just happy, feeling like everything is perfect. Like life can be the shit sometimes.
I can’t believe it.
I drive for what feels like hours until she texts me.
She texts me.
I pull into the driveway, seeing that Dad’s home. I stay in the car and text her back. We have an entire conversation in text, with me sitting in the car, avoiding the fact that I’ll have to go back inside. I’ll have to face it. And every night it surprises me with something worse. I don’t want it to ruin this feeling.
So I think about this instead.
Reread every single line of the conversation we had because I can’t really believe it.
“Hey H.”
“Glad I bumped into you tonight.”
“Me too.” Winking smiley.
“You still there?”
“Left after the keg was tapped.”
“You up for something this weekend?”
“I’m up for anything.” Heart emoji.
“You up for something tomorrow night? 7ish?”