It’s Friday night and Naomi and I are at Walker’s house because Walker is the only person we know with a pool and a hot tub. We’re sixteen with matching bikinis from Target and CVS-blonde hair and we’re both big-chested for our bodies, which means we’re invited over whenever we want and Hunter will always have free drugs for us because, as he says, I like giving drugs to pretty girls. Hunter has this black trench coat where when he holds it open you can see all the inside pockets full of weed and coke and stuff, like a dealer in an old noir. All the boys got their personalities from movies like Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill, so Naomi and I pretend to be movie girls for them and for us too. It makes us feel like the glitter inside a snow globe.
Most of my adopted friends aren’t white, but Walker is. From Russia or Romania or something. You can tell he’s adopted because he’s absolutely enormous, as wide as he is tall, and can pick up his tiny mom and dad with one arm each. He could have been adopted by anyone, but he got parents with a hot tub and a beach house and sparkling high pressure showerheads. Rich people always have exciting ways of experiencing water. Anyway, Walker knows how lucky he is, so he lets us party at his place. Naomi and I are from the opposite side of town, barely in the school district, so we’re always going out to watch other people’s cable, steal their shampoos, and ransack their pantries.
We’re neck-deep in the hot tub, me and Naomi, hiding our bodies under the water. We’ve both got hormonal acne on our shoulders, so we never let the boys get behind us when we’re in our bathing suits and we put our arms around each other to cover the marks. When we have sleepovers, we take turns squeezing each other’s zits and treating them with the fancy products Naomi’s older sister steals from Sephora, ointments that come with first and last names like Mario Badescu and Kate Sommerville. Naomi is the only person I’m comfortable around without makeup because we both have bad skin. I could never be best friends with a girl who had perfect skin unless she was wicked ugly or something. But even then. It can be hard to even look at someone who has something you don’t.
Tonight at Walker’s, there’s me, Naomi, Ryan, and Hunter, who ordered a fresh box of whippets from some sketchy company in Florida, so we’re passing around the dispenser and inhaling. I like nitrous better than other drugs because it’s simple to use and fun to collect the cartridges once they’re kicked. I like the sound of them clinking in my pockets. They’re made of shiny metal, like little silver bullets. Hunter takes a long pull, then gives the dispenser a firm shake and holds it up to my mouth.
“I got you,” he says, pressing his index finger against the plastic lever. “Just breathe in.”
I lean in to inhale and Naomi squeezes my hand. Something blooms in my skull, filling up all the empty space. I want this feeling forever, but it only lasts a few seconds, so I take another hit. When I open my mouth to laugh, my voice sounds slow and heavy like a boy’s. I laugh again, hovering outside myself. Hunter smiles and extends the dispenser to Naomi, who drops my hand.
Empty capsules pile around the hot tub. Looking at them makes me feel kind of sick. Naomi floats in my lap, chatting with Hunter and Walker, my arms around her stomach. She’s only 4’11” so she’s always sitting on people’s laps or up on their shoulders. She’s the kind of person people used to call fun-sized back in like 2008 when everything was random XD. The boys think it’s cute and like to carry her around and play catch with her in the pool. I’m tall, which means no one plays catch with me, even though I don’t weigh much. I don’t mind her getting the attention, though. She always shines it back on me.
Naomi leans back against my chest and rests her head on my shoulder.
“Nitrous makes me feel like a le-e-e-sbian,” she giggles in my ear.
I know what she means. It’s like the Chekhov’s gun of pretending to be movie girls. When you’re a pretty girl in a movie you have to kiss someone. It’d be weird if we kissed any of the boys, so we kiss each other and let them watch. It feels good to leave them out, like we’re the only ones in on the joke. Still, without them it wouldn’t happen. Without them there’s no party or hot tub or audience. No excuse.
I pull her chin toward mine. Ryan lets out a low whistle.
The boys are all Year of the Dog and sometimes they really act like it. They follow us around, watching and wanting. Naomi and I are rats. We googled it once and apparently it means we are ambitious, charming and—when it comes to money—complete psychos. We’re into all that stuff: Chinese zodiac, horoscopes, Myers-Briggs, What-Movie-Character-Are-You. It helps to draw lines between people, to find out where they split.
“It’s a real party now,” Ryan says, laughing. He can act like a jerk, but he’s probably the nicest one of us all. Last year, he brought over a home-cooked meal for my family when my dad got in a motorcycle accident. There was a get-well card and everything. I never told anyone about it. If he wants people to think he’s an asshole, that’s his business. Still, ever since then, I’ve been extra aware of his presence. Even when I’m not looking at him, I know where he is in a room.
Ryan whistles again. I give him the finger without opening my eyes. Naomi traces my teeth with her tongue.
“I Kissed a Girl” by Katy Perry came out when I was still in middle school. Before then, it had never occurred to me that a girl could kiss another girl. I remember going to Wildwood over summer break and listening to it on the iPod Classic I’d painted cherry red with nail polish because they didn’t come in different colors back then. I replayed the song over and over while I burned up on the beach, watching the boardwalk girls with their perfect stomachs and push-up bikinis from Victoria’s Secret. I couldn’t take my eyes off them and told myself it was just jealousy. Either you were a lesbian or you were normal, and I was normal.
Katy Perry said it felt so wrong, it felt so right, but I don’t feel much of anything kissing Naomi. Instead, I imagine the image of us kissing, like I’m taking a picture with my phone. I imagine it in a grid next to other photos, airbrushed and edited. I imagine it as a black and white post on Tumblr with thousands of notes and reblogs. I imagine it glowing blue on a glass screen under a stranger’s thumb, double tapped.
***
The boys want to drink strawberry lemonade flavored Svedka and watch a movie called In Bruges, which sounds like something they’d make us watch in history class. Naomi and I complain, but we follow them out of the hot tub and through the sliding glass door, dripping water on Walker’s hardwood floors. The boys outnumber us, so they usually get their way. Naomi throws a baggy t-shirt on over her bikini and gets to work tugging her long, tangled hair into a messy braid. She looks effortless in everything she wears, like she’s not even thinking about it. Even her acne looks effortless; she never tries to cover it up. It’s like little red freckles. It makes her look real.
In the bathroom, I change out of my bathing suit and into a brown tank top from Urban Outfitters and silk pajama shorts that give me a wedgie but make my butt look nicer than it is. I drag a comb through my hair and scrunch it in my fists, trying to make beach waves, which I read about in Teen Vogue. I squeeze the dredges of my L’Oréal concealer―a gift from Naomi’s sister―onto the tip of my finger and pat the cream over the red marks along my jawline. Then I flush the toilet and run the faucet for a few seconds.
Back in the living room, I curl up on the carpet next to Ryan and Naomi, wrapping a blanket around my shoulders. Walker’s searching for the DVD and the boys are talking about curb stomping while Naomi scrolls through Instagram, frowning. I try to get a glimpse of her feed, but she tilts the phone away from me.
“What’s that?” I ask. “Curb stomping?”
Ryan gives me a nervous look. Hunter laughs.
“Uh, it’s hard to explain.”
Naomi doesn’t look up. She knows what curb stomping is, I can tell. She’s got two older siblings, which means nothing ever surprises her. I don’t have any brothers or sisters, so I learn everything from her.
“Ta da,” says Hunter, producing a large pink bottle from his backpack. “Got this from the 40 Spot.”
The 40 Spot is a beer shop on Broad Street with bulletproof windows and no sign outside. It’s not the actual name, but that’s what we call it. The Chinese immigrants who run the place don’t seem to care about the legal drinking age and never card anyone. Mostly, they sell 40s and Mike’s Hard, but sometimes they’ll have a bottle of vodka or something. If you’re a girl and young-looking, they give you a Laffy Taffy or lollipop with your order, which is creepy and sweet at the same time. Going to the 40 Spot is a project, because it’s in a sketchy area and cops like to hang out nearby. You park outside and the tallest member of the group has to go in and buy as many drinks as they can carry in their arms, then you speed the hell out of there with the bottles clanking around in the trunk. It’s a real risk, so whoever goes is treated like a hero.
Everyone applauds Hunter and takes turns swigging liquor. I don’t really like vodka, but I know not to be dramatic about the taste. Anyway, the pink lemonade tastes way better than the cheesecake flavored one I had on New Year’s, so it goes down easier than expected. We feel like a big family, a wolf pack sprawled on blankets across the floor, all drinking from the same bottle. I’m almost buzzed enough to start telling everyone how much I love them, but then Walker finds the DVD and turns off the lights. I google curb stomping under the blanket as he fast-forwards through the trailers and the loving feeling goes cold.
Naomi’s squished between Ryan and I, resting her head on his shoulder. It’s always Naomi in the middle. I don’t think she even knows she’s doing it. When we all go to the movies, I always end up at the end of the row no matter how I try to time it. I just wish she wouldn’t with Ryan. I haven’t told her how I feel about him. I’m afraid that if I do, she’ll start to see him that way too. If she does, I’ll lose both of them.
I stare at the TV, trying to ignore the jealous feeling. The movie isn’t so bad. It’s got Mad-Eye Moody from Harry Potter and some guy with sincere eyebrows, and they have Irish accents or something. Bruges looks like one of those little picturesque towns on a toy train set, fake snow and all. When I glance back at Ryan and Naomi, her head hasn’t left his shoulder and her eyes are half shut. She’s still a movie girl, floating in her own personal snow globe. I’m somewhere behind the glass now, watching the glitter fall down on only her.
The movie progresses like most do, with guns and tears and hot women and betrayal. Mad-Eye Moody jumps from the top of a belltower to save the eyebrows man and his body splashes on the cobblestone street. I touch a finger to my cheek and realize that I am crying. Walker ejects the DVD the second the credits start to roll. We’re the only ones who made it through the whole movie. Everyone else is passed out on the floor. He nods at me without expression, then steps over Hunter’s sleeping body and heads upstairs to sleep in his room.
***
It’s light out when I wake: 4:03 a.m., according to my phone. Hunter’s snores fill the whole room, and I think about recording the sound on Voice Memos so we can laugh at it later. I prop myself up on my elbows and immediately feel sick. I glance around the pale gray of the room for Naomi. I don’t want to throw up alone. She’s always the one who pulls my hair back and rubs my shoulders when I drink too much. There’s a lumpy pile of blankets on the floor where she and Ryan fell asleep, but I can’t find the outline of their bodies.
I grope my way toward the bathroom, gritting my teeth against a wave of nausea. I shine the flashlight on my phone and it beams off the glass sliding doors that lead to the deck. The doors are open a crack. I reach to slide them shut and hear what sounds like laughter outside. Then I see it.
Naomi and Ryan in the hot tub, wrapped around each other like eels, skin glowing the way it does at night, liquidy and low. Naomi kissing Ryan like something realer than a movie, something you can only see in a memory, never on a screen. Naomi kissing Ryan with no audience or excuse, kissing just to kiss. I stand there frozen, staring at them through the door. I lift my phone and press the camera icon, capturing them in the glass, where they become unreal, just two drunk teenagers trapped in a photo, and another, another, another. I press the big white button again and again, unable to stop my shaking thumb. I open Instagram and post one of the photos, no edits or caption or tags. Then I slide the door closed, run to the bathroom, and throw up pink liquid. I take a picture of that, too.
***
By noon, the post has twelve likes, plus one from Naomi. She and Ryan left early in the morning without offering me a ride, even though we all drove to Walker’s together. Naomi liked the post but didn’t text me about it or accuse me of being weird. Maybe she likes being photographed and shared. Maybe it makes her feel like a real movie girl, someone worth watching. Or maybe she doesn’t feel anything at all.
Hunter gives me a ride home when he finally wakes up. I like giving rides to pretty girls. I think about flirting back but can’t find the energy. I lean against the window of the car, staring down at my phone. I open Instagram to check the post for new likes or comments and notice something I didn’t see last night when I took the photos. In the corner of the picture, reflected in the glass of the sliding doors, is me.
“Why’d you post that, anyway?” Hunter wraps his arm around the back of my seat. I press the side button on my phone and the screen goes black.
“I thought they looked cool,” I say. “The light…”
“I don’t know. I guess it’s fine if Naomi doesn’t mind. Just makes you look like a rat, sort of.”
“She wouldn’t have liked it if she didn’t like it.”
“Yeah?”
I don’t know what to say, so I don’t say anything. The boys always side with Naomi. Hunter cranks the radio up and it’s Katy Perry, singing about teenage dreams. She doesn’t sing about kissing girls these days. She doesn’t need to anymore.
I first learned the story of the Chinese zodiac in fourth grade, from a manga called Fruits Basket. I learned how, long ago, the Jade Emperor held a race to choose twelve animals to be his guards, the fastest of which would rank the highest. Rat saw Ox crossing the river, jumped into his ear, leapt out when Ox reached the palace, and then scurried over to the emperor’s feet, winning the race. That’s why the rat comes first. I’m proud to be a rat. The stories make him out to be a cheat, but I don’t think so. I think he knew what it’s like out there and did something about it. I think he just didn’t want to get left behind.