Page 53 of Foolish Games

“Nothing better than fucking, fighting, and going fast,” he says, cracking a grin as he stands and starts back toward the water. “That’s the official motto on my side of the tracks.”

When we dump the rocks onto the ground, the others whoop and come over, clearly more impressed with Sebastian’s idea than I was. Tony drops Lexi, and her feet plunge through the ice and into the water. She screams in shock as the icy water swallows her legs to the knees, but he just laughs and joins the others in grabbing up rocks. They all start hurling them at the thin ice, breaking holes in it and whooping at the satisfying sound of the ice cracking and the water splashing beneath.

I stand there, not sure if I should help Lexi or join the guys. Somehow, I manage to feel out of place and alone even as noise and chaos go on all around me. I don’t know how to be part of it, how to fit into Sebastian’s life. His friends are so different from mine. Even though all my friends before the breakup were Chaz’s friends, we had a lot in common. I’m not sure I have anything in common with these guys, and though I want to let the fun atmosphere swallow me like it has everyone else, like it did at the game, I don’t know how to fit in.

And for once, I want to.

sixteen

Vivienne Delacroix

“A pox on your penis!” Lexi curses, trying to slog out of the ice that keeps cracking when she steps on it. “I lost my boot, Tony. Get your ass over here and find it for me!”

“If you suck my dick,” he yells back, tossing at rock right next to her, so the icy water splashes onto the dry half of her jeans.

“Your dick comes near me, I’ll slice it off with a piece of ice,” she shouts, finally slipping and sliding her way onto the shore, jeans soaked to the knees and one boot missing.

The guys go scrambling back up the slope and into the woods to find more rocks. “You okay?” I ask Lexi.

“I’m going to find a stick and try to fish out my boot,” she says, limping toward the trees on the other side of the path from the guys.

I glance from her to the guys, then follow her since she’s going into the woods alone like a crazy person. I’m not quite reckless enough to join her, but I stand at the edge, where I can see her as she clambers over a fallen log and searches for a branch to break off. “You need any help?” I ask. “I can probably get one of the guys.”

“Nah,” she says, perching on the log and bending a small branch back, trying to tear it free. “This is what I get for hanging with them instead of my homegirls. Guys suck dirty ass. I don’t know why I bother.”

“Why do you?” I ask. “Are you and Tony a thing?”

“Fuck no,” she says. “He and Theo are the worst out of all of them. They think because they go to Willow Heights, their dicks are made of gold and FHS chicks should worship them, and they can’t stand it when we don’t. Like we don’t all know they got scholarships to go there in the first place.”

“Theo?” I ask, glancing at the bank. “Really? The skater boy?”

The guys have come back with rocks and are destroying the ice with relish. I’ve barely heard Tony’s friend say two words the few times we’ve hung out, though he’s chunking rocks with the rest of them.

“Oh, he’s a two-faced little bitch,” Lexi says. “Once you get to know him, he’ll let you see the other side, though I suggest not letting it get to that point. Don’t let the too-cool-to-care thing he’s got going on fool you. He may not play football like the rest of these guys, so he seems like a cute little oddball, but there’s a reason he hangs out with Tony and them.”

“So that thing you do with Tony isn’t flirting?”

“Fuck no,” she says. “Word of advice? Date them or don’t bother. They’ll never see you as a worthy human being if you’re not fucking them. Even then, you’re just a worthy piece of ass, not an actual person to them.”

“Then why do you hang out with them?”

“Eh, Billy’s like my brother,” she says. “And he’s always getting into something fun.”

I cross my arms and huddle down into my coat. “This is fun?”

Grinning, she holds up the stick in triumph at last. Then she jumps off the log and curses as her foot lands on something sharp. She hobbles out of the trees and hops on one foot, brushing off her sock. “You know, you ask a good question, my nerdy friend,” she says.

For about two seconds, I consider telling her my house is big enough that they could all come party there, where it’s warm. But looking down at the swimming hole where they’re carrying on like absolute heathens, I decide against it. My parents would kill me if they knew this is the new crowd I’ve started hanging with since Sebastian came along.

“We could go to a movie?” I suggest instead.

“I don’t got money for a movie,” Lexi says. “Besides, half these guys can’t sit still that long.”

“So, which ones are your friends?”

“Billy’s the only one I trust,” she says. “The rest will say you’re one of the guys, but that just means they manhandle you because you’re smaller and can’t defend yourself, make fun of you for not being able to drink as much as them, and then laugh at you for getting trashed if you prove them wrong. Oh, and then they probably try to fuck you if you pass out. So it’s good if you have a family member or boyfriend in the group who makes sure that doesn’t happen.”

“And here Sebastian was trying to convince me I was missing out by not hanging out with his friends.”

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