Page 1 of The Glass Girl

One

Ten, ten, ten, ten for everything

Everything, everything, everything

—Violent Femmes, “Kiss Off”

Friday

It’s like we’re playingspin the bottle, but without the actual bottle. I know exactly how it will go. The imaginary bottle will spin among us in a dizzying way and then slow, eventually pointing to me.

Cherie doesn’t want to be the one. She says she’s not good at it, even though she’s only done it twice. She says she doesn’t like the way people look at her.

Amber says forget it. Since she’s the only one with a car and a license, she drives and says that’s enough. If she has to stay sober, she shouldn’t be the one.I’m the ferry captain,she says.I’m navigating this drunken ship, so not me.She doesn’t like drinking, anyway. She tried it once and everything seemed okay; she was giggling along with the rest of us in Kristen’s room as we passed Dixie cups of crème de menthe around, but then she vomited in her lap. We had to undress her and put her in the shower, me volunteering to stand in there with her so she wouldn’t fall. I shampooed the chunks of vomit from the ends of her long hair as she cried. It’s a good thing Kristen’s mom was at her boyfriend’s for the night. We found the crème de menthe on the very top shelf of a kitchen cabinet, the bottle dusty from neglect. It looked and smelled candyish, so we tried it. We were thirteen; what kid doesn’t like candy? Anyway, that was the first and only time for Amber.

Kristen is pressed against the car door, pigtails with red bows fluttering in the wind drifting in the half-open window.

“Bella, you do it. You’re the best. You don’t care,” she says, waving her vape pen.

“That’s so disgusting,” Amber tells her. “Sincerely gross.”

“Everything is gross when you think about it,” Kristen replies. “Who cares?”

In the back seat, next to Cherie, I sigh.

The bottle has landed on me. What Kristen said is what everyone always says to me, for everything, in various versions:

Bella, you do it.

Bella, tell your sister it’s time to get off her tablet and come to dinner.

Bella, tell your father he’s late with the check again.

Bella, find out if that guy thinks I’m hot.

Bella, I didn’t read the book, tell me what happened so I can write this stupid friggin’ paper.

Bella, Bella, Bella.

I close my eyes. I wish I was alone, but I’m not allowed to be alone, after Dylan, and I know I should be grateful my friends are trying to take care of me, but sometimes I just want some peace and quiet, no noise, nothing. Just…nothing.

Sometimes it feels like I live in a pinball machine and I’m the scratched-up ball, being knocked from one nook to the next, lights blaring, bells ringing. I can never stop the game because Iamthe game.

Amber pulls up to the curb around the block from the store. Some of the red letters on the sign above the store have gone dark, so it readsL_ C_Y L_Q_ _R.

Lucky Liquor. Some of the older guys at school call it Lucy Licker.Me and Lucy Licker hung out last night.Explaining away puffy eyes, bad breath, as if anyone would actually care they werehungover. Honestly, no one ever cares what guys do. Only what girls do.

Everyone in the car is quiet, waiting for me.

I make them wait a few minutes longer, like I always do. This is our routine. It never changes.

If Kristen drives, she says she can’t do it. If Amber isn’t driving, she says it makes her feel weird and she doesn’t really like drinking anyway, so everyone forgives her. Cherie never does it anymore because a gross dude once grabbed the pocket of her hoodie and ripped it off. It’s round and round, all the time, spin the bottle. It doesn’t matter what we play: the pebble of our booze hopscotch always lands on me.

It lands on me because they know I’ll do it.

Bella is always up for adventure. Bella will do it. Bella is good at it. Bella will come through. Bella, come on.

Kristen and Cherie hold out their money and I listen to them breathe. Amber’s eyes are turned to the left, toward the darkness outside the driver’s-side window, so I can’t see them in the rearview. I think she’s mad, but she won’t say it out loud.

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