Page 5 of The Glittering Edge

There’s a collectiveoooooh, and Naomi cranes her neck to see. That’s all Penny can handle. She pushes through the crowd of people hankering for her front row seat to the bloodshed, and she starts to feel claustrophobic between all the bodies. By the time she’s through, her heart is racing and she breaks into a run.

“Penz, wait!” Naomi calls as she reaches Penny’s side. Soon they’re in the woods, hopping over fallen tree branches and slipping on grass that’s damp with the day’s humidity. Penny’s cup is still in her hand and beer sloshes over her wrist. She dumps it on an unsuspecting weed and keeps running.

They reach Mrs. Salazar’s old Honda Civic, which Naomi parked too far into the grass. But it’s on the De Luca side of the street, and Alonso’s family couldn’t care less about their lawn. His old Victorian house is so dark it’s barely visible, while Corey’s house is lit up like a Christmas tree, all glass and stone and tasteful hedges.

“Seat belt,” Naomi says as she takes off, going from zero to forty a little too fast for a car from the early aughts. They stay quiet until they’re turning onto County Road 500 W, and then Naomi visibly relaxes.

“God,” Naomi mutters as she rolls down the window and turns upthe music, making the cup holders rattle with the bass. “Some things never change. Those two won’t stop fighting until one of them dies.”

“Yeah,” Penny mutters, but it doesn’t feel that simple. Because didn’t Corey and Alonso learn this hate from people much older than them?

Naomi squints into the darkness ahead. “Do you hear that?”

Red and blue lights appear, speeding toward them. A police car flies by, sirens shattering the steady silence of the countryside as it heads straight for the party.

“Hope somebody dumps the keg,” Naomi mutters.

The porch light is on when they pull up to Penny’s single-story house on Clancy Street. The outside air smells like smoke from the fireworks at Barrion Park, but inside, it smells like marzipan.

Penny and Naomi lock eyes. “Raspberry bars,” they whisper in unison.

They drop their shoes onto the pile by the front door and snag two raspberry bars from the kitchen before they tiptoe to Penny’s room. Even in the dark, they know to hop over the squeakiest floorboards as they creep down the hall past Penny’s mom’s bedroom. Anita Emberly gets up early to open her café, so she’s probably been asleep for hours.

“Roof?” Naomi asks when Penny shuts the door to her bedroom.

“Roof,” Penny agrees.

Getting onto the roof is second nature: crouch on the sill, grab the ledge, push yourself up. When they’re resting against the shingles, staring up at the moon and handing a flask back and forth, Naomi says, “So. Alonso was chatty.”

Penny grimaces. “You noticed.”

“A lot of people noticed.” She pauses. “Have you ever wondered if he… you know. Has a crush on you?”

Penny sits straight up, the flask almost flying off the roof.“What?”

“It was just a thought.”

“You’re definitely wrong.”

“Sure.”

“Sure?”

Naomi laughs. “Why are you freaking out? It’s not like it matters. You’re Team Corey.”

“I’m actually Team François.”

“Well, François is a fictional poltergeist onAmityville High—”

“Asexyfictional poltergeist,” Penny corrects.

“—and you’re a real girl. So that’s not going to work out.”

Penny takes a wistful swig from the flask. “I guess not.”

“What did Alonso want? You were talking for a while.”

Penny opens her mouth, but something stops her from sharing what Alonso said about the yearbook. Naomi will take it as evidence that Alonso has some weird crush on her. If Naomi had been in Penny’s place, she would’ve seen the anger in Alonso’s eyes, the superiority in the set of his shoulders. Alonso looks at Penny exactly the way he looks at everyone else: as beneath him. In the way. Disposable. Naomi wasn’t wrong; Penny is Team Corey, but only because Corey treats people like human beings.

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