Page 78 of Nobody in Particular

“That’s one way to shut these rumors down.”

I snort, and she throws an arm around my middle and squeezes. I wonder absently what I ever did to deserve someone so perfect. Certainly nothing in this lifetime.

Or perhaps that’s the point. She must be perfect, so when I lose her, it hurts as much as I deserve.

THIRTY-THREEDANNI

For Florence’s eighteenth birthday, she throws a house party at a rental only a fifteen-minute walk from Bramppath. We’re allowed to leave the grounds on weekends—as long as we’re back by curfew—if we have a permission slip. Only,everyoneis going—from Bramppath anyway, a bunch of the Ashford guys have a history practice exam on Monday they’re studying for—and I’m kind of worried Mom won’t sign my slip. Especially given that it has a paragraph warning everybody about the school’s zero-tolerance policy, which seems exactly like the kind of threat that might spook Mom into making me be the only student who skips the party. The only invited one, anyway. So, feeling like the worst daughter in the world, I sign it for her. I’d rather apologize later than be the only one in the whole grade stuck at school while everyone else is at Florence’s party.

My guilt is replaced by excitement by that Saturday night, though. And by the time Rose comes by my room to walk me over, after I wrap up piano practice early, I’m in a great mood. We sent Molly and Eleanor ahead without us so we could have a few minutes together on the walk over, before we have to split up. Even walking into the party together might get read wrong with the state of the rumors at the moment, and we can’t risk it.

I sit in my desk chair and grab one of my sneakers. “I’m almost ready,” I say. “I just have to get my shoes on.”

She saunters up, nods, then she kisses me until I drop my shoe to the ground. And for god’s sake, that one kiss is enough to quicken my breath and plant a needing heaviness in the pit of my gut. The ache is back, like it always seems to be these days, and I want her, even if it means we’ll be late. No, Ineedher to. It’s kind of ridiculous, isn’t it? I go my whole life without sex, and now it’s suddenly all I want to do? I’m better than that, aren’t I?

Nope, actually, I don’t think I am. It’sreallyhard for me to sound casual as I ask, “When did you tell the girls we’d meet them?”

She looks at me, and her eyes darken from light to forest green in an instant. “They can wait,” she says, getting to her knees as she runs a hand up my thigh. It drifts over the material of my jeans, skipping a little over the zipper and buttons, and then her skin meets mine, and I let my head fall back until it hits the top of the chair. I do my best to control my breathing—because for some reason, in that moment, it seems embarrassing how quickly she brought me from fine to definitely-not-fine—but then she cruelly stops there. I wait for her to keep going, but she doesn’t. She just waits, the pads of her fingers pressed just by my hip bones.

I’m shaking with the effort of reining myself in when I finally open my eyes and look down to find her looking smugly back up at me. She quirks an eyebrow in a silent question.

I hate her a little.

“Do you want to head to the party now?” she asks. “We’d get there on time.”

I shake my head.

“What was that?” she asks, and she is enjoying herself at my expense alittletoo much here.

“No,” I say grudgingly, and one corner of her mouth lifts into a crooked smile.

“No?” she repeats, and my hips buck weakly of their own accord as I seek out her hand. She holds it steady. Ihateher. “Is there something else you’d like to do?”

I open my mouth to answer, but even though my lips start to forma word, the only sound I manage to make is a clipped noise in the back of my throat. “Rose,” I force out.

“Danni.” She presses down firmly.

My breathing is past the point of control now. To my dismay, it comes out in a rasp, quick and shaky and frantic. I lift my hips one more time. “Please,” I say. “Please.”

And that, thank god, is finally enough for Rose. Silently, she moves her hand from my hip, rising off the ground as she does, and I take back everything I thought about hating her, before I stop thinking anything rational altogether.

We’re almost at the right street when Rose pauses, looking up at the moon. Her face goes weirdly dark, just for a second. We stand there for so long, Theodore almost catches up to us.

What’s upset her? It’s just the moon, as far as I can tell. It’s super pretty tonight, actually. It’s full, but that attention-seeking kind of full, where it sits really close to the horizon, and it’s more of a golden egg-yolk sort of color than its usual soft white.

“It’s a path light moon,” she says, and there’s something about the way she says it that makes it sound like the moon’s committed some sort of personal crime against her.

“A path light moon?” I repeat.

“Yes. That’s what Hennish people call it.” She tears her eyes away. “We won’t be able to spend much time together tonight, you know.”

I do know, obviously, but it’s still a stab in the gut. It’s not a rejection sort of feeling. Just, I guess, a sort of bitterness. Maybe a bit of anger. At the world, not Rose. Anger that it’s somehow more moral for me to be seen all day in public on a “date” with a guy I couldn’t care less about than to be caught spending thirty seconds with the girl I’m… I mean, the girl I really… like a lot.

“Got it,” I say.

“And make sure not to give me pining looks across the room,” Rose says. “As far as you’re concerned, I’m not even a little bit breathtakingly gorgeous. Now, I know that will bequitehard to pull off, but—”

“I don’t give you pining looks,” I interrupt her.

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