Page 43 of Secondhand Smoke
“Too bad.” Toni shook his head with the glass up to his smirk. “You could have sung with Barrett.”
Nell caught the way Toni raised his eyebrow at Barrett, suggesting something that Nell wasn’t close enough to interpret. She’d done the same thing with her friends. She’d been able to have entire conversations with them across classrooms through looks alone.
She missed that connection. No one else in her life now came close to it.
The way they would laugh without any words or tell secrets without a whisper . . .
She quickly filled the emptiness left behind by the memories with the bitter drink, which was distasteful but more palatable than the harder liquors she’d been sticking to these days. Combined with the cigarette, it had a soothing sensation she rarely got from either substance lately.
Barrett responded to Toni with a nearly imperceptible narrowing of his eyes before following Nell’s lead and taking a long chug.
Dennis was bugging Paulie about something he’d done during one song or another—rock jargon she couldn’t quiteunderstand—but she was perfectly content with sitting back and watching them interact.
She’d lived the past months something like an onlooker on the others around her. Rarely had she been expected to, or wanted to, engage anymore, so watching the boys talk about topics that didn’t relate to her had become second nature. A comfortable, familiar friend.
What wasn’t familiar was when they would turn to her suddenly, with a new drink that one or the other had ordered, and ask her questions about herself. Everyone else in that town already assumed they knew everything there was to know about Janelle Duncan.
It was nice, she thought, to finally be around people who pretended to know nothing.
* * *
“Another round on me,” Toni said, his speech slurring now after several rounds already.
Nell, who wasn’t far off from him, laughed at some joke Dennis made about the way Mr. Minster from school always wore his pants up his crack, and she found herself leaning against Barrett in his chair as she did. She realized what she was doing when his body tensed against her, and she at least had enough sense to push up off him and pull away.
“Sorry.” She giggled, that drunken happy bubble still lifting her above reality.
Being drunk with them was much more fun than being drunk in her bedroom or on the ground outside her window.
Barrett made a noncommittal hum and looked away. He and Dennis were the only ones still speaking straight, sticking more to the tray of french fries and onion dip they’d ordered.
She scanned the people around, freely watching them engage in conversations or chug a beer or dance to whatever was playing from the jukebox or just laugh with their friends. This was why she liked watching so much. She liked to see people who were living.
Her eyes jumped to a neighboring table and were immediately caught by another pair—blue, alert, and devastatingly hateful.
She grew up seeing those eyes, the exact same as Sam’s, but on another face.
That oblivious bubble she was floating up in popped, and Nell’s stomach flew into her throat as she crashed back to earth. The blast of reality was debilitating, sending her back with a jolt.
His blond hair was slicked back, his face dark as his hand clutched a glass with white knuckles.
How long had he sat there watching her?
What had he thought when he saw her laughing and drinking and enjoying her time when it was her fault that his sister was dead?
All the alcohol reversed. She had seconds to get up and run to the ladies’ room. She heard her name behind her, and though it could be coming from anyone, terrified chills ran up her arms.
Bending over the only open toilet, she emptied her stomach into the bowl.
She heaved over and over until nothing came out, leaving her head aching and her throat raw and stinging.
She sat there for what felt like hours until she heard the door open and footsteps enter. They stopped right behind her, and she looked over her shoulder through blurry, watery eyes that struggled to make the person out until she blinked.
She started when she saw Barrett standing there, his brows furrowed.
“You okay?”
“I need to go.” Her voice was hoarse.
