Second Helpings_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [82]
11:03 P.M. I look at my watch and all of sudden I remember something very significant: Hope moved to Tennessee exactly two years ago. Seven hundred and thirty days have gone by and I’m no better now than I was one minute after her car pulled out of the driveway. Wherever she is ringing in the New Year, she is surely having more fun than I am.
11:04 P.M. I am totally, completely, irreversibly alone. 11:05 P.M. I wander around the party—sticky with beer, sweat, and sexual tension—and somehow end up next to Scotty, who is ignoring his girlfriend’s hobagity display.
11:15-ish P.M. I ask Scotty how he’s doing and he responds by wrapping his arms around me and telling me that he loves me, and he loves everyone, even Marcus and the rest of the band, which he has decided doesn’t suck after all even though he really loves this Gorrilaz song that is now vibing through the speakers, spreading its happiness and gladness and sunshine-in-a-bagness. But what he would really, really love more than anything is if I danced with him. I ask him what he’s on, even though I already know. Only Ecstasy could reverse Scotty’s testosterrific rage in just under a half hour. I look over toward the stage and see Manda pushing up on Marcus while Len looks on. Scotty’s eyes are closed and his mouth is open as if to say, “Ahhhhhhh . . .” I want to feel as mellow and untroubled as he looks. I’ve never tried any illicit drugs before. What Would Jenn Do? I’m useless but not for long. This could be the night for my sole experimentation, the harmless one I get out of the way so I can say, “Yes, I’ve tried it, but I didn’t like it,” when asked next year at college. What Would Jenn Do? Trying something once does not make me Heath or Marcus or Robert Downey, Jr. It does not make me a bad person. It does not make me a weak-minded individual who gives into peer pressure to fit in, because I am not giving into peer pressure. I am giving into me-pressure, the only kind that can squeeze my brain like an orange juicer and leave nothing but a pulpy mess behind. What Would Jenn Do? E kills memory, and I sort of hope that it will help me forget about last New Year’s Eve, even though I know the memory loss is really more of a long-term effect and not a one-time-user effect. What Would Jenn Do? I ask Scotty if he has any more and he beams. I ask him if he is willing to share the love and his mouth explodes with pearly-white pleasure. He doesn’t balk, even though it’s me, Jessica Darling, textbook goody-goody and Class Brainiac asking him to help me do something very unlike the me everyone thinks I am, myself included. He hands me a pill with a Nike swoosh. Just Do It. And I do what Jenn would do. I wash it down with beer. I wait. The future is coming on . . .
11-whoknowswhat P.M. I am enamored with my sweater. I can’t stop stroking my arms, it feels so soft and warm and good. So good. I feel the music more than I hear it, each note singing and zinging through my body. My eyes feel fizzy like two flutes of champagne, yet colors are clearer and everything seems sharper, like the edges have been outlined in Magic Marker, then filled in with colored pencil. I look at Scotty and thank him for sharing this gift with me. He hugs me and his body is warm and so is mine and even his sweat smells clean, like nature and grass and fresh mud, and it mixes with my sweat and we’re now bonded on a molecular level and I think about how deep that is and he’s telling me that he loves me, he’s always loved me, and I place my hands on either side of his superhero jaw, then start stoking his sideburns and tell him I miss the friend he used to be to me and I say, “Oh Scotty,” even though no one calls him Scotty anymore, everyone calls him Scott because it’s more manly, but he says he likes hearing me say his name like that because it’s been such a long time since I’ve said anything to him and I almost want to cry I’m so happy to be there with him and I think about how the tears