I huff a breath out, weirdly offended. I haven’t actually changed that much since then, I want to tell her. I think maybe that’s part of the problem.
“I mean, I got my period finally,” I inform her imperiously. “If that’s the kind of update you’re after.”
That makes her laugh—the kind of belly laugh that used to get us in trouble at sleepovers, one of her dads perpetually yelling up the stairs for us to pipe down and go to sleep. “Weirdo,” she says, but her tone makes it sound like an endearment, the kind of thing you’d say to someone you love. “I’m glad for you. Welcome to womanhood, et cetera.”
I snort. “Thank you.”
Carrie takes one last pull from her can and tugs it out of its koozie, hopping off her stool and holding the empty up in my direction. “I’m going to grab another,” she announces.
“Oh,” I say, trying to hide my disappointment. I have missed her, I realize suddenly. Maybe more than I ever let myself think about. “Okay.”
Carrie rolls her eyes, gesturing widely in the direction of the kitchen. “Do you want to come?”
“Me?” My head snaps back in her direction.
“No, the other lost-looking white girl at this party,” Carrie deadpans. “Yes, Rach. You.”
I smile sheepishly and follow her across the basement, watching as the Warcraft bros scoot out of her way without her even having to ask. She fishes two cans of Coors out of the fridge before digging another koozie out of a kitchen drawer and handing it over. It’s startling to me how comfortable they all seem to be here: draped over the sectional, sprawled out on the rug. The only person whose kitchen drawers I ever would have dug through were…
Well. Carrie’s.
She helps herself to a bag of Fritos before leading me through the sliding glass doors and out onto the patio, where a giant in-ground pool shimmers in the moonlight, the smell of warm grass and chlorine thick in the summer air. She sits down on a lounge chair, nodding with her chin at the one beside her as she cracks her beer and takes a sip.
“So you didn’t actually answer me,” she says once she’s swallowed, holding the bag of Fritos out in my direction. “About what you’re doing here, I mean. Not that I’m not glad you came—trust me, I get tired of seeing the same ugly faces every single weekend—but still.”
I shrug, running my thumb around the edge of my beer can instead of actually opening it. “Just…thought I’d try something new, I guess.”
“You hate new things, though.” Then she frowns and shakes her head, looking annoyed at herself. “Sorry. That was bitchy. Obviously people can change. You’re allowed to have changed.”
I smile. “That’s the thing, though: I haven’t really. I just…started thinking that maybe I’d like to? I don’t know. Anyway, Clayton invited me—”
Carrie looks at me sideways. “Clayton did?”
“Um, yeah,” I say, immediately regretting saying anything. Carrie and Bethany have been best friends since sophomore year. Already I’m imagining Carrie reporting this conversation back to her, the two of them doubled over laughing at how delusional I am. “I don’t actually think it was a real invitation, though. I think he kind of did it by accident.”
Carrie wrinkles her nose. “I doubt it,” she says, digging a handful of Fritos out of the bag. “Clay isn’t really the type to do anything by accident. He’s like you that way, actually.”
Before I can ask what she means, the patio doors slide open—Spencer and James and Trevor all spilling out into the yard, Ethan trailing them with a Bluetooth speaker in one hand. “This where the party is?” James calls, pulling off his T-shirt and sneakers. His back is so skinny I can see each individual knob of his spine.
“You know it,” Carrie says with a roll of her eyes. “We came out here specifically hoping you’d follow us and cause a commotion.”
James ignores her, cannonballing sloppily into the deep end. “You guys getting in?” he calls once he’s surfaced, spitting a long stream of water out like a fountain.
“No thank you,” Carrie says as the rest of them follow suit, shucking their shirts—and, in Trevor’s case, his shorts, revealing a pair of bright blue boxers printed with cartoon robots. It’s the most amount of boy skin I’ve seen in, well, ever, and I glance away, scratching at the back of my neck and trying not to stare. “Somehow the idea of stewing in a bunch of water that’s just been in your mouth is not that appealing to me.”
“Your loss, chica.” James floats on his back for a moment, his pale chest gleaming in the patio lights. “What about you, Rachel?” he asks, raising his eyebrows in my direction. “You coming?”
“Me?” I blink, surprised. It’s funny, I think, that apparently all I needed to remove my invisibility cloak was someone like Carrie sitting next to me. But I don’t have a suit with me, first of all, and even if I did…“I don’t think so.”
Carrie and I sit back in our lounge chairs and watch the boys splash around for a moment, an old Harry Styles song echoing out of the tinny speakers into the quiet night. Carrie takes a long sip of her beer, eyes my untouched can. “Tastes better cold, you know.”
“That is…what I hear.”
Carrie snorts. “You really haven’t changed, have you,” she says, a statement instead of a question. “Menstruation notwithstanding, obviously.”
“I mean, I also learned to drive a car.” I slip my sandals off and tuck my bare feet underneath me, not wanting to talk about myself anymore. “Not that I have one to drive, but. Theoretically.” Tricia and her friends have made their way out onto the patio by now, the whole party splashing around in the pool—that is, except Clayton and Bethany, who still haven’t made an appearance. I can’t help but wonder what exactly they’re doing in there, on the daybed alone where nobody can see. “So what are you up to this summer?” I ask.
Carrie shakes her head. “Nothing terribly exciting, I’m sorry to report. Answering phones at the gallery, biding my time until August. You?”
I shrug. “Swap paintings for pizzas, and pretty much exactly that.”
“Really?” Carrie raises her eyebrows. “You’re working at the restaurant? I would have thought you were headed off somewhere to cure cancer or, like, save the whales.”
“Oh, you’re hilarious.” I make a face.
Carrie grins. “At the very least I’m sure you’ve got work to do on your Fulbright application—”