Starlight Party

Billie and I make a fire in the forest and it's amazing. The flames shoot up up up into the sky, almost touching those little stars up there—so far away.

My face is warm in the glow of the bonfire, but Billie's just shadows. She disappears into the treehouse, a papery silhouette against the midnight skyline.

When she's outside again, there's a crowd. She shoves jugs of Vietnamese milk coffee into someone's hand and it vanishes amid the group. Suddenly, there are paper cups all around and fleece blankets on the mud, and people are laying on their backs and looking up at the stars that are more cloud than stars. The night is frigid and burns my fingertips, so I sit by the bonfire, hands against the flames. The log beneath my butt rotten and floating in the mud. Billie's beside me, drinking coffee out of a glass that smells like vodka. She looks up into the blue for a bit.

"Isn't it beautiful?" The moon, a hard globe nestled amid the stars, shines white in the black of her eyes. She's mesmerized.

I shrug, rubbing my palms together. All I can think about is the cold seeping into my skin from under my hoody and the rash that's forming on my legs from this rotten log.

She frowns. It's so delicate that it morphs into something almost hostile. She smiles. "Are you cold?" she asks, taking my hands in hers. She's arctic.

I nod. She holds my hands to the fire, fingers tight around my wrists. Bruising. I pull back a bit, but she catches me, dipping my fingertips into the flames. It feels like nothing for a moment. But, then she pulls away and the wind catches my raw fingertips. I hiss, hiding my hands between my thighs. They burn and burn and burn. And it's all I can think about.

She giggles, kissing my cheek lightly. "I'm sorry," she teases. My throat feels tight.

Her blue hair is airborne in the wind, splintering golden against the fire. She's an orb of blue light just above my reach. Then she's gone, disappearing into the crowd.

I sit there, watching the flames die, wanting to go home, but not knowing my way around this forest at night. Smoke burst out of the fire, bubbling up into the sky, forming a part of the clouds.

"Hey." A boy sits beside me, barely fitting on the log. His face is sharp and shadowy when the fire illuminates him. He's not drinking Billie's stupid coffee punch. He doesn't smell like vodka. Instead, he smells like wet sand after rain. "I'm Shay."

He's waving at me and I'm staring at him. I can't decide if I'm allowed to talk.

"I see," he says, holding his hands to the fire. They're warm because they've been in his pockets all this time, but it's a habit. "You're not enjoying the party. Are you?"

"I thought we were stargazing," I say without realizing.

He smiles. A cute, cute smile that makes the dimples in his cheeks smile at me, too. "Yeah. But, mostly getting drunk and messed up."

I try to hide my smile in my palm, but he sees it, and then we are both smiling at each other, feeling kind of dumb. "Lockland," I say. My voice is sort of dry and breathy, by he hears me over all the ruckus.

"How do you know Billie ?" he asks. Only, he's serious. Like he must know.

"School project." I shrug. And shrug again. Then we're laughing about how weird we are being again.

"So you're just partners?" he asks, lips tights against his white, white teeth.

"Yeah," I say, staring at my Vans.

He nods. But, he's not looking at me anymore. He stares into the fire, elbows on knees, gray eyes silver beneath the pallid moonlight.

We sit there like that until the party calms and people start leaving. The fleece blankets disappear to reveal mud with paper cups spotted in the wetness. The forest goes dead.

I rise to my feet, wiping my hands on my jeans. "I should go looking for Billie," I say quietly.

He smiles a bit, reaching for me, but not touching me. "I guess, I'll see you some other time."

I nod. He nods. He leans forward a bit, face a moody shadow against the dying bonfire. Then he just rests there like he's waiting for me to meet him in the middle, but I don't. I pat his shoulder, fingers burning against the wool of his sweater. He bites his lip, pushing back the kiss I know he was hoping for.

I walk through the darkness alone, the bonfire crackling dully in the distance. I find the treehouse after a bit. It's dark and I can't find the beanbag or the switch to the fairy lights.

So, I sit in a corner in the dark, knees pressed to my chest, breathing heavy. But, there's something else. Breathing that's not mine. It hitches. Then there's a shuffle. The lights go on. Billie squints at me from the other side of the room, legs spread wide over a girl who's too out of it to realize anything.

Her face flushes a bit. She hides it was a cheeky smile, rocking her naked hips against the girl's, pulling at her hair. I can only stare because, again like always, I'm scared. There's an uncomfortable warmth between my thighs and the more I stare the more I need to use the bathroom.

Billie hops and hops and hops above a finger that the girl slips between her thighs, shivering, crumbling against the girl's touch. She stares at me while she does it.

"Come here," she beckons, nails sparkling a midnight blue in the glow of the fairy lights. And I just sit there, not believing that she was being serious. She frowns, jerking into the vacant girl below her. "I'm not asking, Lockland."

She shoves my fingers between her thighs, burning, and red, hissing when it disappears inside her. She's wet and dripping, legs trembling. I watch her grind against the both of us, gripping my hair, holding on for dear life.

I've made a mess in my jeans and I don't know if I can tell her. I feel it, wet and sticky, down between my thighs. But, I don't want to feel the way I do. I imagine my hand in a pond of goldfish instead. A pond where the water temperature is just right and everything is quiet. Nothing but goldfish.