I bite my tongue to keep from laughing at the personality one-eighty. Wade would make a great Disciple someday, if he weren’t so ashamed of the program. Then again, I haven’t talked to him about it in a while. I decide to try again.
“So, how’s the test going?” I begin.
“Fine,” Wade says. “You know….”
“Yeah,” I say. “How far did you get today?”
“Just through the physical,” Wade answers. His tone is not necessarily encouraging, but it’s not dismissive, either. I decide to dive in with one of the biggies.
“So, Wade, how much do you remember about the day of the bus crash?”
Wade’s head snaps in my direction and he stares at me for so long that I’m afraid he’s going to crash the Porsche. Finally he looks away.
“Nothing,” he says flatly before turning the music back up. He ignores me for the rest of the drive.
As it turns out, The Field isn’t some hipster hangout downtown—a play on “playing the field”—nor is it a great wide expanse of landscape. It’s a soccer field.
And it’s lame.
We’re sitting with Wade’s girlfriend, Brittney, and his friends Colin and Nate on the top two benches of movable bleachers flanking a community play space. In thin jeans and a short-sleeved T-shirt, I’m warm even though the sun’s almost down.
“How do you know my boyfriend again?” Brittney asks defensively before sipping something that makes her shudder.
“Our dads are friends,” Wade answers quickly. He catches my eye and smiles, but underneath I can see a warning: Don’t go there.
“Oh, right,” Brittney says, tossing her satiny dark hair off her shoulder, hitting me in the face with it in the process.
Wade and Colin sit in front of Brittney and me. Nate, a little too broody for my taste, is sitting four rows down and to the side, by himself.
Colin turns to look at me and smiles. Muscular, blond, and blue-eyed, he’s nice-looking, but nothing close to Matt. Colin’s the guy next door you can’t believe lives in your town; Matt’s the one so striking you can’t believe he lives on your planet.
The obvious way that Colin flirts with me grosses me out a little.
“I almost didn’t come out tonight,” he says in a low voice that tries too hard. I look over and realize that Brittney and Wade are actually making out. Right next to us. I turn away quickly. “But I’m glad I did,” Colin continues, looking me up and down. “It’s good to meet you.”
“Thanks,” I say as I inch away from him. I try to look at anything other than the PDA to my right, so I watch Colin take a swig from his cup. I don’t even like the way he drinks.
Finally, Brittney and Wade come up for air, and though I’m happy that I don’t have to listen to any more smacking, sloppy kisses, the silence is uncomfortable. And frankly, the night is boring so far.
I consider the blood-red contents of my cup. Mason would call it a cup full of brain damage, but being with Wade and his friends might be doing me more harm than the booze. And Mason’s the one who forced me to come anyway. Shrugging, I down it all in one drink.
“More?” Brittney asks, seeming to like me a little better now. She holds up a thermos and shakes it a little.
“Sure,” I say. “Hit me.”
Who knows how long later, I wake up on foul-smelling carpet in a dark, red-lit room with walls that are oozing bass. I have no idea where I am, and for the first few minutes, I don’t care. I don’t care about anything other than how I feel right now. And how I feel is bad.
Gutter bad.
I’m freezing and sweating at the same time. If I could move my limbs, I would cover myself with a blanket. I would cut off my head, it hurts so badly. I would curl up into a ball and die, assuming I haven’t already. I pinch the skin on my bare arm to make sure that I’m alive.
Then, in flashes, it all starts coming back.
Running around the soccer field with Brittney.
Doing a keg stand on a dare from Nate.