Dani's blond hair floats down over her shoulders as she bends her head close to mine. "So how was your Christmas?"

"Okay," I say, nodding. "How was yours?"

"Great, the three of us went skiing for two days." The three of them is her, her mom, and her older sister, Lenore, who goes to university in Montreal. I think that's what they did last year too and because I remember that, I say it out loud and Dani smiles and bobs her head. "Yeah, every year since my dad moved to Seattle."

She goes on about the ski trip for a while as I devour my toast, which is so amazing that I have to stop myself from holding it up and announcing how amazing it is, and then she says, "I didn't think you were coming. You never e-mailed me back."

It never occurred to me to answer any of the messages about the party. For one thing, I didn't know I was coming until last night and for another, it didn't seem personal. This is exactly what I tell her and she picks at the carpet and says, "Are you still messed up about Sasha?"

"No," I lie.

Dani keeps picking at that carpet, like it contains the solution for world peace. "You are," she says knowingly.

Guess what? I don't want to do this. "Whatever you say, Dani." My words sound like they're coming out of a stereo speaker. Hers do too. Everything is happening in slow motion.

"That hurts a little, you know," she slurs. "You being so messed up over her."

"Hey, don't take it personally." I put down my toast and touch her leg. "It has nothing to do with you. I always thought you were great."

"Or maybe just f.u.c.kable." Dani's head droops, her hair falling forward like a curtain.

Yeah, that too, only we both know we never f.u.c.ked. "Are you drunk?" I ask, parting her hair so I can see her eyes. "I thought you were okay about us. That time in your car you didn't even-"

"Yeah," she says suddenly. "A little drunk." She gets to her feet, stares down at me, and says, "I never think about you." Then she turns and leaves the room.

I finish my toast and go back to watching video games. Gavin, who at some point slipped into the room without me noticing, announces, "Nick, Dani's looking for you."

"Not anymore," I tell him.

I scoop up my plate and gla.s.s and put them on the coffee table. I want to be closer to the music. My feet take me back to the living room and as soon as I get there, I wish I hadn't. I hear Avril Lavigne's voice before I hear the music. It's like she's whispering straight into my ear: I'm with you.

That sick feeling rises up in my throat. The man-eating plant pokes a hole in my stomach and sticks one of its leaves into the outside world. I hate myself. I can't get drunk or stoned enough to forget and I edge by people slow-dancing, with no idea of where I'm going.

In the corner of the room, a ninth-grade girl named Meaghan is sitting on Marc Guerreau's lap, facing away from him. His hands are fondling her t.i.ts while this other guy, sitting in the chair across from her, holds her knees and sucks her face. She's giggling and kissing him at the same time and I'm not the only one watching. Everybody in the room sees it.

"Waiting for the live s.e.x show?" a girl whispers into my ear, and I turn my head and find myself looking at Jillian. "It looks like you have ten minutes before they really get down to it."

She whirls off before I can say anything and I search out someone to talk to, anyone who won't ask me stupid questions or accuse me of f.u.c.king them up somehow, and I end up sitting down on the couch next to Hunter, who has lost the girl from earlier or is already finished with her or whatever. I crane my neck and scan the room for Keelor, but I can't see him anywhere.

Jillian is dancing nearby. I see her body through the cracks in the crowd. She dances like a hippy, but it looks right on her and I keep looking away and looking back while Hunter laughs at some joke I didn't catch. I bet Jillian's the tallest girl in the room, taller than me, and I'm wondering just how tall that is-checking her out from the ground up-when she catches my eyes on her. She smirks and looks away. I look away too and when I look up again, she's standing right in front of me, grabbing my hand. I stand up, but I don't want to dance and I tell her that.

"I don't want to dance either," she says. "Come upstairs."

She has ahold of my hand and I follow her, the carpet tickling the soles of my feet through my socks. We get to the top of the stairs and I stand there like a statue. Some of the doors are closed now and I guess I should warn her, but by the time that occurs to me, she's already opening the door to the master bedroom. Keelor and Vix are going at it full throttle on the bed inside and I start to laugh. Jillian slams the door shut before they can turn to look at us. She frowns at me like I'm being an idiot and I laugh again.

I can't see straight and I can't stop laughing. I'm really p.i.s.sing Jillian off and I don't care. I don't even know what I'm doing. She tries the next door, which doesn't budge, and peers back at me with an expression that says: Why aren't you doing something? But I am doing something. I'm laughing hard. Until the third door opens.

We step inside and she closes the door behind us. The walls are peach-colored and covered with posters of horses. Medals and trophies top the bookcase and there's a photo on the bedside table-a girl in riding clothes with an old couple, too old to be her parents. "This must be Marc's sister's room," I say, walking around and picking up the trophies. They all have the name Celine Guerreau engraved on them.

Jillian sits down on the bed and glances uneasily over at me. "Maybe we shouldn't be in here."

"I think it's okay," I say, sitting down next to her. "All the doors were open before-like they were left open on purpose."

Jillian nods at me. "Are you going to start laughing again?"

"I'll try not to." I straighten out my face.

"What about the door? There's no lock."

"Oh, yeah." I get to my feet, wedge the only chair in the room under the doork.n.o.b, and sit down on the bed again.

Jillian slips off her shoes and lies down. I can make her nipples out under her top and I stretch out next to her and rub one with the tip of my finger. We kiss. I roll on top of her, slip my hands under her shirt, and unhook her bra. Man, she feels good. I push her top up and stare at what I'm touching. They're small, like I thought, but cute and my hard-on presses up against my zipper. Jillian can feel it too and she pulls my face back towards her and kisses me some more.

I want to do it so bad. I want her to touch me and let me do everything to her. Something tells me she'd be really good. Maybe it's the way she's smiling.

"Jillian," I say. My voice still sounds funny, disconnected. "I don't have anything."

"We don't need anything," she whispers. "I don't want to do everything. I just want to fool around a little."

That could be okay too, that could cover just about anything, and I sigh when she strokes my jeans. Nice. I miss this. Maybe I shouldn't, but I do and I didn't even know it until this moment.

But I can't. Not even this.

I grab for her hand. "I don't think I can do this." Jillian looks up at me in surprise. "It's not you," I add swiftly. "I can't do this with anyone right now."

She sits up, gathering her knees towards her.

"Sorry," I tell her.

"It's okay. I just thought by the way you were watching me..."

"Yeah, I was watching-you're a good dancer." I glimpse down at her feet. I can't remember seeing her take her socks off, but her feet are bare and her toenails are painted cotton candy pink. "You have really nice feet," I add. It's a stupid thing to say given the circ.u.mstances, but I'm too out of my head to come up with anything smart.

"Thanks." She looks at me hard.

I'm starting to wish I'd kept it clean and pa.s.sed on the beers. That twisted plant is poking around inside me again and I don't know how to stop it. "It's complicated with me," I explain. "It doesn't have anything to do with you as person."

"I said it was okay," she insists. "I just wanted to let off a little steam, you know? Keep things simple. And I thought I could trust you-with you being Owen's best friend."

"s.h.i.t." I smack my hand against my forehead. "What am I doing?" I completely forgot about Jillian being Keelor's cousin. How could I forget that?

"Relax." Jillian crosses her ankles and flexes her candy toes. "Nothing happened."

But I wanted it to and the thought of that, of what was running through my head only minutes ago, makes my stomach drop.

"Well, anyway..." She reaches down and picks up her socks. "I guess I should go downstairs."

"And find someone else?" I ask.

Jillian shrugs and scans the room for her shoes.

"You won't have any problem."

"Gee, thanks." She makes a sour face and gets to her feet.

"Don't go yet." I reach for her arm. Desperation is pathetic-you think I don't know that? But I don't want to be alone and I don't want to go back to the party. "Why don't you stay awhile and talk?"

"Talk about what?"

"I don't know, anything." I scramble for something sane to say. "How's it going over at Keelor's? How long are you staying?"

A trace of a smile pa.s.ses across Jillian's face, but she's still standing. "It's okay. I really like his family." She crosses her arms in front of her. "Are you changing your mind?"

"No, no. I just want to talk for a while."

"Funny, you didn't seem interested in that earlier," she says flippantly. She sits down next to me again and I'm so grateful that I smile like an idiot. "So what's your story? Having a good time tonight?"

"I was," I reply truthfully. "But I think that's changing."

Jillian stares at me and I stare back, her face fuzzy. "Why?" she asks finally.

"Because I shouldn't have come in the first place." I've known this girl for a total of three hours, but it doesn't matter. My resistance is breaking down and I can't hide.

"Are you okay?" Her eyes are concerned.

"I'm fine," I say in a surprisingly steady voice. "But my ex-girlfriend is pregnant." Jillian doesn't blink. She should be a lawyer or a therapist. "I guess you're shockproof."

"Well, I don't know you." Her hands land on her denim legs. "Besides, it happens. So what are you two going to do?"

"I don't know." Heaviness settles back into my throat. I explain about Christmas Eve, my dad, Sasha's parents, and her recent trip to Lindsay's and Jillian sits there nodding and listening through the whole thing.

"One of my friends has a two-year-old," she says after I've finished. "His name is Sandy. Her ex comes to visit him every Sunday."

"How old is your friend?"

"Seventeen. It's tough for her, but her mom helps out a lot. Her and her ex still hook up sometimes." She rolls her eyes in frustration. "I've told her she should stop so many times that she doesn't even mention him anymore, but I know it's still happening."

"Yeah, that happens a lot. But not with us." I fold my arms over my knees and look at the carpet. It's peach like the walls, with fresh vacuum tracks, and I don't want to be sick on it. "I shouldn't be telling you all this. I'm spinning out. You can go if you want to." I hold my head and shut my mouth tight.

"Are you going to be sick?" She looks at me closely. "Can I get you something?"

"No." I prop one of the pillows up against the wall and lie back against it. "I just need to sleep it off. Thanks."

"Okay." She gets to her feet, then spins abruptly towards me. "It sounds like you need to get some stuff straight with your ex-girlfriend before you start following people up to bedrooms, but I guess you already know that."

"I know." My eyelids are ready to slam shut.

"You probably won't even remember this tomorrow." Jillian takes a step towards the bed and hovers over me. "How many times have you done this before-with some girl you barely knew at a party?"

I shake my head at her and she sits down on the bed and stares into my eyes. If we hadn't already been through this, I'd think she was going to kiss me. "I brought you up here to distract me," she says, smiling faintly to herself. "It didn't work the way I was thinking, but it's okay." Distract you from what? I must say it out loud because she slides one hand under her chin and says, "My mom's in the hospital. I'm staying at Owen's because I had to get away for a while."

"Why?"

"I'm sick of all her problems. After a while I feel like they're actually making me sick, like I can't remember what normal is." She glances at the bedspread and then quickly lifts her head. "She tried to kill herself. She talked about it before, but she never actually tried it until a couple days ago. My dad's with her in Windsor, but I couldn't take it anymore." Jillian's shoulders sag. "Anyway, so maybe that makes me shockproof, like you said."

"I'm sorry." I sit up and rub her shoulder. "Is she going to be okay?"

"Oh, she'll be okay and then one day she won't. That's how it works with her. It never really changes."

"I'm sorry," I repeat. "I don't know what to say."

"Don't say anything-I don't want to talk about it."

So I reach out and hold her hand instead. Part of me feels like I shouldn't even be doing that, that every single thing I've done tonight would make Sasha hate me again, but I do it anyway. Jillian stares down at our hands and moves towards me. "Don't get the wrong idea," she says.

Our heads settle back on the pillow and she drapes her arm across my chest. Jillian's breathing is real shallow, but she doesn't cry. It's so hard to do that with her. Almost as personal as what we were doing before. It reminds me of all the simple stuff between Sasha and me. It hurts so much that it's impossible to let go.

And neither of us do.

eighteen.

My left arm is deadweight when I wake up. It's seventeen minutes after three and Jillian's breathing softly next to me. She looks really innocent in her sleep, much younger than when she's awake, and I gaze down at her pink toenails and take in a huge breath of relief. Things went farther than they should've between us, but it could've been a lot worse. I slip out of bed, swinging my left arm in the air to get the circulation working.

I don't feel completely normal yet, but I'm on my way back. I can see again, for one thing. What I need now is water or better yet, Coca-Cola, and I brush my hair into place with my fingers and head downstairs.

The kitchen is quiet and the supply of soft drinks exhausted so I rinse off one of the dirty gla.s.ses on the counter and fill it with plain old tap water. It's the best water I've ever had and I gulp down two gla.s.ses before slowing down. It's funny just how bad you can feel and continue to walk around as though nothing's the matter.

I swing into the living room. Two girls are dancing and smoking while all around them people lie pa.s.sed out on the floor and the couch. Meaghan, that ninth-grade girl who was on Marc's lap, is there too and I'm sure someone will fill me in on the rest of that story later. I head for the TV room and almost trip over Keelor. He's sitting on the floor, Vix's head in his lap, watching a skin flick with a room full of semi-conscious guys and girls.

"Keelor." It's been hours since I've said anything and it comes out louder than I want it to.

He puts his finger to his lips and points down at Vix, who is nestled happily in dreamland. He shifts her weight as gently as he can and she stretches out on the floor without opening her eyes.

"Have you seen Jillian?" he asks, following me into the kitchen. "I thought maybe you guys left. Where've you been for the past two hours?"

"She's asleep upstairs. She's fine."

Keelor flinches. "You were upstairs with her all this time?"

"Nothing happened," I tell him. "We were just talking."

Keelor's mouth hardens. "You mean that, right? You wouldn't mess with my cousin. She's going through a lot of stuff. I can't talk about it, but the last thing she needs is anybody messing with her."