‘You still talk to her?’
‘Not really. Sometimes on social media. She lives with her boyfriend.’
‘That guy’s probably as dorky as she was,’ Chase snorts.
‘He’s an ER doctor,’ I snip. ‘He saves lives.’
‘Marcie had kind of a glow-up, senior year, I seem to recall,’ Nicole says.
‘Think she was in my science class,’ Balthazar comments absent-mindedly.
AJ remains quiet.
‘How’d you like American high school, Hollie?’ Chase asks me.
I look up. He’s staring at me from the other side of the fire. It’s a pointed question, like he’s singling me out for not being a native.
‘Well, honestly, I would have liked it more if you guys didn’t bully me as much as you did.’
‘Bully?’ Chase says and he follows it up with a cackle. ‘Bully?Naw, we didn’t bully you. Sure, we got our kicks, maybe had a few cheap laughs…’
‘Oh, so filling someone’s locker with about a hundred condoms and making them look used, constitutes a cheap laugh at my expense?’
Next to me, I feel AJ tense.
‘Shit, I forgot we did that,’ Chase says, and he’s cackling again. ‘You remember that, fellas? Yo! Took us fucking forever to fill those condoms with that shampoo. We skipped chemistry so we could fill ’em up under the bleachers on the sports field. The way they slapped to the floor when you opened your locker…slap… slap… slap.’
He makes wet noises as he speaks, and that seems to crack him up. I look across at Nicole and Balthazar. Nicole is unamused. Balthazar looks like he’s trying to conceal a laugh. I can’t even glance in AJ’s direction.
‘AJ, you spent the whole afternoon bitchin’ that your fingers smelled like fucking spermicide…’
I stare into the fire. ‘You’re a fuckin’ idiot, Bren,’ I hear AJ growl beside me.
‘What?’ Chase continues. ‘We were just fucking with you, Hollie. You found it funny, though, right?’
The entire senior class witnessed those condoms sliding out of my locker. I remember lying in my bedroom, later that afternoon, crying into my pillow and thinking no one was ever going to like me at Eastvale High.
‘It might have been funnier if that’d been the only thing you did.’
‘Oh, comeon,’ Chase says again. ‘Don’t be so uptight.’
‘Chase,’ AJ says in a warning tone beside me.
‘Your girlfriend needs to chill the fuck out,’ is Chase’s retort.
‘And you need to quit bein’ a dick,’ AJ shoots back.
‘We were just kidding around!’ Chase says.
‘Were you kidding around the time you locked me in the stationery supplies cupboard, and it took three hours for someone to come and let me out?’
Chase snorts, then descends into more laughter.
‘I almost suffocated,’ I add flatly.
‘It’s not fucking funny,’ AJ says, though it just seems to encourage Chase more.
Chase composes himself. ‘Think you’ll find you were there when I turned the key, Callahan. So that would make you an accessory to the fact.’