I’ll make myself invisible, or at least unidentifiable, just long enough to get to the boys. Then I can leave and come back to the school, and it will all be over. One way or another, at least I’ll have gotten to say my peace.
I’m not the only one laying low for Halloween this year, which makes it easy to slip out of the dorm room without technically having to lie to Dana about where I’m going. I even swim a few laps at the pool to ease my conscience, in case she asks me where I went.
I’m not really one to put too much stock into how I look, but when I see the finished result in the drama room mirror after putting everything together, I have to admit, I look really, really good. The big gown looks amazing and the wig is perfect. I purposefully picked a mask that covers my entire face so no one will have the chance to figure out who I am until I want them to.
I’m ready. I feel like I might throw up from nerves, but I’m ready. I leave the school and head to the enormous mansion where the party is being held. Practically the entire home is converted into a haunted house, and it is decked to the nines. There are people all over the place; spilling off the front porch, into the back yard, onto the street. It’s an even bigger party this year than it was last year, if that’s possible.
I am careful to keep my mask up, and as I come to the house and go into it, people stop me left and right and tell me how incredible my costume is. Everyone is so happy and friendly, and it’s bittersweet. It’s nice to be accepted and appreciated, but on the other hand, if any one of them knew that it was me behind the mask, I know they wouldn’t be treating me the same. Instead, I’d be immediately thrown out. So I just smile and nod, and I don’t speak to anyone for fear of being found out.
I make it through the living room and the library, and I take a peek into the kitchen. I’m starting to regret my choice of costume a little, since it makes maneuvering around discreetly basically impossible. I guess I’ll think of that the next time I need to sneak around a house party on Halloween.
There are little mementos of last year’s party—only vaguely familiar thanks to the cocktail of drugs and alcohol that sent me to the hospital. I spot the beer pong table, the same bowl of spiked punch, even the same dark corner where Blair snuck me off to kiss me all on his own. None of it means anything if the boys aren’t a part of it, however, and I haven’t found them yet. Not that it’s easy. It’s hard to recognize anyone in the dim lighting and mass of costumed bodies.
There’s a bar set up outside by the pool, and there are people crowded around it. I look there next, searching still for the boys, and smiling and nodding at anyone who tries to talk to me. They aren’t here, and I’m just walking back into the house past the door to the conservatory when all of a sudden, there he is.
Astor.
I nearly run into him. He’s coming out of that same conservatory with a bottle of champagne in his hand, and I’m so surprised that he’s alone. I would have thought that Victoria would be hanging on him like she always is. He seems to be constantly disinterested in her, but he doesn’t push her away either, which I guess is all the encouragement she needs.
I’d call her desperate … but so am I.
My heart begins to race, and I walk up to him. He gives me a curious look and a half smile that tells me he really has no idea who I am. That is, until I speak.
“Can I talk with you for a minute please?” I ask, and he looks at me strangely. I know he recognizes my voice … but he isn’t able to place it until I lower my mask. When I do, the look in his eyes hardens as he realizes who I am.
“Astor, please!” I beg, reaching my hand toward him before he can draw away.
“What are you doing here? I know you weren’t invited.” His voice is cold and strained, and I feel almost as if my chance is slipping through my fingers, like sand falling fast in an hourglass.
“I needed a chance to speak to you, and since you won’t do it at school … I came here.”
He does start to draw away, but I follow him. “I just can’t do it anymore! I miss you, Astor … and I think you feel the same way. I thought maybe if you understood everything a little better, then you’d—”
He’s stopped moving away. He’s staring at me, listening even maybe, when I hear a high-pitched shriek of rage at my side. Victoria has appeared over his shoulder, glaring furiously in my direction.
“What in the hell are you doing here?” she rages at me.
I look from her to Astor, and then back to her again as my words get caught in my throat. “It’s private. It doesn’t concern you,” I tell her defensively.
Victoria’s hand shoots out and closes hard around my arm. “Oh it sure as hell does concern me!” She almost growls at me. “You’re in my family’s house, uninvited, talking to my boyfriend behind my back. Every single one of those things makes this my concern. You’re coming with me.”
Astor only watches as Victoria drags me down the hall and into the kitchen. She calls everyone around us to attention, just as Wills and Blair come into the room. Both of their jaws drop when they see me i
n Victoria’s clutches. Their eyes immediately shoot to Astor, but he just shakes his head and looks on.
“We have a party crasher!” she yells, and the room erupts in uproar. They’re jeering and booing … and though I can see drunken mirth on their faces, there’s something sinister about it. They might think this is a joke … but I’ve seen how far Victoria can take her little ‘jokes’.
Everyone is playing along, except them. Astor, Blair, and Wills all look on intently, but they’re silent. They’re all three staring hard at me, and I wonder if they are thinking of this same night last year, when Victoria nearly cost me my life by getting me drunk. I know I’m thinking of it.
She holds my arm tightly in her hand still, even though I’ve tried to pull it away. I’d love to just punch her, but I know that would be the worst thing I could do here, surrounded by her friends in her family’s house.
“You have to face a challenge, Teddy,” she sneers at me evilly. “Those are the rules.”
I blink and look at her in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
She grins wickedly. “You and I are going to play beer pong, and whoever loses has to strip down naked and run a lap around the outside of the house.”
I know she wouldn’t dare make this challenge if she didn’t believe she was going to win. She’s doing it to humiliate me, and I want to say no, but everyone at the party has crowded around us. There’s not really any way out through the human wall encircling us, so I don’t think I have the right to refuse.