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  It feels good to be accomplishing something. The smell of aerosol and the way the paint particles rush like tiny blue planets through the thin green glow of the streetlight, the challenge of filling in a tight line with soft, smooth, even color—all of these things blend together in a way that makes me feel totally alive.

  I add dark-blue highlights. Then I fill in the stem and the thorns with brown and carefully snap a couple of blasts of white into place to help define the petals of the rose. Finally, I gauge my distance and steady my arm and shoot a perfect curl of red into the outlined drop of blood. I snap the cover back onto the spray paint and zip up my pack.

  I walk back and stand on the sidewalk, staring at the rose. I can tell right away that it’s the best one I’ve done. The shape is perfect, and the coloring sits right up against the thick black edge. The building, so ugly on its own, has become a perfect neutral frame, and the rose seems almost to float above the flat, drab gray of the industrial door. It’ll be painted over soon, I’m sure, but for the moment it’s satisfying to know that I’ve put my mark on this boring, pointless street.

  A car comes to a slow rolling stop behind me, and I know without turning around that it’s the cop. There’s nowhere to go, and honestly, I’m sick of running. I turn around and bend over to look into the passenger window. He stares past me at at the rose, then looks me in the eye and shakes his head slowly. We look at each other for a few long moments. He parks the car and gets out.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” he asks.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I tell him.

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about,” he says. He takes a step closer, and I back up. A car comes down the street and slows as it passes us, no doubt taking in the show. He turns to look at the car, and for a split second I reconsider making a run for it, but he’s taller than me and in decent shape. I know he can catch me. The car accelerates and drives away.

  “You’re aware that this is municipal property,” he says. It’s a statement, not a question.

  “You mean the sidewalk?” I ask.

  “Don’t play stupid,” he says. “I’ve had about enough of that from you. This building that you’ve defaced is a municipal maintenance shed.”

  “I haven’t defaced anything,” I say.

  “Listen,” he says. “I know what you’re up to. You can’t hide it any longer, and you’ll make things a lot easier on yourself if you don’t push this any further.”

  “I haven’t done anything,” I say, reminding myself to stay as calm as possible. “I haven’t done a thing, and you haven’t seen me do anything, and you’re starting to make me feel very uncomfortable.”

  He laughs. “Uncomfortable? That’s a new one. Hand over the backpack now, or you’ll be charged with obstructing a police officer. Then we’ll talk about uncomfortable.”

  I know he’s right. He holds his hand out, and I shrug the strap off my shoulder so that it slides down my arm. I catch it before it hits the ground, and for a minute I let it dangle like that, feeling the weight of the spray cans shift in the pack. I hesitate for a moment.

  “Come on,” he says, gesturing impatiently with his hand. “Give it here.”

  I’m about to hand him the pack when a bloodcurdling scream comes at us from somewhere nearby.

  “Help!” a woman yells at the top of her lungs. She sounds terrified.

  We both turn to look down the street as the woman screams out again, sounding even more anguished. “Help me, please! Help!”

  The cop turns and looks at me, opens his mouth as if he’s going to say something, then jumps into his car. He peels away from the curb, and I’m out of there, running in the opposite direction.

  I’ve turned the corner and am running as fast as I can when a car squeals up alongside me and the back door opens.

  “Get in!” someone calls out.

  ANDREA

  I don’t know where to go or what to do. I’m so upset that I’m shaking. Candace’s words spin around inside my head. Is she right? Is my whole life run by other people? If she is right, what are the alternatives? Am I supposed to deliberately look for some way to screw the system? Am I supposed to shave my head and get a face tattoo and start chaining myself to government buildings?

  Obviously I’m not the kind of person Candace would want to be friends with, but that doesn’t give her the right to start judging me. It’s not like I have any big desire to hang out with her either. I don’t even know where the hell she came from—she just kind of showed up.

  I leave Roemi’s driveway not knowing where to go or what to do. I begin to walk in the direction of my house, but halfway there I change my mind and start walking in the opposite direction.

  I finally get tired of walking aimlessly and sit down on the steps of a church.

  I check my watch and realize that the doors to the prom are going to be locked soon. I should be there. Instead, I’m wandering Granite Ridge by myself, delaying the inevitable major fight with my mother. I wonder suddenly why I haven’t heard from Bethanne for the past few hours. Then I remember—I have my ringer turned off.

  I pull out my phone and see right away that there are a bunch of texts from Bethanne, at least a dozen missed calls from my mom, and a message from my brother from about a half hour ago: call me right now!!!!!!!

  He answers before the first ring ends.

  “Where the hell are you?” he asks. I can hear Janelle laughing in the background.

  “I’m on South Street,” I say. “In front of the Catholic church.”

  “Don’t move,” he says. “We’ll be there in five.”

  While I’m waiting, I scroll through Bethanne’s texts, which all basically say the same thing. I wish you were here!!!! This is so fun!!!!

  Brad and Janelle pull up in his ancient Tercel, and I climb into the backseat.

  “Mom is losing her mind!” he says. “We had to convince her not to call the cops. That’s why we’re out here looking for you.”

  “Oh god.” I put my face in my hands and groan.

  “No way,” he says. “This is awesome. It’s about time you stood up for yourself.”

  “Well, I guess I’ll find out if it was worth it when I get home.”

  “What happened to you anyway?” he asks. “Where have you been?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I tell them. “I was just about to go home anyway. Can you drive me?”

  “I’ve got a better idea,” he says. He grabs his phone from between the front seats and makes a call.

  “Dad, it’s me,” he says after a second. “Put Mom on the phone.”

  “What are you doing?” I ask him.

  He puts a finger to his lips. “Hey, Mom, how’s it going?” he says. I can hear her raised voice on the other end of the line, but I can’t make out what she’s saying.

  “Relax,” he tells her. “We found her. She’s with us now.” Her voice drops off on the other end for a split second, then starts up again, even louder.

  “No,” he says. “I’m not taking her home. She’s going to hang out with me and Janelle for a little while. We need to stop at a strip club and pick up some drugs.”

  Janelle snorts and slaps her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing.

  “No, you can’t talk to her,” says Brad. “She’s fine. She’s just really drunk, and she’s making out with some old guy in the backseat. I didn’t quite catch his name—I think it’s Larry. I’ll ask him when they stop sucking face. He seems nice. Anyway, Mom, I should go. We’ll take care of Andrea. You and Dad go to bed. We won’t keep her out too late.”

  He hangs up, and Janelle bursts out laughing. I’m more horrified than amused.

  “I don’t know how you can talk to her like that,” I tell him.

  “He’s pretty ballsy,” says Janelle, grabbing him by the hand. I love Janelle, but sometimes she and Brad take it a bit far with the PDA.

  “Mom is just the kind of person who responds well to pushback,” s
ays Brad.

  “I’m not very good at pushback,” I say.

  “Maybe not most of the time,” he says. “But you sure pushed back tonight. I love it.”

  “She’s going to keep me locked up forever,” I tell them.

  “She was pretty furious,” says Janelle. “I’ve never seen her that mad.”

  “That’s because you weren’t around when I was in high school,” says Brad. “You think she’s mad tonight? This is nothing.”

  He’s probably right about that. Things were pretty chaotic in our house when Brad was still living at home. I remember lots of knock-down, drag-out fights. Brad coming home drunk and puking in the hallway. Brad being brought to the front door by the cops. Mom finding a giant bag of marijuana in his bedroom. I remember weeks when he wouldn’t talk to our parents. He’d get in trouble and they’d lay down new ground rules and he’d just ignore them, coming and going as he pleased. I remember Mom crying a lot.

  “It was pretty bad sometimes,” I agree.

  “Yeah, it was,” he says. “I was an asshole.” He turns around to look at me. “It’s probably my fault that she’s so strict with you,” he says. “If I hadn’t been such a dick, maybe she wouldn’t be so scared that you’ll turn out the same way.”

  “You turned out fine!” I say.

  “Yeah,” he says. “By the skin of my teeth. Thanks to this beautiful woman here.” He leans over and kisses Janelle. Good grief.

  He looks at me again.

  “So what now?” he asks.

  “I don’t know,” I tell him. “It’s not like there’s anything left to do. I have to go home eventually.”

  “Yeah, but not yet,” he says. “Why don’t we go grab something to eat at Bizzby’s? You must be starving.”

  “I am pretty hungry,” I agree.

  Brad cuts through some back streets on our way toward the strip. We turn a corner and come upon a police cruiser with its lights on. The cop is standing beside the car, talking to someone. I glance out the window.

  “Brad, slow down for a second,” I say.

  It’s Candace, and she’s obviously in trouble.

  “Oh no,” I say.

  “What’s the matter?” asks Brad. The cop turns to look at us, and Brad steps on the gas.

  “Do you know that girl?” asks Janelle.

  “Yeah,” I say. “She’s a friend, kind of.”

  “Doesn’t look like someone you’d be friends with,” says Brad.

  “Not friends, exactly,” I say. “We just hung out for a while.”

  “Well, it looks like your not-exactly friend has got herself wrapped up with the cops,” he says.

  “She does graffiti,” I tell them. “She almost got busted earlier. I think the cop has been watching for her.”

  I don’t know why I even care. Candace was a total bitch to me, but seeing her there, getting grilled, I know she’s about to find herself in deep shit. I almost hate to admit it, but I can kind of see her point about being oppressed by society or whatever. I mean, all she did was paint a rose on a concrete building. Who cares? What’s going to happen to her now?

  “Well, we can’t leave her hanging,” says Brad, turning a corner and pulling over.

  “What should we do?” I ask.

  He turns to Janelle. “You up for a bit of acting practice?”

  The minute she’s out of the car, Janelle runs to a tree, hides behind it and begins screaming. As we drive away, we can hear her clear as a bell from the open windows of the car. I hope this works, because it won’t be long till neighbors start coming out of their houses to see what’s wrong.

  Brad takes a corner fast and then we see Candace, running along the sidewalk.

  “There she is,” I shout, and Brad comes to a squealing halt.

  I open the back door and stick my head out. “Get in!” I yell.

  When she sees me, her mouth drops open, but she jumps into the car.

  “What the hell is going on?” she demands.

  “You’re welcome,” says Brad.

  “Better get down,” I tell her. She crouches as low as she can.

  Brad drives back the way we came until we see Janelle walking down the sidewalk toward us. The police car is nowhere in sight. Brad pulls over, and Janelle pops back into the front seat.

  “That was easy!” she says as we drive away.

  “How did it go down?” asks Brad.

  “I just screamed until I saw the cop car coming, and then I started strolling. I don’t think he even glanced at me as he drove by.”

  “That was you screaming?” asks Candace. “I don’t understand.”

  “Janelle’s an actress,” I tell her.

  “Just a bit of theater,” says Janelle.

  “Wait a minute,” says Candace. “You guys planned this? To help me?”

  She looks at me and I shrug. “We couldn’t just leave you there.”

  “It was fun,” says Janelle, turning around to smile at Candace.

  Candace’s mouth opens and closes several times. “Thank you,” she finally manages to get out.

  “Don’t mention it,” says Brad. “A not-exactly friend of Andrea’s is a not-exactly friend of mine.”

  “What happened to Paul and Roemi?” I ask.

  “I don’t even know, really,” she says. “It was kind of crazy. Roemi wanted to drive past the prom, and then we ran into some messed-up friend of Paul’s and he talked a bunch of shit to Roemi.”

  “Was his name Penner?” I ask.

  “That’s the guy,” she says. “Anyway, Roemi took off for home, and I left Paul behind at the dance.”

  I groan. “Penner’s such a jerk. Do you think we should go see if Roemi’s okay?” I ask.

  She considers. “You know what?” she says. “That’s not such a bad idea.”

  PAUL

  It would be impossible to feel more like a piece of shit than I do. I consider getting out of the Cruiser and chasing after Candace, but something tells me she’s not interested in talking to me. So I just sit there for a few minutes, watching, as Penner walks back to the school and joins the last of the stragglers. Mr. Parrins, one of the gym teachers, is holding the front door open, ushering them inside. He follows them in and pulls the heavy door closed behind him.

  I know the first thing Penner is going to do is find Lannie and tell her what just happened. I imagine her inside the dance, her night already ruined, and now about to learn that I lied to her. That her big night is messed up because I choked. Because I’m weak and can’t even control my own emotions.

  Candace hit the nail on the head. I am a poser.

  The only people who really knew me aren’t around anymore, and that’s my fault too. When I was friends with Jerry and Ahmed, maybe we were a bunch of losers, but even if we were, we either didn’t know or didn’t care. We spent every spare minute together, just hanging out. Shooting hoops in Ahmed’s driveway. Talking about girls.

  I remember one night at Jerry’s house when I was about fourteen. I’d stayed over, and I was lying in bed thinking about my grandfather. He’d had a heart attack and died a few weeks earlier, totally unexpectedly. I started having a panic attack. Jerry woke up, and somehow he talked me down, and we stayed up all night. Playing video games. Talking about death and the universe and all that deep shit. He knew what was going on with me. He didn’t laugh at me. Now I don’t even have any time for the guy. We’re still cool on the surface, but it’s not the same.

  When Lannie and I started to go out, Jerry and Ahmed were happier for me than anybody. Look how that turned out.

  And then it occurs to me. Whoever I am, or whoever I was, nobody really knows that person. I don’t even think I can describe him to myself. My breath becomes shallow. My head starts to tighten. I should have known better. I thought the anxiety was gone, but it was just hiding.

  I sit like this for a while, feeling as if I’m circling a whirlpool, knowing that if I’m not careful, I’ll get sucked right down into the negative space and t
hen who knows what will happen. But it’s knowing this, realizing that I’m circling, that I’m still up on the edge, that gives me the push to start breathing deeply. Deep, slow breaths. In and out. In and out. In and out.

  After a while, it’s okay. I’m not even sure exactly how much time has passed, but the music is still thudding inside the school gym. A little bit of every note and every beat escapes through the concrete wall, and soft rhythmic waves float through the air and dissolve around me as I sit in Roemi’s parents’ SUV.

  I open the door and get out. I stretch and then stroll down the road a little bit. I’m relieved that I was able to push through the attack, but I need to start moving so it doesn’t happen again. I turn back toward the Land Cruiser and look at the ladder carefully strapped to the ski rack. I might as well take care of business.

  Mom’s car is in the driveway when I get home. I try to make as little noise as possible as I take the ladder off the top of the SUV. I open the door to the front porch and grab Dad’s keys, then somehow manage to get the ladder into the truck by myself. When I walk back around the side of the house, my mother is sitting on the front stoop, looking at me.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “Hey yourself,” she says. “Nice ride.” She gestures at the Cruiser.

  “Yeah, it’s not bad,” I say.

  “Anything I need to know or hear about?” she asks.

  “Nah,” I say.

  “Fair enough.”

  “I’ve got to take this back,” I say. “It belongs to a friend. I didn’t steal it, I promise.”

  She smiles. “I didn’t think you did. Are you having an okay night?”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “I don’t believe you. You feeling okay?”

  “Yeah, I feel fine.” I just stand there, looking at the ground.

  She pats the step next to her. “Come on and sit down for a minute.”

  I sit next to her, then lean forward and put my face in my hands. She reaches over and rubs my back.