A bellowing roar sounds. Celestial bodies crowd aside to accommodate an enormous luminescent blue dragon bearing a set of equally giant nostrils flanked on either side by a bushy black thicket of whiskers that flutter in the breeze like untended pubic hair. The dragon swoops down low with her hind legs held at an awkward angle and buzzes the crowd, covering them in a fine brown mist. Dad and I hold our arms up to the sky to cover our faces, but everyone else in the audience and on the stage pays this giant fucking dragon absolutely no attention even as she's showering them in a shit show of ejaculations.
Almost right on the ass crack of the giant blue dragon comes a somewhat smaller red dragon with scales that glisten and eyes that shine like diamonds. Instead of a roar, this one lets out a siren's song that melts my heart into butter. The melody courses through my veins and up my neck into my head, where it chills with my brain and finally lets me relax, then slides its way down into my pants and starts working its magic. Oh, man, this is not the place for this. Or is it?
I'm about to climax when the red dragon rears its head back, then throws it forward, unleashing a jet of violent flames. It swivels its head back and forth, covering everything and everyone in brightly burning yellow-orange-red fire. Nobody reacts like a normal person would, which in my mind involves screaming and running around while flailing your arms. Instead, there's laughter and polite conversation. Rachel turns to Principal Wells and other members of Blackwell's administration and does a polite, on-fire curtsy. They stand up and give her a round of applause.
"Gives new meaning to the phrase 'flamed amazement,' doesn't it?" says Dad.
"Yeah," I say, looking at the one person on stage who isn't standing up: Sean Prescott. He sits there, staring at Rachel like a misbehaving puppy. Nathan stands behind him, scowling at me. "Hell is empty, and...how does that line go?"
The red dragon circles back around and flaps its wings at me, sending waves of ecstasy through my body. All the devils are here, comes a whisper in my ear. I think I might need to excuse myself from the commencement ceremony.
"As your 2011 sophomore homecoming queen…"
Rachel stands up on stage in a blue graduation gown and black mortarboard cap that aren't on fire. I scan the faces in the crowd—not a dead father among them.
"Chloe Price," says Victoria. She struts up to me in a blood-red blouse and skirt that might as well still have the price tags hanging off them. "Imagine seeing you here. And right after you got expelled. From what I hear, you were hardly ever in class, and when you were, you were either cursing like a sailor or dozing off. I bet you'd even sleep through your own graduation."
"Oh, look," I say, "it's the Queen of V. You're not even close to graduating. What are you doing here?"
"I could ask the same thing of you. Rumor has it that you and Rachel had a falling out after trawling the gutter lost its appeal."
"For her or for me?"
"Oh, my. You have a sense of humor. I suppose you'd have to if you wanted to be able to keep her attention for as long as you did."
"And," says Rachel into the microphone up on stage, "to my one and only, Chloe Price, without whom I wouldn't be standing up here before you: thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for being there for me when I needed you the most."
"What's up?" I say to Victoria.
Victoria's thick, black eyeliner strokes arch downward toward her flared nostrils.
"Your derive your worth in life entirely from what others think of you. Do let me know how that feels when it comes full circle and bites you in the ass."
Her knee-length pencil skirt swishes rapidly against her legs as her stiletto heels stab the grass all the way to the swimming hall.
"Not bad, Chloe," says Hayden. He's ditched his black tuxedo stage ensemble for a preppy cream sweater, khaki slacks, and a pair of brown velvety running shoes. "You coming back next year?"
"Nah, I have a chronic illness. I'm allergic to stupid shit."
"Good one. You should seriously consider it, though, even if you're not a student. Next year is going to be a blast, if you know what I mean."
He holds an invisible cigarette to his lips and takes an imaginary drag.
"I thought about it. Too many bad memories and too much effort to make new ones."
Hayden flashes me a peace sign, then does some bro-fist handshake with Nathan and his buddies. To my surprise, Nathan walks right up to me. His eyes shine like glazed donuts and he's got an unnatural-looking smile on his face. If I don't walk away now, I'm probably going to end up snapping his neck right in front of everyone, including daddy dearest who has been invited up on stage to talk about how awesome he is for giving tons of money to Blackwell and Blackwell's programs and Wells's twelve-step program which involves drinking before, during, and after his four daily meals. You do the math.
"Hey, Chloe."
"Hey, Nathan. I need to—"
"Sam is leaving," he says. "She told me it was for the best."
"She did?"
"Yeah. She said you talked to her."
"Well, sort of. She asked me for advice and I didn't know what to tell her, so I asked around campus."
"That's what I heard. I heard you're the person that people go to for advice—good people, I mean."
"I was under the impression all the good people had left Arcadia Bay."
"Not all of them, but the rest might pack up and move if they take your advice. My Dad said sending Sam to New Hampshire was a great idea. Safest place in the country. But he wouldn't give me an answer when I talked to him about joining her out there. Any ideas?"
"Graduate."
"Obviously. You gonna take your own advice?"
"Probably. Not here, though."
"Yeah, well, unlike you, I don't have a choice. Besides, I'm gonna be all over the photography program next year. My problem is: what do I do in the meantime?"
"Send Sam boatloads of cash?"
Nathan scratches the back of his head and looks down at the pavement.
"People always think it's my money, but it's not. You know what I'm talking about."
"Not having money?"
"I mean with Rachel. Same deal with her. We hang out sometimes—kind of a support group for people who get bagged on because they're misunderstood."
"People who end up being the subject of rumors."
"Yeah, exactly. What do you think I should do?"
I light up a cigarette.
"If you can't send her money, at least keep in contact. That's super important. You don't want her to think you're ghosting her."
"Why would I ever do that? Sam is the most important person in the world to me."
"That's awesome. So whatever fucked up shit is going on in your life, you have to be there for her however you can. If your dad gets on your case about it, you have to stand your ground."
Nathan runs his hand through his hair.
"That might be tough. Dad calls all the shots."
"Not all of them," I say. "Sam is at what, six months now? Too late for an abortion."
Nathan slaps his hand over my mouth.
"You need to shut the fuck up about that. Who told you that?"
My cigarette burns down to my knuckles. He tries to shove me backwards, but I'm already kissing the wooden billboard post with my ass. I push his hand away.
"Did you hear about what happened to the last guy who flipped out on me?"
Nathan adjusts the shoulders of my t-shirt with the grace of an alien who's unaccustomed with earthly garments.
"Seriously, you cannot tell anybody about that. Where did you hear it?"
I finish my cigarette and flick the butt over his shoulder onto the sidewalk.
"I'll give you a thousand bucks," he says.
"You just said you were a little bitch with no wallet."
"My dad's up there right now. He always hooks me up when it comes to shit like this."
"I don't need the money. I already have a sugar mama."
"You also don't need enemies, Price." His upper lip starts twitching.
"My 'enemies' have a short half-life, Prescott." I use the air quotes.
"I'm going to say this as nicely as I can." Nathan puts his hands up against the billboard on either side of me. "You don't know who you're fucking with."
"And I'm going to say this as nicely as I can." I slam my hand into his crotch. His mouth opens. "Fuck." Squeeze. "You." Squeeze. His knees buckle.
"Nathan, it's time for photos."
The devil himself in a three-piece suit looms over us. With the grace of a ballerina on a sugar high, Rachel pirouettes herself between me and Nathan.
"Hi, Nathan," she says.
"Is everything all right here, Nathan?" says Mister Prescott. "I wasn't informed of difficulties with other students."
"It's okay, Dad. We were just joking around."
Nathan looks at his polished black shoes.
"Like father, like son," says Rachel.
"I need your pearly whites, now," says Nathan's dad.
"Okay," says Nathan. "So, are we cool?"
He extends a hand toward me, his eyes still on his feet. I hesitate, then reach out. I wipe my sweaty palm on the back of my jeans.
"Thanks for being so cool about this," he says.
"That's me." I kiss the air. "Miss Ice Queen."
Up on stage, Wells appears at the podium.
"For outstanding philanthropic contributions to the Blackwell community…"
I have no idea what the rest of the speech is because Rachel's lips have abducted mine and are escorting them somewhere into the upper reaches of Earth's atmosphere on the way to outer space before we both come free-falling down to the planet's surface. I gasp for breath when she finally releases me.
"Do you enjoy killing people?" she asks.
"What planet are you from?"
"I just wanted to make sure I wasn't going out with someone who was a killer in something other than the looks department."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"You've been playing that game on my laptop a lot lately. You really get into it."
"Oh, that. I already finished it and uninstalled it. It got kinda boring after I figured out all the interesting ways to assassinate people."
"Normally, when I think of assassination, I picture someone sneaking up on their target and taking them down somewhere out of sight. You just ran through the all the levels killing everyone you saw."
"Yep. Boring."
"Well, I'm leaving my laptop at your house so you won't be bored while I'm gone."
"Gone? How long are you going to be gone for?"
"This summer."
"I know, but which part? June? July? August?"
"Yes."
"Please tell me this is a really shitty joke."
"I wish it were. We're going on a family vacation. And no, you can't come. It was the first thing I asked. I talked to Dad about it for an hour."
"Shit."
"We have a little nature retreat on a couple acres out by King's Canyon. We don't use phones, computers, tablets, anything. It's the way we've always done our summer sabbaticals. Dad says time away from the world is my reward for keeping my nose to the grindstone."
"Some reward. What the fuck am I supposed to do?"
"Find some more games on my laptop."
"It's worthless to me if I can't even use it to talk to you."
"We'll stop at a public phone once a week on Saturday. Twenty minutes."
"I work on Saturdays, thanks to David. You'll have to call me at the diner."
"Deal." She puts her arms around me. "When I get back, we'll go to the loudest concert we can find and get a sick pair of tats."
"That sounds a little better, I guess. Minus the part where you're gone for three months."
"I'll be back before you know it." She takes me in close, really fucking close, so close that nobody can see what she's doing, and slides her fingers down the front of my jeans. My body hums. "There is one place I've never been, though. I thought maybe you could be the one to take me."
I look into her eyes—the emeralds inside are lifeless, somehow. Where did that sparkle go?
"Not like this," I say. "It's pointless if there's no meaning behind it."
"Did I just hear Chloe Price say 'no' to adventure?"
"I said 'no' to cheap action."
Her hands are off my abdomen, my waist. She takes a step back and crosses her arms.
"When?"
"When we're free."
"We are free."
Rachel grabs me by the wrist and runs me into Samuel's janitor closet on the far end of the dormitories, far away from prying eyes. She locks us in, unbuttons my jeans, unzips them, and slides her hand down my underwear right on top of my skin. She starts to rub me in just the right goddamn spot and I feel like my legs keep spreading further and further apart until I've taken the entirety of the cosmos into my womb. Then, with one massive push, I give birth to galaxies, annihilate entire societies with the gravity of the celestial bodies thrust into being through my hips.
Exhausted, I look around the dim room. Rachel flips on the light. Damp jeans ring my ankles. She helps me with my pants.
"Feels like I pissed myself," I say.
"Hit and run," says Rachel.
"What?"
She pushes the door open, peeks her head out, then hits the switch for the sprinklers. Screaming students and surprised parents clear the grass in record time. Rachel grabs my wrist and runs us right through one of the high-powered sprinkler heads like we're two kids playing in my uncle's front yard on a hot summer day in our swimsuits. By the time we get back to her mom in the courtyard, we're both dripping wet.
"Sorry, Mom," says Rachel. "We were saying our goodbyes when the sprinklers came on out of nowhere."
"That certainly did come as a surprise," says Rose. "Are you two all finished?"
"We sure are," Rachel says.
She blows me a kiss and disappears into the night. I do the same.