Page 17 of Saving Graces
Shelby stared at her, her eyes going wide. Then she laughed.
“Good one, Rosalie,” she snorted. “You really got me there.”
Before
“You should come with us.”
Rosalie looked up. She was sitting at her desk, doodling in the margins of her Math homework, even though it was after 10PM on a Saturday night.. Travis was away for the weekend with his family and Rachel and Savannah were getting ready to go to a party.
“What?” Rosalie asked, her pen falling from her hand.
“You should come. To the party,” Savannah said.
Rosalie heard a sound of minor outrage from Rachel behind her, where she’d just appeared in the doorway wearing a tiny, extremely tight red dress. She looked like a prom queen in a movie, the kind that was definitely going to wind up pregnant. It was overkill for some trashy teen party downtown, but that was Rachel.
“She can’t come, she’s way too young.”
“She’s basically my age,” Savannah said, and Rosalie heard it for what it was. An apology. Her eyes lit up.
“I’m coming,” she decided, meeting her sister’s eyes. Rachel hesitated. She obviously wanted to argue, but it was clearly going to be two against one.
“Alright,” she said throwing her hands up in the air, and Rosalie barely managed not to cheer out loud. “But you’re not going dressed like that.”
She pulled Rosalie out the door and together they tiptoed down the hall to Rachel’s room, where her sister poked and prodded and teased and treated her like her own personal Barbie doll. Rosalie squirmed and fought back until Rachel stared at her reflection in the mirror next to her.
“Holy shit,” Rachel said. “I think I’m almost not ashamed to be related to you.”
“There is literally no way I’m going out like this,” Rosalie kicked off the silly shoes, and grabbed one of Rachel’s long winter puffer jackets and zipped it on, covering herself from her neck to her knees. “It’s fucking freezing out there anyway.”
Back in the room Savannah was dressed in Rachel’s clothes too. Not like Rachel was, but in her own, understated Savannah way. Her jeans were tight, her top a cute silky camisole thing. When you looked like she did, you didn’t need a lot.
“Your hair looks nice,” she said to Rosalie, who couldn’t help rolling her eyes. Rachel had given her some kind of up-do that again, made her feel like she was headed to prom, but she did admit that it definitely made her look older and more sophisticated. She shoved her feet into her regular converse eight-ups and barely holding back her glee, she slipped out the window after the other girls.
Outside it was bitingly cold and she was happy for the jacket. The three of them crept through the trees and snuck down the quiet suburban streets until they reached the edge of the city where their voices got high and free. Rosalie found herself laughing out loud and hugging herself. They were out of the stifling four walls of the house, the sky was big and black and covered with pinpricks of stars, the sounds of the city echoing down the streets and they could do what they wanted. This was what adulthood must feel like.
Eventually they wound up in a weird industrial neighborhood, no bars or honky-tonks, no music floating out of the doorways, no excited tourists. No one else at all, actually. Then, the tinkle of a breaking bottle. The sound of electronic music. A guy’s laughter. Voices. Rachel was already shrugging out of her own jacket, as they turned down a little alleyway and Rosalie felt her heart pumping in her chest, unsure if she was more scared or excited.
The music got louder, spilling out of a darkened door at the end of the alley. Rachel walked right through, already squealing as she saw a friend. Savannah turned to look at Rosalie with a small smile, before gently gripping her arm and tugging her in behind her.
Rosalie blinked at the sudden darkness, her eyes taking a full minute to adjust. A vast, cavernous warehouse sprawled out before her, the single set of lights and one mirror ball dangling near the center, leaving the corners in swathed shadows. Hundreds of glowsticks supplemented the low light, neon pinks and bright greens clashing with electric blues and vivid violet.
Music thundered across the warehouse, maybe forty people on the dancefloor, all of them young, most of them ridiculously glamorous in a kind of seedy, alternative way. Rosalie instantly felt eight years old.
Rachel had already disappeared, for all her feigned concern about her little sister’s wellbeing, but Savannah stayed in sight. A gorgeous tall willowy girl with dark brown skin and gleaming black hair hugged Savannah tight. Savannah introduced her friend as Coral and they greeted each other briefly before Rosalie ran out of words to say. She stood by herself in her giant jacket, shoved to a corner by all the dancers, unsure where to go or who to talk to. Her head ached from the tight pull of her hair and she pulled out the pins Rachel had shoved in there, letting her hair fall down on her shoulders. They’d dressed up for this?
She saw her sister return and grab Savannah by the arm and pull her away into a dark corner. She marched after both of them.
“What are you doing?” Rosalie asked sharply when she caught up and her sister’s eyes snapped up with a trace of irritation.
“We’re splitting an ecstasy,” she said, like Rosalie was stupid for not knowing. Rosalie’s eyes narrowed.
“Then you’re splitting it in three,” she said. Her sister scoffed, but fuck it. Fuck it. Rosalie wasn’t naive about what her sister had been getting up to and she also wasn’t going to be left out. Not after finally getting to be a part of everything. She was determined not to be the baby sister tonight, not to be the third wheel to their cozy twosome.
Rachel eyed her but eventually shrugged and pinched apart the tiny white pill in her hand. All three of them put a segment into their mouths and swallowed, Rosalie wincing hard against the sharp poisonous taste in her mouth.
“Argh!” Rosalie shook her head. Savannah lifted the small bottle that had somehow materialized in her hand, offering it to her. It was some kind of super sweet vodka mix, which was also frankly disgusting, but it got rid of the pill taste after a few swigs.
Rosalie’s stomach churned. What the hell were they all doing? What if the drug was some kind of bad batch and they died? What if this was the first step and Rosalie would wake up in three weeks a drug addict? What if the police came, would they go to prison? What even was this firetrap of a place and who were these people?
