Page 114 of Foes & Cons
“Talking about doing naked stuff by the looks of you, but I’m still sorry. I don’t know why I . . .” I shake my head, a thousand thoughts rushing through my brain at once. “I was scared of losing you. I don’t want to lose any more of my people. We don’t have much time left and . . .”
“We have donkey’s years, babe.”
I shake my head. “But you’re going to Bristol and I’m not, and you’ll make new friends and . . .”
“I hope so, but that doesn’t stop you from being my best friend.”
I shake my head. “Everything’s changing.”
“Change doesn’t just mean bad; it can mean good too.”
“I guess so,” I say, looking at Dylan sitting with his actor pals.
“You, Eliza Gellar, are far too annoying and gorgeous to ever slip from my life, so whatever uni we’re at,whatever convention, wherever in the world, you will always be my very best, most irritating, friend, OK?” I nod. “Blood is for ever?”
“Blood is for ever,” I repeat. “I really am sorry I overracted about Vivian. She’s actually really . . . well, I’m still not convinced she’s human, so I don’t know what she is but she’s growing on me. I seem to have collected all these grudges against people who aren’t in my very exclusive party of two, and I appreciate it’s pretty stifling in here.”
Roxy smiles at me.
“Well, I feel special to have been admitted. And it’s not just the two of us any more.” Roxy looks up at the stage at the ownerof an incredible pair of lungs belting out “Dancing Queen”: Dorothy. “We’ve got Dorothy now. And Fake McKinley, aka Dylan. And maybe . . .”
She turns to look at Charlie, who’s looking at the karaoke iPad with Sadie. I think back to dancing with him last night and how my overreaction at seeing Roxy and Vivian together ruined a moment I’ve been daydreaming about for years.
I turn back to Roxy and shrug.
“I think I’ve blown it with him.”
“We’ll see. Let’s just enjoy this,” she says, bumping the inflatable bat with her elbow.
She squeezes me again and I breathe in her gorgeous Roxy smell, knowing that we’re going to be OK, and that feeling is worth way more than coffee with Damon Van Schwartz or tickets to Comic Con with Megan Nicole Jefferies (though I am hoping our new friend Dylan can hook us up with tickets somehow. Just waiting for the right moment to ask).
Roxy heads to the cocktail bar and Vivian waves me over.
I go over and she grabs my wrist, pulling me into the booth.
“What’s up?” I ask.
“Just wanted you to see it from this side,” she says, turning me round so I’m facing the party. “See how much fun everyone’s having?”
And she’s right. The dance floor is packed, flashing a rainbow of happiness as everyone claps and sings along to Dorothy belting out the Abba classic. Old friends sit at the tables together, shouting deep and meaningfuls into each other’s ears, and new friends hold on to each other, wondering when they’ll get to do this again. And I’m wondering too, but right now I just want to be in it, because this is what it’s all about.
I nod, and smile at Vivian, who puts her arm around me and rests her chin on top of my head, because of course she towers over me in her skates.
“This was you, Eliza. You did this for them,” she says. Sadie drags Charlie past us, making him spin her round as she sings with the crowd. “She wouldn’t have seen any of this if it weren’t for you.”
I shake my head.
“You did all of this. I mean, where the hell did you get an inflatable vampire bat on a Sunday?”
“The Halloween stuff my dad hires out was just sitting around, waiting for October. I made a call.” She shrugs. “This is all you.”
“I brought nothing, it was just an idea.”
Vivian shakes her head and looks down at me.
“You brought your heart.” She pushes away from me and twirls around, stopping in front of the laptop. “Now get out of my booth, bitch.”
CHAPTER FIFTY
