Page 61 of Flickerstate

“Seems unwise.”

“Not if I’m fine with people laughing at me too.”

“Are you?”

“Watch.” He performs the lawn-mower, the fly-fisher, and the shovel—vigorously, with no relationship to the Top 40 pop floating from Zipporah’s or the Bronx drill blasting from the block opposite. I laugh.

Griffin stops and grins at me. “Mission accomplished.”

I gesture toward the drill. “Is that what I’ll see in there?”

“We’ve got to investigate to know for sure.”

We walk to the door. Inside, the block’s a mosh pit, kidscrammed so tight they emit a rolling wave of body heat, everyone sweating, everyone jumping to the music, eyes empty, mouths taut, like they’re stomping out the pain and fear of our weekdays, our classes, our nav, the Academy. Through the yo-yoing heads, I glimpse Candace and Bree. They’re dancing, hands steepled together. Bree’s beaming like she won the lottery. The crowd shifts, and they disappear.

“I’m not sure we can squeeze in,” Griffin says. “Maybe it’s better if we lurk in the hall. You see, I had an ulterior motive when I asked you to dance.”

I eyeball him. “Which was?”

He snorts with laughter. “So suspicious, Supergirl. I wanted to talk.”

“We could’ve talked in Zipporah’s block.”

“Okay, I wanted to interrogate you. Sans audience.”

“About?”

“Your secrets. I suspect you haven’t been forthcoming.”

“You calling me a liar?”

“No…” He draws out the word. “I’m calling you cagey. Cagey and evasive.”

Under my sleeve, my bite itches. I show Griffin my teeth. “I’m an open book.”

“Then why do I know hardly anything about you?”

“What don’t you know?”

“It’s not a specific fact. It’s why you’re so—business in the front, also business in the back.”

“I am partying as we speak,” I point out through clenched teeth.

“All I mean is—”

Mirabel bursts through the swarming dancers, on a wave of auto-tuned shouts, into the hall. She’s wearing a metallic shift. Gloss shines on her mouth. When she sees me with Griffin, she sighs as if I cause her unbearable world-weariness.

“You okay?” Griffin asks her, sliding me anI told you solook. As if Mirabel disliking me—Mirabel, who seems annoyed by humanity at large—proves I’m an all-work-no-play uptight bitch.

I should laugh it off. But by the time I left Saint Cat’s, none of my classmates were talking to me. Anna Mayer and I had attended every one of each other’s birthdays since kindergarten, and she dumped me like a leaky trash bag. If Bree hadn’t wanted to roll up to this party three deep, maybe she and Candace would still be giving me the cold shoulder.

“She’s clearly not.” My voice comes out like broken glass. “I’ll leave you two alone.”

“Norah, wait,” Griffin says.

I bolt for the stairwell. Behind me, Griffin and Mirabel trade strained words, but the musical soup spilling into the hall drowns them out. It doesn’t matter. I don’t need to hear them. I don’t care what either of them has to say.

***