As I Descended. Robin Talley

helped muffle the party sounds. Over the past year, that carpet had accumulated half a dozen spilled-beer stains. Lily had tried every carpet-cleaning spray she could find, but no matter how hard she scrubbed she hadn’t been able to get rid of those spots.

      Tonight, though, stains were the last thing on Lily’s mind.

      She needed to talk to Maria about what had happened.

      Not about the chandelier, or the calls to their parents, or Brandon’s two strikes. She wanted to talk about the part of the night she could barely remember.

      What the Ouija board had said. What it meant.

      Why Maria had acted so strange. As if she knew something the rest of them didn’t.

      Delilah was sitting on the floor with her back propped against Maria’s bed, her eyes heavy-lidded and her head tilted onto Kei’s shoulder. She rubbed his knee with one hand and twirled her ever-present tube of clear lip gloss with the other. She’d draped Lily’s grandmother’s quilt across her lap to keep out the chill.

      Maria, who analyzed everything, had a lot of theories about why Delilah needed to do drugs to have fun. She thought Delilah had family pressure to live up to. A profound inability to find release. A deep, hidden reservoir of self-loathing.

      Lily had a theory, too. It was that Delilah was an asshole.

      And while there were a thousand reasons they hated Delilah, there was one thing that bothered them above all.

      Delilah had been the first girl Lily ever kissed.

      Kei finished hedging his way through the story about what happened with Emily behind the Rite Aid—it was awkward, since everyone knew Emily had hooked up with a guy from Georgetown Prep later that night—and Delilah stood up. “My turn!”

      “It’s Kei’s turn,” Lily said. “Have you never played Truth or Dare before?”

      Delilah ignored her. “Maria! Truth or dare?”

      Maria sighed. She and Lily always picked dare.

      Delilah lifted her chin triumphantly. “I dare you to give Ryan a lap dance.”

      The room filled with muted catcalls. Ryan grinned, blushed, and patted his lap. Caitlin and Tamika both glared at Maria, who was blushing too.

      Lily wished Delilah were a bug she could step on. One quick squishing sound and she’d be out of their lives. Poof.

      Maria was walking slowly toward Ryan when her foot caught on the edge of the carpet and she fell onto Mateo’s outstretched legs.

      “Whoa, there, whoa.” Mateo laughed as he caught her. “I think Princess’s had enough party for tonight.”

      Had Maria done that on purpose? Lily honestly couldn’t tell. Maria was a very, very good actress.

      “Oh, come on, she doesn’t get out of her dare just because she’s drunk,” Delilah whined. “Everybody’s drunk.”

      “How about if Maria does an alternative dare,” Mateo said. “She can, like, name all fifty states in alphabetical order in under three minutes.”

      “That’s the most boring dare ever.” Delilah groaned.

      Maria sat up. “Alabama, Alaska, Arizona . . .”

      It was actually kind of funny, since Maria had just chugged a beer and kept hiccuping. She got tripped up on Delaware and Iowa, and everyone counted down at the end to make sure she really did it in three minutes. When she was done, she was flushed and giggly.

      “Austin,” she said. “Truth or dare?”

      “Dare.” Austin didn’t hesitate.

      “I dare you to tell us the scariest story you’ve ever heard.”

      “Whooo!” A bunch of people giggled.

      Austin didn’t laugh. “You don’t want me to do that, Princess.”

      “What’s the matter, Austin?” Tamika whispered. “You scared of ghosts?”

      Austin still didn’t laugh.

      “I’ve got a scary story!” Delilah said. “This one time, I went running by the lake at night and —”

      “Wait, wait, Maria just said to tell a scary story,” Kei interrupted. “Not about something that happened to you.”

      “But it was scary!” Delilah said. “It was the scariest story ever!”

      “You did not go out running by the lake at night,” Tamika said. “No one goes out to the lake at night. Besides, the security guards would catch you.”

      “No, I totally did it,” Delilah said. “It was a couple of years ago. All of a sudden it got really cold, like, out of nowhere, and then I heard someone else run past me. He totally brushed my sleeve. Which was weird, because I hadn’t seen anyone else running. And when I turned to see who it was, there was no one there!”

      “Dun-dun-DUN!” Kei whispered loudly. Everyone, even the boys, dissolved into giggles.

      Lily closed her eyes and tried to imagine what it would be like if she really could get rid of everyone else and have the whole world to herself. Her and Maria.

      If only there were a way . . .

3

       HOURS DREADFUL AND THINGS STRANGE

      For the life of him, Mateo couldn’t figure out what the hell Maria was doing.

      She was still sitting next to him from when she’d fallen, but she was scribbling on a notepad now. Off to one side, in the dark, where the others wouldn’t see.

      He could’ve asked her, but ever since he’d come to Acheron, Mateo had made it a policy not to ask the rich girls too many questions. They only got flustered and made something up, and at the end of it he was just as embarrassed as they were.

      Now that he knew the truth about Maria, though, it was harder to hold back. Last week, Brandon had told him about her and Lily Boiten. They were “in loooove,” Brandon had said, giggling. Maria thought she was probably bi, Brandon said, but Lily was all-the-way gay.

      Mateo didn’t believe it at first. Both those girls seemed way too uptight to like pussy. Now that he was paying attention, though, he was surprised he hadn’t figured it out before.

      There was the way Maria was staring at Lily, for one thing. As if she wanted to shove everyone else out the door so Maria could have her all to herself.

      There was something about the way they were with each other, too. An easiness. They looked like they could have whole conversations without ever needing to talk out loud.

      It made Mateo kind of jealous, honestly. Not of the part where the girls felt like they had to stay closeted—which was kind of weird, actually, since for him, being gay had only upped his stud factor at school. Maybe Maria felt like she had to keep quiet since her mom was a state senator?

      No, the part that made him jealous was that he’d definitely never been “in loooove.” He’d been hooking up with Brandon for a few weeks, but he didn’t see it lasting through the semester. He liked the guy, sure, but there just wasn’t that much there. It was more of a we’re the only two gay guys in this backwater school, so let’s screw already thing than a Romeo-and-Juliet one.

      Or Romeo-and-Romeo. Whatever. Beer.

      “Hey.” Mateo nudged Maria’s shoulder. Another dare was starting on the far side of the room. “You okay?”

      “What? Oh. Yeah.” Maria shrugged. “Thinking about the match.”

      Mateo smiled at her. She didn’t smile back.