A Line in the Dark by Malinda Lo

Author:Malinda Lo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2017-10-17T04:00:00+00:00

ON NEW YEAR’S EVE, ANGIE COMES OVER TO WAIT FOR the ball to drop on TV. This is the third New Year’s Eve we’ve spent together, but I was surprised she wanted to do it this year. Jamie’s at a sleepover at a friend’s house, Justin went out with some girl he insists is not his girlfriend, and my parents went to bed at ten o’clock, so it’s only me and Angie on the couch. We make hot fudge sundaes with cherries, but Angie eats barely a third of hers.

“Is something wrong with it?” I ask.

“Sorry, I’m just not that into it. I keep thinking about . . .” She pulls out her phone, but there are no new messages. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. How’s Margot?”

“She’s fine. She had to go to some party with her parents in New York.”

“Is she there?” I point at the screen full of revelers wrapped in scarves and hats, screaming up at the lights of Times Square.

“No. She texted me a picture. She’s inside somewhere. It looks like a ballroom or something.” Angie holds out her phone and shows me a selfie of Margot blowing a kiss at the camera. Behind her is a huge room hung with chandeliers and holly garlands, full of old people in suits and fancy dresses holding champagne flutes.

“Looks boring.”

“Yeah.” Angie takes her phone back but doesn’t put it away.

We watch TV in silence. I keep an eye on the countdown clock, wondering what will happen at midnight. Angie’s only a few inches away from me. She has taken off her shoes, curling her legs up on the couch. If I scoot toward her the smallest bit, we’ll be touching.

At three minutes till midnight her phone rings. It’s Margot on FaceTime. It looks like she’s standing in a closet, because there’s a rack of coats behind her.

“Hey!” Angie says, sitting up straight as she answers. “I was thinking about you.”

“Hi,” Margot says, smiling tightly. “Hi, Jess.”

Angie glances at me. “Sorry, I’ll be right back.” She gets up and takes the phone into the kitchen, leaving me alone.

I watch the ball drop by myself. I hear the low murmur of Angie’s voice in the next room, and Margot’s tinny response. I gaze at the brown murk of Angie’s sundae on the coffee table. I want to throw it against the wall and see the liquid drip down like shit onto the matching carpet.

When she returns, the phone is in her pocket. It’s eight minutes into the New Year. I’m staring fixedly at the TV, where they’ve switched to Key West to show the drag queen dropping in her shoe. Angie sits down next to me, curling her legs up again. Then she lowers her head onto my lap, stretching out.

I freeze. She snuggles into me like a cat, oblivious to the shock that paralyzes me.

“I’m so tired,” she murmurs. “I just want to go to sleep right here.”

Her hair is spread over my legs, her cheek on my thigh. I gingerly touch her upper arm.

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