North of Supernova by Lindsey Leavitt

Author:Lindsey Leavitt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)

Chapter 20

We’re late to Gemma’s party because Dad has to drive us and Whitney doesn’t want him to leave. Vivian is as hot as a firework, but she tells Dad thank you when we run out of the car.

Vivian sticks close to my side when we open the gate to Gemma’s backyard. She’s strung up bistro lights along the iron fence that looks out on the golf course. One half of her backyard is a pool with a large rock waterfall. The grass is stiff—fake, actually. Before Vegas, I’d only ever seen fake grass on miniature golf courses. There’s twenty or thirty teenagers here, which is a lot but not wild like the high school parties I’ve seen in movies.

Zara is set up in the back corner, underneath a blossoming tree. She’s bent over a table, looking at cards and talking to a nodding guy. There’s a line formed behind her table, waiting to see their fortunes. Gemma zips over.

“Zara is so awesome!” she says. “Thank you for connecting us.”

“No problem.” I realize the chances of getting a reading from Zara tonight are slim. I’d hoped to sit by her all night. This party is so cool and I am so not.

“Cooper is inside,” Gemma says.

“Oh yeah?”

Vivian gives my back a big slap and pushes me toward the sliding glass doors. “Hope you brought the rose quartz tonight!”

It takes me a second to realize what she means—rose quartz being the love crystal. Oh geez.

Cooper sits at the black marble kitchen counter, eating chips and dip. He slides the bowl over to me. “I’m watching The Office. You in?”

The TV takes up half the wall. Michael Scott is yelling at the guy with glasses. Other kids can probably identify what season and episode this is, but not me. Because the thing is—The Office gives me major anxiety. The humor is too painful. And everything is too real life. Who wants to leave real life to watch more real life?

I don’t tell Cooper any of this. “For a bit. Then I have to see Zara.”

“You want a Coke?” he asks.

Caffeine is another thing that sets me off. So here I am, with people I don’t know (at a party, which is worse), watching a show that makes me uncomfortable, sipping a drink that amps me up. At this point I’m sticking my thumb out and hitchhiking on the Anxiety Express. “Yes, please.”

Cooper tosses me a soda before carrying the bowl of chips over to the long sectional. I walk over to join him, but I don’t know what “joining” him looks like? Should I sit next to him or on the other side? Are we really watching The Office or is this code for something else?

I sit down on the other side of the couch and sip my Coke, trying so hard to come up with a conversation starter. I bet Talia would think of ten things to say if she were here. I want to text her and ask, but we still aren’t I’m-sitting-by-a-boy-right-now-what-should-I-do friends.

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