Starling by Isabel Strychacz

Author:Isabel Strychacz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Published: 2021-11-09T00:00:00+00:00

20

THE PARTY WAS IN full swing. Tag had spent all day hanging twinkly lights on the eaves of the guesthouse and lugging cases of beer and spirits out of the Rockford cellar and onto the grass down by the vineyards.

But now the decorating was finished, and the guests were arriving, and although Tag was technically ready, he just felt so restless. Unmoored. He’d thrown himself into the decorating; he’d raided the neatly labeled boxes of Christmas decorations, and it had given his mind a welcome break from his father yelling and mother crying before they’d both stormed out of the house and left him alone with ringing silence. He’d gone a little overboard, unwilling to stop moving for a single second, and now strings of gleaming Christmas lights were hung on every bush, looped around every tree trunk, and draped over every surface it was possible to attach them to. It looked magical with everything alight. It was perfect, except for the fact that Tag would rather be anywhere else.

“Hey, Tag!”

“Hey, where’s the keg?”

“I think I’m blocking someone’s car, so if you’re the shitty Corolla, let me know—”

Tag let the raucous laughter carry him like a wave, off the porch of the guesthouse, into the fray. He could do this. This is what he did. Smile, smile, shake someone’s hand, smile, give a little captain’s salute to the baseball team, smile, smile, smile. This was his life.

And he was good at it—too good at it, really. He realized that now. He’d hidden his self-awareness so far down for so many years that now there was barely any separation between Tag Rockford, the Mayor’s Son, and just… Tag. The person he was inside. The only person who could see that Tag was… himself.

Tag sighed as he grabbed a beer from the Christmas-light-wrapped icebox and cracked the metal tab open with an audible pop. He could enjoy this; he just had to do what he did every other party, and drink until he didn’t remember that everyone only came for the free booze, and almost all the people here actively disliked his family, and by proxy, him.

The sip of hoppy IPA turned sour in his stomach. He suddenly, desperately wanted to be alone, or at least somewhere away from the stares and the curling lips. Most of Darling now disliked the Rockfords in their giant house on the edge of town so much that they didn’t even bother trying to hide it anymore; even the two seniors who had hung out with him and Anders at the Wishing Well now shot daggers at him. He walked by a group of girls; half of them glared while the other half giggled flirtatiously. One of them whispered to her friend as he walked by, the words cutting through the music easily: “Stop smiling at him, Hannah, I know he’s hot but—I swear to God, he’s such a privileged brat. Allison told me last week that—”

Tag’s jaw tightened, but he continued walking, sliding into the darkness at the side of the guesthouse.

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