High and Dry Read Online Free PDF Page A

about using you to get to Ellie. I was drunk.”
    She picked up my dirty coffee, took a sip, and made a face. “You’re still drunk. Do you mean what you’re saying now?”
    â€œI’m less drunk. I’m 73.5 percent sober,” I said. “And I
am
sorry for what I said. What we had—it was fun, I just wasn’t ready—”
    She rolled her eyes. “I know. It’s okay.”
    â€œThen why’d you slap me?”
    â€œI don’t know. I’ve never slapped anyone before. I thought it might be fun.”
    â€œWas it?” I asked, with an edge.
    She laughed. “See, this, right here, is why I couldn’t be with you. It’s not because you didn’t want to have sex sophomore year. I mean, that’s part of it. It’s because you’re always apologizing. The boy who got drunk and spiteful last night? Him, I like. But you … We’re just not a good fit when you’re regular you.”
    Glad to have that over with, I jerked my head toward the computerscreen. “You think
West Side Story
Maria’s gonna be okay?” (I refused to call her “Other Maria.”)
    Bridget shrugged. “She took a
lot
of LSD. I hear it messes with your spine, and sticks there, and you could have flashbacks, for, like, years.”
    â€œA spine is somewhat vital,” I agreed. I’d read in the paper that a dissociative fugue state causes loss of identity, and could last days or even months. It sounded horrifying.
    â€œShe knew the risks.”
    I was taken aback. “Harsh. I thought you songbirds all flocked together in a loving V-formation.”
    â€œYou and your soccer buddies always see jock-to-jock?” she countered.
    â€œWell, yeah.”
    â€œOkay, here’s my official reaction.” Eyes wide, emeralds aglitter, breathy voice: “‘It’s awful what happened. I can barely function.’” She grinned. “That’s what I’m telling the sheriff’s department later.”
    â€œYou’re talking to them later?”
    â€œEveryone is. Everyone at the party, anyway. I just passed the front office, and I heard Jeffries agree to let them interrogate people all day as long as parents are present. The stay-at-home round-robin emergency callers have never been this wet.”
    I took a sip of my spiked coffee. I’d felt I deserved it after my personal visit from the authorities this morning.
    â€œIt was my car that dropped her at the hospital after theoverdose,” I said carefully, hardly believing the words as they fell out of my mouth. “Apparently, I barely hit the brakes before peeling away. May as well have the word ‘guilty’ spray painted on the hood.”
    Her eyes widened again, taking up even more of her face, which I didn’t think was possible. “They think
you
did it? No way.”
    â€œYeah. I might have to lawyer up.” My hands shook.
    â€œWow, Dix. You suddenly got interesting again.”
    â€œFuck off,” I said mildly. “They’ll dust the car for prints and find someone else’s on top of mine, and I’ll be home free,” I added, with a bravado I didn’t possess. “
And
, once she stops hallucinating, she’ll tell everyone it wasn’t me.”
    â€œ
If
she stops hallucinating. I heard an urban legend once, about a drug messenger who kept the product in his sock. It seeped through to his skin, several tabs of it, and sent him to the asylum.”
    â€œI stopped listening at ‘urban legend,’” I lied.
    â€œThere’s not much you can do to clear your name.”
    â€œEveryone at the party saw you give me a ride in your car,” I protested.
    â€œNo, they saw you give your keys to Ellie. No reason you couldn’t have come back to the party later. No one’s gonna stick their neck out for you, not when it’ll help deflect blame from
them
.”
    If Bridget felt any