Lost Stars Read Free Page A

ended up at a roller-skating rink called Diamonds, because roller skating had been Ginny’s favorite activity, and there was lots of toasting her, drinking from Ginny’s own flask—​how did they get that?—​the flask I was sure my parents never knew she had. The first time I drank that cheap bourbon, I felt my gray matter turning black, felt the stars dim, a feeling I both craved and hated.
    And then, suddenly, all fogged in my brain, I was laced up and floating in circles around the place with Greta and her then (and now again) boyfriend, Tiger. I was wearing something I’d taken from Ginny’s closet, before my mother cleaned out her room: a pink and gray striped shirt with thin bands of silver between the stripes. Disco-ish, but I hadn’t yet learned that we’d declared war on disco.
    Greta had gone off to the parking lot with Justin and Tommy to drink some bourbon from the flask, and Tiger and I were still roller skating around the rink by ourselves, and then I felt his hand grab mine, his fingers curl around mine, a feeling it seemed I had waited my whole life to feel. We rolled and glided together across that shiny floor, strobe lights blinking, “Eye of the Tiger” blaring through the speakers, which somehow made it feel like fate, even though that was one of the least romantic songs ever. Dark circles of sweat stained the armpits of my shirt, so I tried to keep my arms plastered to my sides, but that was hard to do and hold Tiger’s hand at the same time, and then my palm was so sweaty that my hand slipped out of his and he drifted away and I didn’t know how to get him back.
    Later, in the bathroom, when I showed Greta the sweat stains, she said, “Don’t worry, honey,” and took off her white button-down shirt and helped me into it, and then she said, “Hold on a sec,” and took out her Love’s Baby Soft and sprayed it on my neck and then put some strawberry-scented gloss on my lips, which I immediately got on my front teeth because I had never worn my retainer and my overbite had come right back after my parents spent all that money on braces, as they had reminded me constantly before something far worse happened. “There,” she said. And she left the bathroom, looking oh-so-chic in her thin white tank top.
    I stood there and looked at myself in the mirror for a few minutes, trying to like what I saw. But it just looked like me with a little lip gloss and Greta’s shirt. I wasn’t particularly fond of my teeth, the way one of them jutted out, or my hands with their stubby fingers. My head was too small and my brown eyes were too close together and my brown hair was frizzy instead of perfectly curly like Greta’s and the space between my nose and my upper lip was too big and I was so, so, so, so, so short and everything about me was off. Worst of all, I was alive.
    As I came out, there was Tiger, and he pressed me up against those icy concrete walls and kissed me and it was wrong and bad and it was amazing and I didn’t understand. Why had he turned his attention toward me? Did he feel sorry for me because my sister had died? Did Greta know? Tiger was so cute: half Puerto Rican, half Irish, dark skin, dark eyes, a gold chain around his neck, a football jersey, totally out of my league. Or maybe totally out of my league until Ginny had let me step into hers. Ginny, with that little space between her two front teeth, always visible because of her huge smile, and that too-loud laugh, and her perpetually perfect wave of blue eye shadow and her fingerless lace Madonna gloves—​she had walked off, or driven off, leaving a path for me. Was I supposed to be happy about the life she’d left me in her wake?
    And then the kiss stopped and Tiger walked back out to the rink. And the evening ended. And we all piled in the back of the car, me and Greta and Tiger, and the two of them made out, but he reached back and