Beautiful by Amy Reed Page A

walking next to me. She hands me her cigarette. “Want the rest?” she says.
    â€œThanks,” I say. I take a drag and it burns my throat, but I feel calmer.
    â€œYou look like shit,” she says. She opens her purse, takes out her mirror, and hands it to me. “Here,” she says.
    â€œThanks,” I say again. I check my face and rub away thetearstains. I apply more makeup as we walk. I make it look like nothing happened.
    The party’s in a part of town I’ve never been to. It’s not even in Kirkland. It’s past the arcade and over the hill that separates us from the big strip malls and the streets like highways, all the way over in Juanita in a run-down apartment building, next to the giant church the size of a stadium and the two-story neon sign that says jesus, light of the world. By the time we get there, the balls of my feet are numb and my ankles feel like they could crumble into a million pieces. All I want is a drink and a joint and a quiet corner to sit in until Alex decides it’s time to go home.
    Wes is standing outside drinking a forty. Alex throws her coat off in my direction, runs up to him, and throws her arms around his neck. They stick their tongues in each other’s mouths while I stand at the curb, holding her jacket and watching people I don’t know smoking cigarettes and drinking out of paper bags. They are all older and they are almost all black, and I feel younger and whiter than I ever have in my whole life.
    It is only now that I notice that there’s something different about Alex, that she has replaced her usual combat boots and fishnets for Adidas shell tops and baggy pants that hangso low you can see the top of her G-string. Instead of a ripped up T-shirt, she is wearing a red halter-top that barely clings to her tiny chest. Her hair is covered by a black bandanna, only showing her roots that are no longer green. I feel like an alien in my outfit, a baby, a white-trash alien. The guys leaning against the apartment building look at me with their droopy, stoned eyes, whispering things and making each other laugh.
    â€œCassie!” Alex yells, and I walk over, feeling the heat of eyes following me. The bass of rap music from inside the apartment makes the ground shake.
    â€œHey, girl,” Wes says.
    â€œHey,” I say.
    â€œThis party’s tight, huh?”
    â€œYeah,” I say. “Is Ethan here?” and all of a sudden I want nothing more than to be in the back of his car behind the reservoir, looking at the ceiling while I let him fuck me. It is not fun, but it is predictable and it is not here. It’s a kind of script I have memorized. I know what to do when I’m with him.
    â€œNah,” Wes says. “He went tagging with some dudes from Redmond High.” I don’t know why, but this seems like the saddest news I’ve ever heard.
    â€œLet’s go inside,” Alex says, and I follow.
    The apartment is small and cluttered and crowded with people. No one is dancing, but all the bodies seem to bemoving, pulsing to the beat of the music. Forties are piled on a table, and Wes hands each of us one. Most everyone looks even older than high school. I hear a girl a few years older than us say, “Nah, dude, this is my
moms
,” about a woman next to her who looks only a few years older than she is. This is just like a rap video, I think, except there are no expensive cars or champagne and everyone’s a little less beautiful. I wonder if I am racist for thinking that. I keep hearing my dad’s voice in my head saying,
Those fucking people
, when there is news about a gang shooting on TV, and I remember always being mad at him for it. I wonder if I’m a racist for being scared now.
    Wes leads us to a door at the end of the hall, knocks three times, and opens it. It is cleaner and quieter inside and there are only a handful of people sitting on the bed and on the floor around a low glass