Loud Awake and Lost by Adele Griffin Page B

leggings, and her bleached-white bangs were starfish-spiked off her head.
    She was here because I was here.
    Her quick, self-conscious smile nearly melted me. Smarty, at a dance club. She’d never have come if I hadn’t wanted to go. My bestie. Holden couldn’t have been right, that we’d been fighting. Even if so, it wouldn’t have been a big deal. No way.
    When the music transitioned again, I signaled to the others for my much-needed break. We stumbled to a table in the back. Jake procured our paper cups of electric green punch. Then the DJ layered a Weregirl loop over the next track.
    “Ooh, Weregirl…” I was so happy to hear them, like a stamp of approval on the club, and our presence in it.
    Out on the floor, Lissa was twirling like a punk sylph. Maybe it was Lissa who’d loved this band?
    “Think we’re gonna sit out a few.” Rachel was tucked under Jake’s arm. “Do not—I repeat—do not wear yourself out, Emb, okay? Your mom would have my head on one of these poles.”
    “I won’t.”
    I could feel Rachel’s gaze stay on me warningly. She could see how exhausted I was. She and Jake dragged a couple of folding chairs to a dark, far corner of the room that a few other couples had already staked out.
    But I returned, relocated Lissa, tuned in Weregirl, found myself. I’d never heard their music pound so loud, so mesmerizingly surround-sound. Here I was, pre-accident. And my old self was emerging delicate as new skin. But this one song was all I had in me. I couldn’t keep pushing myself much longer.
    “Embie, I need water.” Lissa bumped up close to talk in my ear. “You too?”
    The song wasn’t over. I shook my head, but when she left, I felt unmoored.
    Rachel and Jake were in the corner, out of sight. After another confused minute or so, I stepped backward until I’d moved off the floor altogether, sidling up to the back wall, fighting the impulse of my buckling knees before I lost the battle and slumped down to sit on the cold poured-cement floor. My blood was an electric blanket and my heartbeat drummed my skin. My muscles would feel pulverized tomorrow. I watched the other dancers; Maisie and her friends had pulled off the various masks and capes of their costumes, and now looked unknowable and anonymous, all in skinny tees and dark jeans.
    And then out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glow of light like a firefly. I craned my neck to see.
    He was lighting matches. Striking them against a matchbook and flicking them into the air, a spark of dangerous magic in the darkness. He’d been there awhile, behind the coat mountain.
    Striking matches and watching me. I was sure of it.
    Kai.
    Oh my God.
    My body was locked in the suspense of what he might do next. When he made his move, there was no shyness, no hiding, no explanation. I stood up, my spine bumping hard against the rough surface of the wall, as he approached—I didn’t care, I just didn’t care in this moment that Kai hadn’t called, that he’d been an asshole, that he’d hurt my feelings. All I wanted was this now,
now.
As he closed the last bit of space between us to create a solid shape of just us two, he reached out and gripped me at my sides.
    “You shouldn’t play with matches,” I whispered, wrapping my arms around his neck as if he’d held me just like this a hundred times before. His kiss made me know that I hadn’t imagined the interconnectivity of that first kiss.
    “You’re right.” When he pulled back, he was smiling. He flipped me the matchbook. “Here. Don’t get burned.”
    I caught it one-handed, easily. “Thanks.”
    “I liked watching you dance,” he said. “It made me think something.”
    “What?” I couldn’t remember the last time I had been more curious for an answer.
    “Made me think that whatever you end up wanting to do with your life, you’re just going to attack it until you’re the best you can be. You’ve got so much to give. You’ve got so much…” He let the last word