Free After Summer by Hailey Abbott Page A

phone to check the missed calls list, Kelsi took a deep breath and put aside the surprising disappointment she felt. Was this just another cool conversation, like ones she’d had with different girls at Smith? Was Bennett just another smart, interesting person?
    If so, why were her cheeks so hot and flushed?
    She was being ridiculous.
    First of all, she was in love with Tim. She knew that, despite the recent turmoil.
    And besides, Bennett was Taryn’s brother. Observing them talking to each other, gesturing in the same way and so obviously easy in their skin, Kelsi figured that Bennett had just been sweet-talking her. If he was as similar to Taryn as he seemed, he probably spent a lot of time getting impressionable girls out of their pants by talking about art and whatever.
    And Kelsi would sure as hell not be one of them.
    “Okay,” Bennett said. “Crisis averted. Can we watch the movie now?”
    “Let’s do it,” Kelsi said, and smiled.

10
    Ella didn’t answer her cell all day Saturday. Calls from Jeremy, leaving no voice messages. Calls from Kelsi, wanting to know what Ella was doing for Halloween. Ella ignored them all. She had other things to do.
    Namely get dressed—in the skimpiest little cat costume she could pull together. It involved a low-cut bustier top and fishnet stockings, both of which enhanced her curvy figure. She slipped on her highest, blackest heels. She fluffed up her blonde hair into a sexy tousled mess, attached little kitten ears because that was what made it a costume rather than just slutty. And then, finally, after a quick nip of her mother’s vodka, she walked out the front door.
    Outside, the moon was high in the cold October night, and the wind buffeted the windows. Ella felt hurt wraparound her without warning, which threatened to suck her in, but she hurried down the block. Forget Jeremy. She didn’t have time for emotion. She had to get to Ryan’s party. Suddenly it was like everything would make sense if she could just see his face, and those bright eyes of his that seemed to know her through and through.
    Ryan’s house was a sprawling prefab mansion transformed into a Hollywood-worthy haunted house. The lawn was lit by eerie flickering floodlights that cast spooky shadows on a front deck swathed with spiderwebs. Ella strutted past unmarked gravestones, disembodied mannequin limbs, and fake blood spatters on the slate walkway. Noise and hip-hop and laughter blared from the house. She smiled. As she had suspected, Ryan certainly knew how to throw a party.
    The front door creaked open, leading Ella into a big foyer and an even bigger living room beyond. It was hard to tell exactly how big, since it seemed as if every teenager in New Caanan was packed in there, all of them dressed in elaborate costumes.
    Ella made her way through the throbbing crowd. She dodged a beefy boy in an old lady’s house dress and wig, who practically drooled all over her. She waggled her fingers at a football player who was now dressed as a classic 1920s mobster in a pinstripe suit. She nodded hellos to the St. Augustine girls who greeted her, most of them dressed asgirls scouts or ghosts or brides of Frankenstein. Ella enjoyed the faces they made when they got a closer look at how little she had on. Though her uniform restricted her during the schoolday, she was delighted to remind them that, during off hours, she did, in fact, still have it.
    Ella stopped steps away from the hoagie table, where a long sandwich was dressed to look like an undulating centipede. She saw a familiar figure, in a French maid costume Ella had personally picked out, straddling a guy dressed as a horse jockey on a nearby couch. They were going at it like crazy. It took her breath away. Ella had been beaten to a guy. Marilee had made Ryan hers.
    But just then, Marilee lifted her head and revealed that she was actually making out with the captain of the lacrosse team, Cheryl Anderson’s former boyfriend. Ella grinned and