Free Nothing Real Volume 1 by Claire Needell

a stray, unpiloted object. I was feeling heavy in the legs, reluctant to drag myself inside. An hour or so earlier, I’d been in my bedroom alone staring at my Advil bottle full of pills. The yellow-and-blue Advil label contained few legibleletters; only half a V , an I , and the L remained. But it wasn’t an ordinary pill bottle to me anymore. It was a sort of totem. When I glanced at the bottle, I felt a preliminary warmth flood through my body. I felt the soles of my feet within my shoes. I felt loose in tight places. The center of my lower back, in particular, felt vibrant, autonomous. It felt strange and animal-like to have a body like this, a body that responded, part by part, to an idea, the idea of popping a Perc.
    Inside, there were fifteen or twenty people hanging out. Mostly Bonnie’s girlfriends—Lizzy Dorf, with her blond, field-hockey player’s ponytail, dip-dyed blue at the ends; Sara Anderson, braless in a pink sweater. There were some guys from soccer, James Fox and Morgan Grant, both major douche bags with their retro, preppy sweaters and floppy haircuts. Naturally, the girls flocked to them. Morgan, the worse of the two, smoked a fat spleef, not passing it along.
    I tried to tell Jay earlier, I didn’t even like those girls. There was no point to a party like that. Girls looking on as some guy rolls a joint, passing it around, big show of every hit. Then people disappearing, doors closing, and the reemerging with self-conscious looks all around. No one sure if they want people to know or not. Why the hell should anyone care? I’ve always wondered that. If someone’s a skank, I figure that’s her business.
    I sat down at the kitchen table far away from everyone else. Jay passed me a beer from the six-pack he’d conned his older brother into getting us. I took a swig, and set the bottle back on the table. It tasted like swamp water. Miller Light, not cold. Jay had a thing about buying the cheapest crap available unless you were talking weed.
    Jay took the joint from Bonnie, and then passed it to me. I shook my head. I felt a strange sensation in my neck, like maybe I was moving it either a little too fast or a little too slow. I thought people might be looking at me. I took another swig of beer.
    â€œAdam not smoking?” Sara raised an eyebrow. She was a smart, snarky girl who liked to razz people, and to wear shit like the sweater she had on, underneath which you could faintly make out the outline of her nipples. She kind of got away with strutting her slut on account of being in honors English, and because of the cool-eyed way she’d stare other girls down. “I’ve never seen you abstain before,” she said, and raised her eyebrows. I noticed how dark her eyebrows were compared to her hair.
    She took the joint from Jay and blew her smoke my way. “No pressure, Adam,” she said, laughing and coughing. “I just hate losing my shit with you sitting there looking all owlish.” Everyone laughed. I realized I had been staring, that my eyes were probably dilated. I could’ve been out-and-out drooling for all I knew. But even though I knew she was giving me shit, I’d heard something in her voice when she said my name, something delicate, an invitation.
    I looked away, and Sara must have felt bad about calling me out, because she got down off her kitchen stool and slunk over to where I was sitting. The girl had a killer ass in her tight gray pants, and then there was the mesmerizing sweater. She put her hand on the back of my neck and slid it down to the middle of my back. I had known Sara since third grade, and I couldn’t recall any other time that she had touched me. A part of me wanted to shake her off. I thought of May,and her strange way of sensing when something went wrong with me. I imagined myself trying to explain it all to May, because I already knew then what would happen, and I worried about her, how May would feel