Narc by Crissa-Jean Chappell Page A

out of my ear again?”
    “I’m not that good.”
    “You’re magic. Don’t deny it.”
    This was totally untrue. Right at that moment, I felt like an asshole.
    Morgan gulped the last of her Corona and plopped the bottle in the sink.
    “To the boat docks,” she said.

7 : Crossfade
    The docks were crammed with people when we reached them. Some of them sat swinging their legs on a concrete seawall by the water. Others wandered around, clutching plastic cups and flashlights. Music thumped from a turntable, propped on a stack of cement blocks.
    I saw Skully hoist herself onto the seawall and stand there, wobbling on her heels. For a second, I thought she might fall, but she managed to find her balance. I couldn’t get over her Frankenstein boots and weird tank top. Not to mention her reverse mullet. Morgan’s dresses were one thing, but Skully was something else. It took guts to wear whatever the hell you wanted. Or maybe she didn’t give a shit.
    A couple of girls walked past her, laughing. “Jump,” one of them called out. I got the feeling that they didn’t know Skully at all. I doubted that half the people at this party knew her real name.
    “Are we having fun yet?” Skully spun around in a circle and for the first time, I noticed the tattoos on her back: a pair of feathery wings. Her stare cut across the crowd like a searchlight. I walked closer.
    “I really like your house,” I told her.
    She rolled her eyes. “Did Morgan give you the grand tour?”
    “I tried,” she said.
    “I bet you did.” Skully took a gulp from her plastic cup and giggled, spilling liquid down her chin.
    “Skully acts wasted all the time, but she’s almost straight-edge,” said Morgan.
    “Almost,” Skully added. “Except for these.” She dangled her pack of cloves. “I’m allowed one vice.”
    So my supposed alpha dog was straight-edge. This wasn’t what I expected. I wasted my time, coming here. Another false start. Skully was so desperate for friends, she just let everybody party at her fancy house and do whatever the hell they wanted.
    But if Skully wasn’t supplying, then who was my next target? I peered up at the seawall, but she had disappeared. I pictured the wings on her back unfolding gently, like a fan, and lifting her into the sky.
    “Didn’t you say that Skully could hook me up?” I asked Morgan.
    She shrugged. “Not her personally. I meant you could get some at her party.”
    “Who then?” I was starting to sound desperate.
    Morgan wasn’t listening. She waved her hands to the music, lost in her own world. As we made our way toward the water, she beamed a flashlight at me. I squinted in a flood of brightness, stepping into a place so unfamiliar, I might’ve walked onto the moon.
    “What’s stressing you?” she asked.
    “Nothing. Everything.”
    “That’s all?” she said, pulling closer. “Let’s see. Nobody knows you well enough to hate you.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “People in this school can be kind of fake,” she said.
    For a moment, we just stood there, soaking up the silence. I was with Morgan Baskin and I didn’t know what to do: whether to get up and leave or lean closer. I kept thinking what it would be like to kiss her. My thoughts rushed with the things I’d seen online: her poem, the Polaroid of her scars. What else was there that I couldn’t see?
    Morgan dipped her head toward mine, moving so close, her eyelashes tickled. “Can you do magic again?”
    She took my face in her hands and we tilted into a kiss. I was breaking all kinds of rules right then, but instead of pulling away, I slid my tongue around her mouth. Now I was aware of too many things: the smell of her shampoo, the Red Stripe I downed earlier, and voices in the distance, like the buoys tolling across the bay.
    We kissed under the Big Dipper, the only heavenly object I knew by name. Long ago, the Greeks looked up, noticed scorpions and centaurs. All I could see was a lopsided spoon.
    “Hey,