A Perfect Circle

02 | afterparty

02

A F T E R P A R T Y

REN AND I WALKED under clear skies and a full moon. He strode slightly ahead of me, while I dragged my feet against the sidewalk and focused on the perfect circle in the sky. The stars were nothing but hazy speckles in a city as huge as Toronto, but I knew there were galaxies out there, and that consoled my inebriated mind.

He looked over his shoulder and slipped his hands into the pockets of his straight-legged jeans. His eyes were dark in every sense of the word. What did a guy like Ren think about? What did a guy like Ren think about me?

His irises on me were like mallets. I swallowed the lump in my throat.

"So... are there a lot of people coming by?"

He faced forward with a hop in his step. "Nah. But Max said something about wanting to hang out with your friend Jenny, so."

Jenny. Somehow, in the past fifteen minutes we'd been walking, I hadn't thought about my best friend once. Guilt squeezed my throat shut. Ren was Jenny's crush, and I was alone with him. But why did that make me feel guilty? I wasn't doing anything wrong – I was allowed to be his friend.

(Even if every time he looked at me, my cheeks smoldered and my pulse roared).

"I like this, by the way," he said.

I frowned. His fingers grazed the keychain dangling from my pink burlap backpack.

"Oh." I reached back and touched it. It was of Princess Peach. Embarrassment crawled through me before I crossed my arms and looked away. "You don't have to be rude."

Ren cocked an eyebrow. "Rude? I said I liked it."

"You were being sarcastic."

"No I wasn't."

I chewed my lip as he moved behind me and touched my other keychains. I clutched onto the straps of my backpack with flames in my chest.

"They're cool." He walked back up beside me. "You have so many."

It was true. My bag was littered with little Nintendo keychains like Mario mushrooms and trinkets from Zelda. I collected them.

My face burned as I brushed my hair behind my ear. "Sorry. Jenny and Luisa think they're dumb."

The truth was, I hadn't been planning on bringing my backpack to the party in fear of ridicule, but Jenny had convinced me to hold some of the drinks.

Ren shrugged. "I'm into it."

"Oh, okay."

Oh God. Oh, okay? Really? How was that an appropriate response?

I need another drink.

My older brother, Feliks, had bought me a six-pack of Smirnoff Ice, and dread dawned upon me as I realized I'd left them in Heather's fucking fridge. So now I was alone with Rensuke – a guy I hardly knew – and without booze.

Sobriety threatened me as we turned another dark street corner. Lakewood was a nice neighbourhood, a good mix of higher and lower income homes. However, as we reached the end of the street, we approached the outskirts of the area, where buildings became historic and roads became cracked. We walked across a strip of commercial buildings like hair salons and restaurants, most of which had their lights out, until we got to a Mini-Mart at the end.