One for the Team

17| before

We're at the skatepark at the end of the day when Ace finally asks me about the party. Says I disappeared. Wants to know where. Where the fuck did I go and why didn't I tell him?

I wipe the sweat rolling down my forehead with my t-shirt, "I just went home."

This is not entirely a lie. I did go home eventually. Ace's sitting on top of a ramp, rolling himself a joint. He brings it to his lips when he's done.

"Are you lying to me?" He says it like there's an important different between lying and lying to him. I guess there is. There's an agreement between me and him. It goes without saying. I'll lie, for one reason or another, and he'll say not you, and it always sounds like not you too. Like the whole world's been lying to him his whole life, but not me.

"No," I say as I skate past him. Usually lying to him makes me feel sick but not this time.

"I think he is," Milo jumps in.

"Well, no one asked you," I stop him, and he pushes me off my skateboard. I almost fall face first on the floor.

"Don't be fucking rude," he says, and then, "Anyway, why don't you tell us where you went? You don't have to tell us her name, just where you fucked her."

"I don't know what you're talking about," I tell them as I get back on the skateboard. The sun burns the skin on my shoulders, and my face, and my back. I imagine it falling off, like a snake's skin.

"You do," Ace says. "But you didn't leave to go fuck her. She was still at the party –"

"What the fuck?!" Milo stops him, jumping off his own skateboard, which keeps on going my way, so fast, I barely have time to move away from it. "Ace knows who she is?!"

Ace lights up his joint and shrugs. It means yes. Yes, of course, he does.

"What that fuck?!" Milo's looking at me like I just stabbed him in the back. "Why does he get to know, and I don't?"

I open my mouth to answer but close it again when Milo runs after his skateboard and grabs it only to throw it right at me. I've lost count of how many skateboards Milo's had in his lifetime. He keeps breaking them and getting new ones again and again.

This time it doesn't break. Instead, it hits my shoulder and falls back on its wheels before rolling away. Milo laughs. I regret having taken my t-shirt off. There's blood dripping down my shoulder and arm and all of it stings.

"What the fuck's wrong with you, Milo?" Ace tells him, "Do that again and I'll break the skateboard on your face."

"Oh wow," Milo says. "Unnecessary."

"You're a fucking idiot." I grab my t-shirt where I left it next to our things and press it against my shoulder. It just stings some more. Ace passes me the jug of water I brough in my backpack.

Then he says, "Milo says he saw you hanging out with the gay kid –"

"He has a name." I stop him, pouring water down my shoulder and watching it fall red at our feet.

"Good for him," Ace says, blowing out smoke my way.

"But wait!" Milo shouts. He's standing across from us, trying to land a new trick, a frown on his face, "Who's this fucking girl?"

"What were you doing with him?" Ace asks again, ignoring Milo, his eyes on me instead. "Hello!?" Milo insists.

"I don't know, talking?" I tell Ace.

"About what?"

I give up on my shoulder, and get back on my skateboard, "I don't know, school, I guess."