Shiny Happy People

Prologue

Party Favors

What’s in my drink?

Some guy in the kitchen simply handed Jenna a red Solo cup and she took it. She didn’t ask—­didn’t know—­what it was until the vodka struck her tongue. Now she’s gasping at the burn as the li­quid fire funnels down her throat, blossoming in her belly like one big Molotov cocktail.

“Hoooooly shit!” She laughs, vodka dribbling down her chin. It literally burns to breathe.

Jenna is ready for another.

And another.

One month. That’s it. Only one more month until everyone at Greenfield High can kiss her dimpled ass goodbye and she’s out of this town, off to college, buh-­bye, bon voyage.

Cheers to that.

She finds the dance floor. Or maybe the dance floor finds her. Everyone else merely dances around her, thrashing planets orbiting the sun. She’s the center of this solar system, a galaxy of classmates spiraling to the beat. The music seeps in, dull vibrations sinking deeper—­

Whoa, what’s happening?—­

and deeper and—­

How tipsy am I?—­

the sound system is cranked up so loud, she can see the discarded debris of Solo cups vibrating on the table, countertop, shelves every time the bass kicks in: dum-­dum-­dum-­dum.

The humidity in the basement thickens. Everyone’s hair is wet, slickened tendrils clinging to their temples. The occasional blast of a camera flash from someone’s phone ignites the whole room, solar flares of pics bursting all around, momentarily blinding her.

I am a star!

She feels the heat radiating off her body in these rippling waves, distorting the air. She doesn’t know what the song is anymore, a scorched techno beat burning the wallpaper away.

Gabe comes out of nowhere. He’s been hobbling on crutches these last couple of weeks after a skateboard accident. Look at him now. Crutch-­free. Practically strutting. Grinning ear to ear. He’s radiant. Perfect. My God, it’s like his skin is glowing down here in the basement.

That boy shines. He’s a meteorite heading straight for her.

Collision in T minus three seconds . . .

Everyone splits down the middle, bodies breaking off and forming a valley.

Two seconds . . .

She makes eye contact with Gabe, yearning for him, feeling the very gravity of his presence pulling them together.

One second . . .

The dance beat thickens as Gabe stops in front of her.

Impact!

Jenna presses her palm flat against his chest, right where his heart is, and she swears she feels the vibrations of the beat radiating from him. His heart is one enormous speaker cone.

Everyone else melts away. It’s just her and Gabe now.

Jenna feels outside her own body. She watches as Gabe takes her hand . . . guides her up the stairs . . . leads her down the hall . . . escorts her into the bedroom . . . closes the door behind him and . . .

Gabe kisses her. Thin vibrations tremble through his soft lips, so Jenna closes her eyes and tastes the sound. The sweetest beat. He’s brought the music with him. How considerate.

One second, Jenna is vertical. The next . . .

She’s horizontal.

The two topple onto the bed. Jenna is in Gabe’s arms and laughing all the way down.

Whose room even is this? Jenna doesn’t know. Doesn’t care. It has no personality. Just navy blue wallpaper and boring decor straight out of a Pottery Barn catalog. Peel back the pastel layers of suburban bliss, and these McMansions all look the same, anyway.

It’s Jenna’s room now. Correction: Jenna and Gabe’s. They’re ripping at each other’s sticky clothes, peeling them all off, layer by layer, as if they’re skinning each other.

Gabe presses his lips against hers, mashing their mouths. Deep impact. The meteor of his flesh, his bones, his whole aura collides into her own, and the song inside her just . . . explodes.

Jenna’s about to disintegrate under the brunt of his body, the light from the sun snuffing out in one last frantic gasp of air. She wishes he’d be a little more tender with her.

Slow down, she wants to say. Just a little slower—­

There’s a record scratch within Gabe’s skin.

Skkkkrtch!

The music completely halts in his body. His bones lock. Spine goes rigid. Everything within him suddenly petrifies, and Jenna can’t find the rhythm anymore. She loses the beat.

Loses him.

What happened? What’s wrong? When she opens her eyes, she sees Gabe hovering directly above her. His eyes have rolled up into his skull, leaving behind nothing but white.

A bubbling spume seeps out from his mouth. It cascades down her face. Jenna tries to wipe it away, out from her eyes, but there’s too much. Sick, she thinks. He’s sick—­

Jenna tries to move, slide out from under Gabe’s locked body, but he won’t budge. His arms are two pillars at either side, pinning her in place. She can’t free herself. Can’t escape.

“Gabe?” she hears herself ask, but for some reason it doesn’t sound like her. Doesn’t seem as if his name came from her mouth. Someone else must’ve said it. “What’s wrong—­”

Gabe starts to judder. His body is a rocket launched into the cosmos, battling g-forces that buckle against his very bones. He must be having some kind of epileptic fit or—­or—­

Oh God, Jenna thinks, he’s—­

dying—­

OD’ing. He must be in some kind of toxic shock. What’s he on? What did he take?

Gabe rolls off of Jenna and sprawls across the bed, spasming like a windup toy that won’t stop twisting, his torso turning in one direction, legs heading in the other.

Jenna gasps for air, sitting up. Call 911. Now! What did she do with her phone?

Where the hell’s my—­

Downstairs.

Gabe hasn’t stopped convulsing. The spasms only grow worse, the jarring music shocking his body. The foam thickens. The froth is darker. Rustier. Blood. It’s blood . . .

What should I do?

The song keeps skipping in her head, that mental record needle caught in the groove, looping the same frantic lyrics over and over—­What should I do what should I do what should I . . .

Help. She needs to find help.

Someone downstairs will know what to do. But she doesn’t want to leave Gabe like this. She can’t just abandon him, can she? What if he—­

Go. Now. GO.

Jenna bursts out from the room and races through the hall. Back down the steps. She plunges into the basement, into that sweating mass of bodies. They’ve only gotten sweatier, from the looks of it. Wetter. It’s like they’re all one massive, writhing heap of limbs, twisting and twining into one another. She can’t tell where one body stops and the next starts.

“Help,” she shouts, but her voice can’t reach over the music.

So she tries again. Louder this time.

“HELP ME!”

The dancing stops even as the music carries on. Everyone turns toward Jenna. Her face is laced with tears, streaking her makeup. Raccoon eyes. Chest heaving. “Gabe’s over . . . over . . .”

Over . . . what? Over her? Over the river and through the woods? What’s she trying to say?

Dosing. Just say it. Over—­

“. . . dosing.”

One guy—­Jenna doesn’t know his name, Tim or Jim or Slim—­steps up. She’s probably passed him in the hall a million times, but they’ve never talked before.

“I took a CPR course,” TimSlimJim says. He swallows before add­ing, “Once.”

Jenna’s already turning back toward the stairs, taking the steps two at a time.

The hallway has lengthened itself. The house won’t stay solid, messing with her, trying to keep her away from Gabe. Which room were we in? All the doors look the same now . . .

Is it this room?

Wrong door.

This one?

Nope, try again.

Where is he?

Why can’t she find—­

There he is!

Gabe sits upright at the edge of the bed. Perfectly still. Poised is the first word that pops into Jenna’s mind. What’s going on? Why is he . . . ?

Fine. Perfectly fine. He’s so utterly composed right now, it doesn’t compute. There’s no foam spilling out from his mouth. No blood. No convulsions. Gabe is so completely, so utterly . . .

Serene. As if nothing happened.

There’s no music inside him. Not anymore. The beat is all gone. Gabe’s head turns toward her in almost too smooth of a movement, as if his neck swivels. A grinning action figure.

“Let’s party,” he says.