TW: This chapter contains underage alcohol abuse.

"E-li-jah! E-li-jah! E-li-jah!" says the crowd.

"Eli?!" says me.

Eli. The sweet, God-fearing, family-friendly, American Indian boy who thinks white. Is chugging beer from a funnel from the keg. Elijah Whitney.

I come between him and the keg, severing all contact they'd had with each other. A few people in the crowd boo. The unfortunate boy from earlier who was in charge of the keg shouts at me, the word "dude" followed by an unrepeatable expletive.

"Hey!" Eli cries out. "Wait your turn!" And then his vision focuses and he realizes it's me. "Oh. It's you," he spits. "Alyssa." He follows my name with a pair of sloppy air quotes.

I put my hands on his shoulders, hoping either no one noticed or just figured he was acting drunk. "Come on. It's time to go."

He shrugs me off. "No! I'm having fun!"

I push him away from the scene and into the crowd. Some other kid has already taken Eli's place at the keg. "I bet," I reply. "A little too much fun."

"But I'm with my friends!" He plants his feet into the wooden floor between two girls in the audience and I can no longer push him. I turn his shoulders, at least, to see the students around him who've already moved on to cheering for the next contestant — a tall, brawny guy with a full beard who is probably more than twice as able to hold his liquor than Elijah Whitney.

"What friends?" I ask him.

"Anyone here but you," he states all too quickly.

It's a low blow, and it stings like one, too. I shake it off. He's inebriated. He's not my Eli; he's not himself right now. ...But what if he is? What if the alcohol has given him the liquid courage to say exactly what's on his mind? I guess "my Eli" doesn't exist any more. Because I sacrificed him for the truth, and he is no longer mine.

"The fact that you hate me is not the current issue at hand," I state. "You have made your distaste for me rather clear, but I do, however, still care about your safety and am not willing to let you stay here alone and drink yourself into oblivion."

He staggers backwards a bit and one of the girls shoves him forward. He falls into me, and I push him back upright before he takes the both of us down. "I don't know what you just said," he says, "but you should stand still. I can't concentrate when there's two of you."

Oh, dear. He's worse off than I thought. "Come on, buddy. Let's get you home." I attempt to steer him away from the crowd once more. He allows me to guide him for two steps, and then he stops. And he just looks at me.

"Are we friends?"

I stop, too. "What?"

"Are we friends?" he repeats.

"Yes," I tell him. "I mean, we were, at least."

His brows pull together and his forehead crinkles. "Did we have a fight?"

"Sort of."

"I think I'm mad at you, but I can't remember. Wasn't I just mad at you?"

"Well, when you remember, let me know."

"Okay," he agrees.

Two more steps, and we are officially out of the crowd. I take his hand and lead him towards the front door. I look over my shoulder to wave goodbye to Stef, but she's no longer there. I pull the door open with my free hand. I step over the threshold. He doesn't.

"Eli, come on."

He's looking up at the top of the door frame. Or more like frowning at it, really. "My first kiss was under the mistletoe."

I really wish he would stop this whole drunkenness thing so we could get out of here. "I know."

"Will you kiss me?"

Despite the flip-flop my stomach does, I know he's not in his right mind at the current moment. "There's no mistletoe on that door, Eli." Plus, I already got one kiss in for tonight.

He frowns. "Oh."

I reach for his hand again. "Now, come on."

He sighs dramatically and folds his arms across his chest. "Now I remember! I am mad at you! And that's why you won't kiss me, isn't it? Because your kisses are lies!"

"Eli, please," I try to reason with him. I know no one inside will hear him over the music, but it's still embarrassing. "You're drunk."

"Nuh uh," he protests. "I only had a few beverages."

I tug at him, still trying to pull him onto the porch. "How much is a few?"

He pulls his arm from my grasp and starts counting on his fingers. One, two, three. Index finger, middle finger, ring finger. He stares at them, a look of perplexity taking over his features. "Wait. How many beverages equals six gulps from the keg?"

I feel like I'm dealing with a small child. A very tall small child. "I'll tell you what. Why don't you come get in the car with me and we'll figure it out together?"

Thankfully, a couple comes to the door, forcing Eli to remove himself from it so they can exit. An object in motion tends to remain in motion until acted upon by an unbalanced force. Once he's taken a step, I grab him and start walking.

He starts singing — at least, I think he thinks he's singing — and the words are so slurred together that I can't decipher the song. But leave it to me to recognize three words, and only three words, of the lyrics and have all three of those words be colors. I hear the words "red", "gold", and "green".

"Loving would be easy if your colors were like my dreams. Red, gold, and green. Red, gold, and green."

He's singing "Karma Chameleon".

We reach my car, and he leans back against the truck parked next to me where the Milan once was — its owner must've had the same idea as me —0 and he twirls some of my hair in his fingers as I unlock the Camry. "Kaaaarmakarmkarmkarmkarma chameleon. You come and go; you come and goooooo." He's got a sloppy grin on his face, and his eyes are hooded, and I know that in his intoxicated state, he's forgotten that he hates me.

And I have to admit, he's kind of adorable when intoxicated.

And then his face turns a slight shade of green and he bends over and hurls all over my boots.

Adorable.

🦎

He passes out in the backseat of the Camry. I know as soon as I pull out of the driveway that I can't bring him back to his house. Theresa would have his head. And Dad will have mine once he finds out where I really was. But I owe it to Eli to take one for the team.

I call Dad once I turn onto the main road.

"Aspen?"

"Hey, Dad. I need a favor."

"What's up?" he asks, but I hear the hesitance in his voice.

"Don't get mad..."

"What happened." The clench of his jaw is almost audible.

"Nothing bad!" I say quickly, realizing that I should've started the conversation off with this. "No Gray; no visions. I just had to go and pick Eli up from this party..." Not technically a lie, I may have found a loophole to get off mostly scot-free.

"Okay..."

"And he's drunk and passed out in the backseat."

"Oh, my."

"Yeah. And I can't bring him back to his house or he'll get in a ton of trouble."

"And you want me to let you bring him here."

"Just until he sobers up. Then I'll bring him back to get his car."

"I don't think so. I think we'll call his parents and have one of them pick him up."

He'll still get in trouble this way for leaving whichever unlucky one of his family member's vehicles he'd driven himself to the party in at said party... But it's better than him being caught drinking. "Okay. Deal."

I stop the car as I turn onto our street and put it in park and turn off the lights. I check on Eli; he's still conked out. My soiled boots are already in the trunk, so I shimmy out of my jeans and toss them to the passenger seat, followed by my tank, my cami, and all my jewelry. I fish the sweats and tee out of my book bag and change into them. I knot my hair back up using the elastic on my wrist. I pull down the visor and pull up the mirror and swipe hurriedly at my face with a napkin from inside the door. Dad may remember that I'd left the house with no make-up on, or he may not. But I'm not going to take any chances. Not all of it comes off — curse my all-day liner — but I succeed in making it look sloppy enough to talk Dad into remembering that I'd had it on before.

When I pull into the driveway, Dad meets me at the car. I'm quick to zip up my bag before he sees the "street clothes" poking out of it. I turn and put a hand on Eli's shoulder, shaking him awake. He groans and attempts to sit up, but his head flops back onto the seat almost as soon as it leaves it. I unlock the car for Dad and keep shaking Eli. Eventually, between my coaxing and my Dad's pulling, we get him onto dry land. Dad nearly drags him towards the door. He stops and vomits once again in the bushes that line the porch. Better them than my bare, now bootless, feet.

Dad sets him on the couch and leaves him there. I toss my book bag onto my bed. When I come back, I find that Dad is unexpectedly kneeling in front of Eli with a mug of warm tea. But Eli, who is now somewhat coherent, won't take it because he thinks it's beer.

I put a hand on my dad's shoulder. "Let me," I say softly.

He stands and hands me the mug, so hot that it stings and I have to take it by the handle. He gives me a stern look accompanied by an even sterner aura that says, "We'll talk about this later, young lady." I shoot him my most innocent innocent-daughter face. "Thank you, Daddy."

Dad locks up the front door and stalks off to his room. Once I've heard the faint click of the door shutting behind him, I sit on the cushion next to Eli. He is slumped over atop a throw pillow, half sitting and half laying. His body is pressed to the pillow, but his face is turned into the couch cushion. I hold the mug out to him with one hand and gently pat his leg with the other.

"Eli, take this. It'll make you feel better."

"Uh-uh," he mumbles into the cushion, his voice muffled by the fabric. "Ev'ry ing I dranken night may me pew."

"This one won't. I promise."

"At eens not ing. You wie."

I set the mug on the glass of the coffee table and bury my head in my hands. He's right. I do "wie". My promises aren't even worth a nickel. After a few moments of my eyes closed in self-loathing, I hear the couch squeak and I feel the movement beside me; he sits up and reaches for the mug. He brings it to his lips and takes the tiniest sip, afraid if he takes any more it'll come right back up. He leans back into the couch, cradling the warm mug in his hands, and doesn't say a word.

I know I shouldn't ask him this right now, that I should wait 'til morning or at least until he's sobered up. But it's gnawing at me, and I have to know.

"Why did you drink?"

"Because you told me it'd make me feel better."

I shake my head. "Not what I meant. Why did you drink at the party?"

"Oh. Well I was sad and the kids drinking looked so happy and I didn't wanna be sad any more."

My heart sinks in my body and my body sinks into the couch. "What were you sad about?"

He's silent for a few seconds, and I know he's trying to remember. The skin between his brows creases when he looks at me. "I was sad at you."

I sigh. This I had known all along, but I'd at least hoped it wasn't true. Because while, yes, it's my fault that he's sad, I'm also the reason he even went to the party, because I'd asked Sam to bring him. So not only am I responsible for his drunkenness, but it's like I put the red, plastic cups of poison up to his lips myself.

"I'm so sorry," I say to my lap. "I didn't mean for you to drink."

He takes another sip of tea, bigger this time, and his nose crinkles up. "Is this green?"

"Yeah. It's green tea."

"It tastes like jealousy."

My head whips over my shoulder towards the hallway, towards Dad's bedroom door. It remains closed. Sneaking to a party under the guise that I was studying is one thing, but Eli knowing the color of emotions is something I would not be able to talk myself out of. Thankfully, the little green monster is a commonly known description of jealous.

When I look back to Eli, the mug is at his lips but his eyes are closed. He teeters to the side a bit, so I take the tea from him before he makes a mess. He lands on the throw pillow and curls up on his side, his arms beneath the pillow and his knees pulled up to his hips, and I know that even if he doesn't forgive me, I've already forgiven him.

I go to the hall closet to get a blanket. I flip off the light switch when I re-enter the living room, and I drape the blanket over him and pull it up to his shoulders. He takes a fistful of it and nuzzles into it. I kneel down on the floor next to his head. His eyes are closed, his breathing shallow. I push a sweaty strip of hair from his face. He looks so small, so innocent, so pure, and the words spill out before I can suppress them.

"I know what I did was wrong. It's just that I don't really make a habit of telling people my secrets. Actually, I never have until you. And I'd never been kissed before, so I didn't know what was gonna happen..." I move my hand from his hair to the side of his face, my thumb rubbing a line on his cheek. "I know I should have told you sooner, but I was just discovering it, too, and I didnt know what it meant or why it was happening... I can't make excuses for the things I feel when we're... connected... But I can't make excuses for the things I feel when we're not connected, either," I admit to his still, unmoving figure. "I don't know what it is, but it's definitely something."

As soon as I've brought my confusing apology to a close, his breathing evens out and he begins snoring softly. I place the softest, tiniest kiss atop his parted lips. "Goodnight, Elijah Rivers," I whisper.

When I'm opening the door to my room, I swear I hear him say, "Goodnight, Alyssa Renée," but it's so soft that I can't be sure if it was real or not.

🦎

Over the course of the next few hours, I sleep maybe twenty winks, at most. I try to read, but all I can think about is Eli potentially waking up worried and confused and me not being there. I take my pillow and comforter and tiptoe into the living room. I curl up on the recliner, and now that I can make out his sleeping form beneath the shadows cast by the overhead oven light that Dad always keeps on in the kitchen, I am finally able to rest. The last conscious thought I have before sleep takes me is how my father had slept in this chair and I on that couch the night of the prom for altogether different reasons, but for altogether similar ones all the same.

🦎

I wake up a second or two before I open my eyes. And when I do, Eli is watching me from his spot on the couch, a small smirk playing at his lips.

"Good morn—" I croak. I clear my throat. "Good morning."

"Good morning," he repeats.

Pale blue-ish light peeks into the room from between the mini-blinds, casting parallel shadowy streaks onto the floor. "What time is it?" I ask him.

"I don't know. My phone died."

"I'm sorry. I didn't even think to put it on the charger."

"It's okay."

I straighten out my shirt, run my fingers through my dirty hair, fiddle with the edge of the comforter. Anything to avoid mentioning the elephant in the room. I decide I'll go use the bathroom, buy myself some time. I push the foot of the recliner back in, and it groans before it pops into place. Eli groans and covers his head with the pillow.

"How ya feeling?" I ask tentatively.

His voice comes out muffled, but much more audible than last night when he'd drunkenly buried his face into the sofa. "Like I got ran over by a train."

"How much did you drink, anyway?"

"Can't remember. Couldn't have been that much. I was only there for, like, forty-five minutes 'til you showed up."

"Yeah, well, you were pretty far gone by the time I found you."

"It was my first time drinking. I guess I'm a lightweight."

"Yeah, guess so."

I bounce on my toes, trying to decide on my next course of action.

"Go pee," he tells me. "I'll still be here when you get back."

On my way to the bathroom, I stop in my room to drop off my pillow and blanket. The digital alarm clock on my nightstand reads 6:11. I've still got forty-nine minutes until Dad wakes up and calls Theresa, so I'd better make all forty-nine of them count. On the way out, I catch my reflection in the vanity mirror. I look like a raccoon, the last of my all-day liner smudged around my eyes. On top of this, my hair is oily and my teeth are slimy and my underarms are clammy. I grab a change of clothes and head for the shower. Not all forty-nine minutes are completely necessary.

The shower buys me even more time, I find. I have no idea what I'm going to say to him, how I'm going to explain what happened last night. "Hey, I made Sam talk you into coming to the party with the intentions of talking through our differences but instead I found you sucking down beer so I kidnapped you and put you to bed on my couch." Forget about our fight the night before last, I wouldn't even forgive myself for last night so easily.

And what if he doesn't? Forgive me easily or at all? What if I lose the only real friend I've ever had? Then what will have even been the point of it all? I shared with him my deepest, darkest secrets — and for what?

As I wring out my hair and step out of the shower, I decide that I'll leave it up to fate. She has proven herself to have a very funny way of dealing with me.

Back in the living room, Eli is sitting up, now. When he hears me coming, he puts a hand over his mouth. "You wouldn't happen to have an extra toothbrush, would you?"

One perk of being me? I always have an extra toothbrush. I never know when I'm going to be on the run again.

I start a pot of coffee while I wait for him. I can't remember if he likes coffee or not, but I now know he doesn't like green tea. I think that fate will either drag me one of two ways: to explain myself and win back my friend, or to apologize profusely and let him go. I doubt he remembers my strange apology/explanation hybrid from several hours ago, so maybe I can recycle it. Just filter out some of the more revealing parts.

He meets me in the kitchen, his hair pulled up in a bun and his skin glowing with a freshly-washed sheen. He leans against the dishwasher across from the coffee pot.

"Coffee?" I offer.

"Black, please."

I lift a brow at him.

"Milk and sugar aren't gonna do this hangover any favors, A.G."

Again with the old nickname. I wonder if he's doing it out of cautiousness in case my dad were to hear, or if this is his way of dealing with his pain; i.e. when he'd left me alone at the bottom of the ladder the other night and called me Alyssa. Maybe Aspen was the one who hurt him. Aspen was the one with the secrets, the one who let him kiss her and bottled up his colors for a rainy day. Maybe if I can keep pretending to be Alyssa, things can go back to the way they were — math notes and art projects and big, poofy dresses.

He takes a long, slow gulp of bitter, black coffee and hisses as it goes down. "Wow, that's disgusting."

I sip my lukewarm french vanilla-creamed coffee in silence.

"So, should I plan my escape soon, or does your dad know I'm here?"

"He knows. He actually brought you from the car to the house."

"Oh. Yikes."

"Yeah. You puked on our bushes."

"And your boots."

"You remember that?"

He nods, scrunching his nose up — in distaste or reminiscience, I can't be sure. "I remember bits and pieces." He takes another gulp, this time expecting the bitterness, so no dramatics ensue. "I don't remember why you were there, though."

Alright, fate. Let's make an attempt at option number one. "I was there to find you, actually."

"How'd you know I was gonna be there?"

"I, uh. I. I kinda made Sampson promise to bring you."

He scrunches his nose again, and this time I know for sure it's due to reminiscience. "Sam? I didn't go with Sam. I didn't even know he was there."

"Yeah, he was..." I start. But I soon realize the more significant portion of his reply. "Wait, so who'd you go with?" I refuse to believe that he'd gone of his own volition. He's much too good.

"I went by myself," he says matter-of-factly. "Where's the SUV at, by the way?"

"At Tyler's," I tell him quickly, because I'm more concerned with the other part. "You just skipped school and then decided to go to Tyler Prestridge's party by yourself?"

He looks offended. "How'd you know I skipped school? I happen to know you skipped, too."

"That's irrelevant," I say, although we probably have an identical source. "Why'd you go to Tyler's party?"

"I, for one, think it's highly relevant." He calmly sips his coffee. "And that girl from the bathroom invited me."

"The girl from the bathroom?!" I nearly screech. I lower my voice when he winces. "What girl?"

"You know." He rubs his temple. "The one with the twin."

And then it dawns on me. The girl from the bathroom. That day I'd found my name on the prom court ballot. "Wait, Stefanie?"

"Yeah, yeah. Her."

"Why'd she invite you?" I spit the pronoun as if I hadn't been sort of chummy with her myself last night.

He shrugs. "Dunno. She messaged me on Facebook and asked if we were gonna be there."

None of this is making any sense. "We?"

"Yeah." He gestures to the both of us with his mug. "Me and you."

My head is swimming. It's not really that big of a deal, I guess, but why hadn't she mentioned it to me? I'd spoken to her for at least ten minutes. "Why would she wanna know if I was gonna be there?"

"Dunno that, either. Didn't ask." I don't interrogate him further, so he elaborates. "I was tired of sulking around and watching Seinfeld all day. And Kei's really no help at all. They brought her home yesterday, and she slept most of the morning, but Dad gave her a little bell and she rang it constantly once she woke up. If it was for realistic things like a glass of water or the remote, I'd understand. She's still in a neckbrace from straining it. But, honestly, her arms and legs work perfectly fine. She made me make her bed just to laugh at me while I did it, and then she got right back in it."

...And I guess this is the part where the apology comes in. Although I'm glad to hear that Kei is back in good spirits.

"Why did you come looking for me?"

...Or maybe the explaining part.

I sigh, placing my mug on the counter with one hand and rubbing my forehead with the other. "I sort of had this plan."

"To strip me from the beer keg amidst my proudest moment of high school glory?"

Leave it to him to diffuse the situation with jokes. But I'm not really in a joking mood. "No, I just wanted to talk. It's silly."

He sets his empty mug on the counter, too. "Lay it on me."

"Well, I got all dolled up and stuff."

"I remember," he nods. "You looked good."

I move my hands from my forehead down to my cheeks in an attempt to cool them. "I thought I... it sounds painfully narcissistic now that I'm actually saying it out loud... but I thought if I called or texted you'd ignore me, and if I came by your house you wouldn't wanna see me. I thought maybe if you saw me at the party you'd think I looked so pretty that... I don't know. It's dumb."

He nods politely as if to say go on.

"I guess I thought I'd use my feminine wiles, or whatever, to get you to talk to me. And then I'd, like, corner you, or something, and you'd have no choice but to listen to my apology."

He wraps his arms around himself. "Well, you've got me cornered now."

Now here's the apology part.

"Okay. Um. I had it all planned out. What I was gonna say. It was something like... you were my first kiss, if you didn't already figure that out, and so I didn't know what was gonna happen. And you didn't know what I could do, anyway, and so I guess I thought, what was the point, you know? Because telling you what I could do wasn't gonna change anything, you know? You're still you, and I'm still me, and I'm still leaving."

I take a breath, steadying myself. Or maybe bracing myself. "I never planned on telling you. It's been mine and my dad's secret for so long... But I know that it wasn't fair to, like, play with your emotions like that, or whatever. And I'm sorry."

He doesn't say anything for a few moments, and I begin to wonder if he'd even been paying attention to me. But then he hums, and I flinch involuntarily at the sudden sound.

"Huh. I seem to remember there being a footer to that apology before."

Before? As in... "You were awake?"

He only smirks.

"I guess I thought you'd be too drunk to remember."

"Oh, I remember, alright." He pushes himself off the counter and takes a step towards me. "Something about an admission of deeper feelings for me, was it?"

I blush, and this time my hands aren't shielding it from his sight. "I, um, I think I said something about how I couldn't explain why I could feel the things I could feel when we were... you know."

He takes another step. "And?" he coaxes, the smirk on his lips growing wider.

"And I guess just that I sorta can't really explain how I feel when we're... when we're normally."

He's full on grinning now. "When we're normally?" Another step.

Another gulp. "Y-yeah." But I know what's coming. He's kissed me before, plenty of times. So why am I suddenly so nervous?

"And what are those things that you feel when we're normally, exactly?"

My stomach twists and I can feel a certain heat within it that hasn't been there other times, not even in the treehouse before I'd brought his number one fantasy to life — the one he'd always told his friends about.

I choose my next words carefully. "That you're important. You're special."

Another step more, a mere foot away. "I'm special?" he asks, clearly enjoying my uncharacteristic flusteredness.

"And I don't wanna lose you." I suddenly remember a bit of information pertaining to the current topic at hand. "Dad said when we move that we can keep in touch. We're going to Iowa."

Step.

"R-right next door."

Step.

He's so close now that our feet are touching, so close that if I lifted myself up on my toes our faces might touch, too. "I'd like to keep in touch," he says, so soft that it's almost a whisper.

I go ahead and give in; I shut my eyes and stand on my toes. I feel his hands on my waist, but before I feel his lips on mine, I feel my toes being lifted off of the floor entirely and my backside lands on the countertop. I open my eyes, and he's standing between my legs. We are now at eye-level. My heart pounds out its gratitude, and I think I know why this time feels so different. Because this time, all the cards lay face up. Everything's on the table. He knows it all, everything. So, in a way, this is the first one hundred percent kiss he will share with one hundred percent of Aspen.

"Are you ready to admit it, yet?" he asks, his voice positively a whisper now. He leans forward, tilting his head ever so slightly. His lips meet my ear. "Are you ready to admit that you like me?"

I can feel the goosebumps forming on the back of my neck and the tops of my arms from how his breath had tickled my skin. "You're my, my—" my voice catches, and I stop. My cheeks flush with embarrassment, although I'm sure he will accredit it to something else altogether. "My best fr—"

Lips press against mine, effectively ending my sentence. I feel the sun. A warm, cozy yellow. Everything potentially good about drinking black coffee at seven o'clock in the morning with the person you like.

He ends it all too soon, pulling back to rest his forehead on mine. "I really don't need to hear about how I'm your best friend any more. I'm your only friend," he reasons, "so I already know that."

"Well, since you apparently know everything," I start, bravely snaking my hands around the back of his neck. His eyes flutter closed when my fingertips graze his hairline. "You should know already that I do like you."

"Finally," is the last word he whispers before he continues on with the activity he'd previously begun.

__________

This chapter is literally over 5,000 words. Like, what even. Like I just got all mushy-gushy and couldn't stop.

LILIANA MADE THIS EDIT. I don't even know why I'm even crediting her any more, tbh. Like y'all ain't know who makes all my edits.

Hey, remember once upon a time when I said that Chameleon was probably gonna have about 21 chapters? Well, CHECK IT. Chapter 21 and we've still got two full weeks left in York.

THANKS FOR READING!!!!