Untouchable (Untouchables, 1)

“Honey, if you have a social gathering to go to with your friends—”

“I don’t,” I say firmly, walking into the other room and turning my attention back to Grace. “Listen, I know you’re excited, but we can’t go to that party. God knows what they’ll be up to. It’s not going to be like youth group parties. They’ll probably be drinking and hooking up and—it’s not a place for us.”

“But I’ve never been invited to one of their parties before,” she complains. “Aren’t you the least bit curious?”

“You know what? I’m curious what would happen if I reached my hand down that little garbage disposal hole in the sink to retrieve a lost spoon, but not curious enough to try it. Jake is at that party, Grace.”

“I know he is, but Carter will be there, too.”

Eyes widening, I tell her, “That’s the problem! You’re literally describing the problem. They aren’t good guys, Grace. They’re not safe guys. You’re right when you say they’re faster than us. We’re in bumper cars on a metal track, and they’re off-roading somewhere in… whatever the fastest car you can think of is. Resist temptation.”

“This isn’t temptation, it’s just a party,” she insists. “We don’t have to do anything we don’t wanna do. We can still be us and go to a party with the popular kids.”

“No,” I say, shaking my head even though she can’t see me. “It’s not safe. I’m sorry to be a buzz kill, but no. I won’t go there.”

“But I want to,” she complains. “What if we just went for an hour? One hour. What could happen in one hour? We won’t drink or do anything we shouldn’t.”

“No. Carter is trying too hard to get me there, Grace. It’s not because he’s up to anything good. No way. I’m sorry.”

“I think you’re bein’ a little paranoid, Zoey,” Grace snaps. “Not every guy wants to assault you. It’s not even Carter that issued this invite, it was Shauna.”

“Because he messaged me ten minutes ago askin’ me to come and I told him no for the third time. This was just his plan B.”

“You know what? You’re bein’ so self-obsessed right now, you can’t even consider that maybe Shauna likes me, that maybe she wants me to come hang out with them. Maybe it’s not all about you, Zoey.”

I sigh, letting my head fall back against the wall. “That is not how I meant it, Grace. It’s just… you don’t understand because I haven’t told you everything, but please trust me on this. I’m not bein’ self-obsessed. I’m not bein’ paranoid. This has Carter’s fingerprints all over it. I promise you he is the one behind this invitation.”

Her tone is low and disappointed. “Whatever. I’m sorry I wanted us to actually go out and try something new and maybe have some fun with our peers.”

Before I can reply, she hangs up on me. Glaring at my screen, I open up Instagram and go to my messages, telling Carter, “Thanks a lot, asshole. Now Grace is mad at me and I’m STILL not coming to the party.”

“Remember what I told you about how you don’t always have to fight tooth and nail?” he replies.

“When you were holding me against my will and touching me without my consent in my own driveway? Yes, Carter, I do remember that.”

Since he’s not an idiot, he doesn’t respond to that angrily laid trap.

I’m too mad after all that to even focus on the game, plus now that Carter has come up, my mother is bleeding curiosity and asking me a million questions about the party and why I don’t want to go. It really should be enough that Jake is there. No one should expect me to want to go to a party he’s at—Jake, who cornered me and touched me inappropriately when there wasn’t alcohol involved—but everyone sucks, and I’m so pissed off, I just want to go to bed.

Chapter 12

I’m curled up in bed with my light still on, trying to get lost in a fictional world. I tried to fall asleep and couldn’t, so I’m trying one more time to make myself love The Great Gatsby. I had to read it for English lit last year and do a paper on it, but every chapter felt like a chore. I want to give it another chance this year—another year older and wiser, maybe.

Maybe not, since I did go get wings with stupid Carter Mahoney and his stupid jerkbag face. Ugh, I’m so mad at him.

I shake it off, rolling out my shoulders and trying to refocus on Gatsby, but my mind keeps drifting back to Grace. She’s almost never mad at anyone, so that she’s mad at me makes me feel terrible, but I feel even worse that she thought I was being self-obsessed. She even made me doubt myself for a minute—maybe I am being paranoid. I really don’t think I am, all my experience with Carter considered, but I guess he never actually admitted to being the one who told Shauna to invite Grace. It seems a bit far-fetched to me, but I guess it’s not impossible he wasn’t involved. I guess it’s not impossible that Shauna decided for the first time ever, completely out of the blue, she would invite me and Grace to one of the parties they have all the time.