He stepped right up next to me. I could tell he was angry, but I didn’t care. Wolf wolf wolf. “I. Am. Sober.”

Did he think I couldn’t smell him? “Whatever.”

“Whatever?” he echoed. “How about you take my word for it?”

“And why should I do that?”

“How about because you trust me?”

“Trust you? Does anyone do that? Of all the things I would do that are crazy, Cole, you can be sure that will never be one of them.”

Just like that, he was gone. His body was still there, but his eyes were empty. Cole St. Clair had left the building. A very tidy party trick, and the most cunning objectification of all: when he took the person that was him and threw him away. I would have felt guilty, but I had seen what I’d seen. I wasn’t making any of it up. I could smell the wolf, smell the beer, remember the girl’s arm draped possessively around his neck.

I would not feel bad.

I did not feel bad.

“Don’t call me,” I said. “Stop doing this to me. I’m not your — stop doing this to me.”

I got into my car.

I didn’t look back to see if he was still standing in the lot.

Chapter Thirty-Three

· cole ·

I was sober.

I had told the truth, and it hadn’t mattered. In the end, she’d bought into the same story everyone else had.

Did it matter if you’d changed if no one believed it?

After Isabel left, I walked through the party in a haze. I knew I said something to Jeremy. I knew I smiled at a joke some guy told me. I knew I signed someone’s hat. I didn’t remember the fine details of anything. They were all lost in the hiss in my ears.

I moved through the people until I found Magdalene on the couch beneath the giant lips, making out with one of her boys.

“Farewell, pet,” I told her. My smile was a corpse that I resurrected briefly for her. “I’m out.”

Magdalene slapped the boy away. “It’s early! I think it’s early? Don’t go.”

“I must,” I said. “Come, give me a sisterly embrace.”

She staggered to her feet. “How boring that you’re sober! Stay.”

She threw her arms around me in a way I wouldn’t have put up with from my sister, if I’d had one. I removed her fingers from my mouth. I needed to go before I felt-did-was something stupid. I needed to get out of here and I needed to call Isabel and I needed to not be angry and I needed to not think about the many ways I knew how to distract myself from this feeling — “But wait, wait,” Magdalene said. “It’s your birthday.”

“I remember.”

“You have to stay for your present.”

I looked past her. T was there with his camera, unable to hide his pleased smile. Joan had hers, too. I realized the music had been turned down for this moment. The partygoers, chattering in low anticipation, had parted in an uneven line toward one of the warehouse doors. It was rolled all the way up, and I saw the night sky and a thousand bitter stars.

Jeremy stood by the door, the only one not grinning. His face was watchful.

I asked, “Will I like it?”

Magdalene led me down the aisle of people to the door. T

backed down ahead of us to get my facial expression; Joan followed up behind.

I got there and faced the nighttime parking lot. Three floodlights lit my present.

It was my Mustang. Black and shiny and tricked-out and new — well, not new anymore. It had been new when I’d gotten it, back when I’d rewarded myself for my first album going platinum, back before I realized you couldn’t bring a Mustang or your soul on tour. It was not new, but it was still pristine. I could tell it was my Mustang from Phoenix, not just a rental, because there was still a St. Christopher medal dangling from the rearview mirror, just like when I’d left it.

It looked molten in these lights. The black of the paint reflected the black of the sky until it was just a void sitting there.

The doors opened.

My mother got out of the passenger’s side.

My father got out of the driver’s side.

T trotted around to keep getting my face.

It reflected the car that reflected the night sky that was a slice of the universe that contained infinite nothing.

There was nothing wrong with my father except his face looked a little like mine, and nothing wrong with my mother except she wore matched separates, and there was nothing wrong with the two of them together looking at me except it felt like the suburbs had moved into my heart.

“Happy birthday!” shouted a bunch of people behind me.

Jeremy stood there by the car, his shoulders pointed down, his eyes on me. He was the only person here who knew this wasn’t a gift.

I looked at my parents. They looked at me. They looked at me a lot.

I had let them think I was dead.

I had not called them when the world found out I wasn’t.

They had not changed in appearance at all, except to get dustier and older. My father had always looked brittle; now he looked cancerous. I recognized the Windbreaker he wore. I knew those shoes of my mother’s. There was nothing wrong with them except the unchanging constancy of their lives, a circle of grocery-office-Saturday-bed-linen-washing- Sundayservices - Tuesday - ratatouille - night - Thursday - church - meetingrinse-repeat.

There was nothing wrong with them except that three years ago I’d decided that I’d rather die than turn out like them.

They were really nice people.

They had driven this car all the way out here for me.

I couldn’t move, in case moving triggered emotional reunions on their part.

Magdalene, her voice loud and bright, said, “What a show this will be!”

What that meant was that I had been standing there too long, my expression too naked, and I had not had Cole St. Clair up for the cameras for who knew how long.

I didn’t know what he would do, though. I didn’t know what Cole St. Clair would do right now, faced with these people.

Part of the reason I had made him was because he couldn’t coexist with them. Because he was the opposite, everything they weren’t. He was the alternative to shooting myself in the head.

It wasn’t cruel, this transformation, as long as I never went back home.

And now: this.

I needn’t have worried about a teary reunion. Both of my parents eyed the cameras timidly.