Infandous by Elana K. Arnold

observer again rather than the show.
    Everyone around me has the lidded eyes of the inebriated and the stoned. They’re staring into their cups or at the TV screen or at each other, the same basic expression on everyone’s face. It’s been long enough now that dinner at the Chinese restaurant must be over. Even if they stayed for green tea ice cream, even if they had another beer, they must be home by now. They must be together, probably downstairs in Jordan’s place, and I see him in my mind, pressing into my mother, his knee wedged between her legs. I see him winding himself around and between and inside of her.
    We are all getting drunker. Someone should stop this, and it occurs to me that if I ever sink three shots in a row, I could reverse Marissa’s rule, but by the time I finally do, my quarter plinking as it lands inside the glass, I’ve lost that train of thought. Instead, I call out, “New rule!”
    The others look at me: Marissa expectantly, Sal cynically, Darrin hopefully, and Lolly drunkenly. Her blonde braids are askew, tumbledown. I think she’s had enough to drink, but that’s her call.
    “Here’s the rule: if you drink with your right hand and someone busts you, you have to tell that person a secret you’ve never told them.”
    “I’m left-handed already,” says Lolly. “What about me?”
    “The rest of you are righties, aren’t you?” I ask.
    They nod. I turn to Lolly. “That’s okay. You’re pretty wasted anyway. Just remember to use the hand you always use.”
    Next, it’s Sal’s turn to shoot. He sinks it and looks at Darrin. “Drink, bitch,” he says.
    Darrin looks at me full of intention and picks up the cup with his right hand. Now I feel kind of stupid because it’s obvious he’s screwing with my rule, but I say, “Darrin, you have the memory of a goldfish. You’re supposed to use your other hand.”
    “Now I have to tell you a secret, right?”
    I shrug. “That’s the rule.”
    “I’m freaking in love with you, Sephora.”
    Okay. Darrin’s drunk, of course, and he’s the kind of guy who’s in love with the idea of love, if you know what I mean. He likes all of it, I think—the anticipation, the buildup, the first kiss, the relationship drama, and even the breakup. The cycle.
    So I don’t take him too seriously. I smile and say, “Thanks, Darrin, that’s sweet.”
    He looks kind of pissed, but he shrugs.
    It goes like that for a while. Most everyone remembers my rule and the new ones too—Marissa rescinds her rule on her next turn, since everyone is obviously getting way too shit-faced. Lolly adds, before she gets too drunk to play anymore, that anyone who drinks gets to choose someone else who has to drink too; and then Darrin says anyone who sinks a shot gets to make out with anyone until someone else sinks a shot.
    That’s about when Lolly drops out of the game, probably because she doesn’t want Sal to kiss her when it’s his turn. He gives her that look , and she heads into the kitchen to scrounge for some bread to soak up the alcohol in her stomach.
    Darrin is the next person to sink a quarter, and it’s no surprise when he crooks his finger at me. So okay, we kiss, and it’s not terrible, not great but not terrible either. It’s nothing like the kiss with Marissa—I let Darrin lead and I follow, and his sweet mushy mouth doesn’t ask for much. It’s nothing like how I imagine Jordan is kissing my mother, full of passion and depth of meaning. It’s nothing like how it had been with Felix. Darrin’s kiss doesn’t melt me at all, which is a relief.
    Darrin, I realize as he breaks away and grins at me, all happy and dopey, is the first guy to kiss me since Felix last winter.
    “Why’d you stop, faggot?” Sal slurs. I hear a quarter bounce off the table and roll onto the floor. Darrin kisses me again.
    I wonder if maybe kissing Darrin can overwrite what I did with Felix, you know, like when you reuse a canvas, painting something new over