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them. But it doesn’t matter how much I dance or how many times I kiss Seth Hardy— I know the feelings will always catch up.
    I don’t belong here. I’m not like the people around me.
    Each and every memory I have of dancing with friends in muggy rooms, giggling as we point out cute boys, fl irting in dark corners with the ones we might like enough to kiss, is paper-thin, with no emotional weight or dimension to it.
    Strip back the surface and I’m a blank slate. It’s as though I’ve never in my whole life felt at home anywhere.
    I take an unsteady step back, easing my way out of the circle of dancers and into the front hall where I spy two girls in bright eye shadow and skintight jeans making a beeline for the door. One of them has bloodshot eyes, like she’s recovering from a crying jag. “Dave’s an asshole,” the other girl claims with a vehemence that sends a globule of spit soaring from her mouth. “We should key his car.”
    “Wait!” I call, striding forward to intercept them. “Are you leaving? Can you give me a ride home?”
    The sad girl’s chin wobbles. It’s her friend who answers me. “We can give you a ride— as long as you don’t care if we key the shit out of someone’s car fi rst.”
    I don’t care at all. This place and every person in it feel twenty times realer than the majority of my memories but regardless, nothing that happens here tonight feels as though it has anything to do with me.

t h r e e
    I arrive home early, with the taste of bubblegum in my mouth (the sad girl gave me a piece to hide alcohol breath).
    My mom’s lying on the couch waiting for me and wanting to talk about the party. I mention the dancing and the guys playing hockey on the ice rink and say it was okay but that I miss my old friends.
    This feels like what I should say. I can’t tell her how most of the things that happened before we returned to Canada feel hazy and that the things that have happened since don’t seem right either. I don’t want that to be true.
    My father doesn’t feel vague or blurry the way New Zealand, Alison and Shane do. His image is as vivid in my mind as my mother’s is. He has the kind of face that turns to stone when he’s angry, thinking that he’s not betraying any sign of emotion. When I was younger I used to hate seeing that blank expression aimed at me because I knew it meant he was supremely displeased. He wasn’t the type to shout— he rarely raised his voice— but having my father mad at you felt a little like losing a sunny day. And when my dad was happy the world seemed like a better place. If he were here with us now, would I still feel lost? Would I remember everything the way I should?
    There’s no one I can ask, no one I can really talk to, and I don’t call Seth to explain my disappearance the next day. He doesn’t call me either so he’s maybe written me off, which is for the best. It’s not right to use someone as a distraction and besides, it didn’t work.
    Monday at lunch I pretend all over again, for Christine and Derrick, that I had an all right time at Corey’s party.
    There’s a blend of contempt and curiosity, with an overlay of forced casualness, buried in their questions about the party.
    They know I don’t belong with them but maybe they don’t want to lose me to the jock table either.
    As we’re leaving the cafeteria afterwards, Christine pulls me aside and says, “Aren’t you going to tell me how things went with Seth? You hardly mentioned him.”
    I drag my fi ngers through my hair and bite down on my molars, silently debating how much I can share without sounding like a weirdo. Since Christine and Derrick are out-siders themselves, I feel closer to them than I do to anyone else at school, but I don’t want to scare them off. “I thought you didn’t like Seth,” I say, stalling.
    Christine folds her arms tightly across her long black sweater. “There are people like him who I don’t like very much but I don’t know