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PART ONE

PROLOGUE

Ása can feel the beat of the music pulsing in her skeleton, but she can't hear it. She can feel Lilja's hot breath on the back of her neck, undoubtedly complaining about something, anything to get Ása's attention back on her, but she can't decipher it. The vodka burns a messy path down her throat and she doesn't know how many she's had, but she can't bring herself to care. There is no party. There is only the high pitched internal scream that whistles in her ears every time she thinks about him and the words on the screen in her hand. Her fingers hurt from clutching the phone for so long.

All it takes is a tap, and she'll have sent it. She'll never have to see him again.

She can't do it.

"What's wrong?" Lilja, shouting in her ear.

Ása clicks the button to kill her screen. Lilja will look. She'll search for a gap in Ása's concentration. She can't let things rest. Sometimes Ása thinks Lilja can smell the secrets on her.

Normally, Ása can swallow her irritation. But there's no more room in her stomach. No more patience. The sounds of the party come back in a flood, the music, the laughter, the press of bodies dancing. At her feet, there's a half-empty beer can spinning on its side, vomiting its contents all over the floor. Ása toes it away from her, but it rolls haltingly back to her. She kicks it.

The can lands with a satisfying smack on a girl's leg, exploding the last of its contents. "Hey!" she yells, twisting in place to figure out what's happened.

"Aim higher next time," Lilja says, hoping for a laugh.

Desperate for some air, Ása pushes through the crowd in the living room, into the decrepit kitchen. Lilja follows, as Ása knew she would. They find a corner by the back door, the only open space in the abandoned house. It's never been this full. Even in the dead of winter, the room is hot with the combined breath and body heat of its inhabitants. The smell of sweat and grease and cigarette smoke overwhelms Ása, threatening to choke her. Or maybe it's just Lilja's arm, snaking around her neck. Strands of her hair plaster onto Ása's skin, dragging and sucking like tentacles.

"Is it Óskar?" Lilja asks. "Or is it—"

"Leave it," Ása warns her. She slicks her friend's hair away from her face.

Lilja's eyes are red and unfocused. She asks, "Is it me?" like she's terrified to hear the truth that it is, but she can't help herself from asking, just as she can't help herself from snooping.

Ása knows she is equally unsteady, has had even more to drink than Lilja, but the anger roiling inside her props her up. The rage and the desire to run—to him, from him, she doesn't know anymore.

"Does it ever bother you," Ása says, shouting over the music, "how everyone wants everything from you, all the time? No one is happy. We are all hungry mouths. Opening and closing, opening and closing." She demonstrates with her hand, blinking as her own fingers blur in front of her.

"What?" Lilja aims her ear at Ása's face.

"Nothing," Ása says.

It's true.

It's nothing.

There's another mouth coming toward her. Óskar, cutting through the crowd, shoving at people's shoulders, laughing when he spills someone's drink. He wants Ása to dance.

He wants so much from her.

Ása downs the last remnants of her drink and lets the cup fall to the floor. She's leaving.

"Where are you going?" Lilja asks her, wounded. Hungry. "I have to piss," Ása lies. She tells Lilja she'll go outside. There's nowhere to go in here, not unless she wants an audience. Lilja starts to follow, but Ása presses a hand against her chest. "I can do it myself. Give me a moment."