"This is gonna hurt coming back out," Marty said, shoveling his Sichuan hot pot into his mouth with a spoon. Marty's cheeks and neck were red from the heat.

  "You're so white, man," Casey said.

  Rob gnawed on a deep-fried pawn, the rest of his pte covered in oily pork vermicelli. "I don't think this is authentic Chinese food," he said.

  It was five o'clock. The sun shone through my parents' front window, causing Marty—who was actively sweating now, using his red-stained napkin to pat at his greasy forehead—to squint against its brightness. I pulled out my dad's office chair with the broken arm so there were enough seats for all of us. We'd driven around Six Mile River's main strip for a while, listening to music and debating food options. Casey requested we stop at Shoppers Drug Mart so he could stock up on a new box of condoms. He forgot the only ones he had with him were lubricated, not ribbed, and apparently Ana preferred the tter. ("Thanks, Case," Rob said, groaning, "good to know.") Next, we stopped by Rob and Casey's houses for supplies: an extra t-shirt, toothbrushes, deodorant. (Marty cimed vodka was nearly the same as mouthwash and insisted his teeth would be fine a single night.) Marty wore us down with his insistence on Chinese food. Not trusting the quality of the restaurant, Casey, Talon, and I declined. The sole Chinese restaurant in town was owned by three sisters, all exceedingly white; technically, the pce was a fusion of Chinese, Vietnamese, and Thai cuisine. (About a year ago, Dad, who had a fervent propensity for bnd food despite Mom's excellent cooking, brought home dinner after work at the church: fried crab cws, gyoza, lemongrass chicken, seafood curry. Sasha, whose father was Vietnamese, had been over for dinner and she prodded, wide-eyed, at the limp, colorless bánh xèo. "It tastes like… nothing?" she whispered under her breath.)

  While Rob and Marty ordered, the three of us walked a couple buildings over and picked up build-your-own wraps. I told Talon to order me whatever he got, so I was currently eating a teriyaki tofu wrap. Casey ate chicken ranch from a fluffy pita bread.

  "Going light with dinner," Casey said, wiping ranch from the corner of his mouth. "'Cause, you know—want to go hard ter."

  He and Marty wolfishly grinned at each other.

  "Not in my house," I said. "My sister's here tonight. And her friends."

  "I meant drinking," Casey said innocently. "Less food means you get drunk faster." He wrapped the remaining half of his food in the waxy paper covered in the chain's branding.

  "Economical, too," Rob said. As if realizing the merits of his own argument, he tilted his pte and began scraping some of his food back into the cardboard container.

  "Ryan, buddy, if you need pointers for tonight, you now have two experts," Marty said, using his thumb to point between himself and Casey.

  "Yeah, it's not—" Casey thought about what he wanted to say. "You know how in porn they just ram right in there?" With his left hand, he made a circle. Using his right pointer finger, he jabbed through the loop. "You don't want to do that."

  Marty frowned. "I mean, you can ram. Ramming's the best part."

  "But not right away," Casey said.

  "Nothing's happening tonight," I said. "So, no advice needed."

  Completely ignoring me, Casey went on: "Something I've learned is that you're also constantly dangerously close to their ass." Casey lowered his voice and added, "As in, the actual hole."

  Rob looked armed now. He pushed his packed-up food into the center of the crowded table and leaned on his elbows. "What if you hit it?"

  "Their asshole?"

  "Yeah."

  Casey shrugged. "I just keep it moving, pretend it didn't happen."

  "Some girls like it," Marty said, slyly raising his eyebrows.

  "Kat?" Casey said.

  "Well, no," Marty said. "But some, I bet."

  "I heard Hayley Guffey-Hodges likes it in the ass," Casey said. "Reliable source on this one!"

  I nearly choked on the st wedge of saucy tortil I'd shoved in my mouth. "Doubt that," I said.

  "Ooh," Marty said obnoxiously, and Casey joined in. "Something you need to tell us? You dated her, right?"

  I wiped at my mouth and rolled my eyes. "I meant because she's so religious, not because I have first-hand experience with her." I tossed my trash in the open paper bag at my feet. I grabbed Talon's and did the same.

  Marty looked at me like I was dumb. "Dude, that's exactly the type of chick who exclusively does anal. It's like, a loophole in their cult or something. I mean, no offense. Your dad's not cult-y."

  "You're Catholic," I pointed out.

  Marty waved his hand. "Barely. I've been to church, like, three times in my life."

  "Rob's also Catholic," I said. He wore a gold cross neckce since we'd known him.

  Rob shrugged. "Culturally."

  "I said your dad wasn't cult-y," Marty said to me. "You don't need to get defensive."

  "Back to the main point," Casey said.

  "What was the main point? Anal?" Marty said. He nodded across the table at Talon, who had been quiet during the conversation. "What about Georgia? She seems kinda freaky. I bet she likes butt stuff."

  Talon's tone was hard to decipher—he was riding a fine line between lighthearted and serious. "If she did, you're the st person I'd tell."

  Marty liked that kind of ribbing. He ughed. "Cool, so Georgia's a maybe. Got it. See? Some girls." Marty checked his phone. "Speaking of which—Kat's been kind of cagey all week. I think she might have a birthday surprise for me or something."

  "Anal?" Casey said.

  Marty held a hand to his heart. "A man can dream."

  Marty's contradictory position wasn't lost on me. Seemingly, he saw no tension between wanting to have anal sex with his girlfriend while simultaneously finding it disgusting that Aisling Moore might have eaten Jack Richardson's ass. (An unsubstantiated rumor, sure, but that didn't stop Marty's exaggerated, sneering remarks.) In any case, I was grateful when the subject shifted to our booze order.

  "What are you in the mood for tonight?" I said to Talon. "Want to share something?"

  Talon smiled at me. "How about beer?"

  While Marty reyed our orders to Kat (and, subsequently, to Lucas), Talon went across the street to grab the alcohol he had at home. Watching him cross the road—despite the short distance—still made my chest tighten, as though he'd be swallowed up by the brown two-storey and never reemerge. I hoped he returned not only with drinks, but whatever he needed to sleepover. He came back only a few minutes ter and pulled out six unopened red and silver cans of Budweiser.

  "How do you get this stuff?" Casey said.

  Rob discretely gnced up, eyes watching Talon.

  "My dad sometimes buys it for me," Talon said, as though it was only natural for a parent to buy their underage kid booze.

  "Damn, want to trade dads?"

  Marty grabbed a can. "I get the sixth because it's my birthday, right?"

  "Nah," Talon said. "Ryan and I are gonna share that one."

  "Harsh, dude!"

  "It's my beer!"

  "Shall we shotgun, boys?" Casey said.

  "Good idea," I said.

  I grabbed my housekey, tilted the can on the table, and jabbed a hole near the bottom. The guys fished out their own keys and did the same. Sunlight streamed through the kitchen window. On the count of three, we tilted our heads back, cracked open the tab, and got to work. (The first time we'd done this, back in the autumn, we'd wasted a beer each, spilling onto the grass and soil at the bush party—two, in Marty's case, before he got the hang of it.)

  After we wiped the spilge from our mouths and chins, the guys headed for the living room in search of video games. Talon pced a hand on my arm to hold me back.

  "I got something else, too," he said. He pulled a mickey of tequi out of his backpack and grinned at me.

  "Whoa," I said, grabbing it. "From your dad?"

  "Well, he didn't give it to me per se," he said, looking at the bottle in my hands instead of at my face. "But he won't notice."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Definitely," he said. "He'll probably think he drank it or something."

  But I didn't want Talon to be in trouble with Stephen. I handed it back to him. "I don't think we should."

  "No, it's okay," Talon said. "I wouldn't have taken it if I thought he'd have any idea."

  I looked at his excited face, at the way he'd been hopeful to share the stolen alcohol with me and not the rest of the guys, at how the sunshine was brightening the right side of his face, and finally acquiesced.

  "I've never tried tequi," I said.

  "You haven't? I guess you don't know the whole salt and lime thing, then," he said amiably. "I'll show you. Do your parents have a lime?"

  Something I liked about Talon was how innocuously he asked questions like this. The other guys—namely Marty, but Casey, too—made an enormous scene about someone having missed a pop culture moment or a social experience. When Rob thought that doggy style sex always meant anal, Marty ughed until he cried, and Rob's face was flushed with embarrassment while Marty guffawed and choked out, you're just pounding her pussy from behind dude, where are you looking when you watch porn? Or when Talon said he'd never seen The Shining and Casey had said you don't know 'Here's Johnny'? My six-year-old cousin knows that! (I loved them, but Talon couldn't stomach horror movies.) Or when we all tried a bong and I put my lips over instead of within the gss opening and Marty gaped at me and said, trying to tell us something, bud? And him and Casey snickered. But Talon never did this. His question was genuine and curious, not judgemental.

  Talon grabbed the saltshaker while I plucked a lime from the produce bowl on our counter and cut it into wedges.

  "All right, ready," I said.

  "Here," Talon said, reaching for my hand. He tilted it sideways, so the meat between my forefinger and thumb was pointing towards the ceiling. Delicately, he sprinkled a bit of salt on that spot. "You lick, shoot, suck. In that order."

  "Ah," I said, trying with all my will not to intensely focus on the word suck. I liked watching his fingers move across my hand—even if his were currently covered in Band-Aids, the exposed cuticles angry and red.

  "I'll show you," he said.

  Talon bent down and dragged his tongue along my skin. My mouth felt suddenly dry, and it was though my whole center of being had dropped from my head to my groin.

  He grabbed the gss, tilted it into his mouth, winced, and then stuck the lime fruit-first between his teeth. "See?" he said, voice muffled while he sucked.

  My hand was shiny with his saliva. "You're supposed to lick the other person's hand?"

  He pced the now-dry wedge of lime back on the cutting board.

  "Well," he said, tilting his head and smiling cheekily, "not technically."

  We shared a look. My heart sped up.

  "Let me try," I said.

  Taking my time, I turned his hand over as he'd done with mine. I pced the salt along the same stretch of skin. When I gnced up at him, he was watching me intently, his cheeks faintly red. Holding his arm up so I could reach, I licked up the salt—enjoying my tongue against his skin but trying not to like it too much—took the shot and sucked on the lime to drown out the terrible taste.

  "Jesus," I said. "You like that?"

  He ughed. "The lime helps."

  "That's awful, Tal. Let's do another," I said, embarrassingly eager to have an excuse to press my mouth against any part of his body.

  The second time when he grabbed my hand, we kept gncing at each other, gazes darting away when we made eye contact. The air between us felt somehow taut and tingly at the same time.

  "Oops," he said softly when he spilled the salt slightly so that it spread over my first knuckle and nearly to the second. "That's okay," he murmured.

  He again ran his tongue along my hand but this time he kept going, nguidly pulling it along the length of my finger as well. When he reached the end of my finger, he held his lips to the tip. If he opened his mouth now, and my finger slipped behind his lips, there was a high chance I'd cease to exist. My chest tightened and I couldn't help the pulsing happening in my groin.

  The front door opened. Talon dropped my hand and busied himself taking the shot.

  "Thanks!" Hilry called, waving.

  Out the front window, I saw a truck pulling away, the driver—a redhaired guy—holding up his hand.

  "Hold up," I said. "Inspection time."

  Hilry entered the house first, Rachel next. Rachel held two tallboys in her hands. Hanging over her elbow, a pstic bag of snacks dug into her skin.

  "You said one drink," Rachel said in a falsely sweet voice. "So we got these. A tiny little tweak of your rule, but—"

  Sasha came in behind Rachel and Hilry, careful to keep her back to me and her eyes firmly on the kitchen tile. She wore oversized shorts with tiny pockets and a tight tank top. There was nowhere in her outfit to reasonably hide booze. But her arms were folded unnaturally behind her back.

  "What do you have?" I said to Sasha.

  Sasha stuck out her chin. "None of your business."

  "If you get hurt at my house, it's my business," I said. "Come on. Show me."

  Sighing dramatically, she revealed what she'd been holding: a white bottle of Malibu rum, the rgest size possible.

  "Wow," I said, grabbing it by the neck and prying it out of her hands. "Bold, Sasha. Too bad you won't be drinking any of this."

  "No!" Sasha said. "We paid for that!"

  I shrugged. "You three knew the rules."

  "We only have one stupid beer each, then," Hilry said gloomily.

  "Exactly," I said. "Now you're getting it." I rested the Malibu on the kitchen table. "I'm thinking you three take upstairs, we'll have downstairs."

  Rachel raised her eyebrows. "You're treating us like Bertha Mason?"

  "Who?"

  "The madwoman in the attic in Jane Eyre!"

  Truthfully, I didn't want the three of them anywhere near Marty, Dhruv, or Aaron. I didn't trust Marty, and I didn't know Dhruv or Aaron well enough to know how they'd act around a bunch of younger girls. But Rachel would be pissed if I said that.

  "It's Marty's birthday," I said. "No girls. You're lucky I'm letting you have anything to drink at all. So just stick to your room."

  Rachel rolled her eyes in the slowest, most dramatic fashion I'd ever seen a person roll their eyes. "Let's go. I don't want to be down here with them, anyways. They stink."

  After they stomped up the stairs, Talon and I tucked the Malibu beneath the kitchen sink. We sat down in the living room, Talon near the armrest and me in between him and Marty. Casey hugged our fluffy pillow with the yellow stitching: Warning! I may talk about Jesus at any time. One of the guys had tugged apart the curtains that usually hung across the sliding doors, and the room brimmed with peach-colored June light. Talon and I passed the beer back and forth, taking generous gulps each time. Marty stared at us like a forlorn dog and, in only a handful of drinks each, the beer was gone.

  Casey enviously eyed us. "Do adults seriously purchase a single beer and then slowly drink it over the course of a dinner?"

  "I've seen my mom do it," Rob said.

  "My parents, too," Casey said, astonished. "They'll have a gss of red wine and sometimes they won't even finish it. But I think they're pranking me or torturing themselves or something."

  "Is it will power?" Marty said. "Or do they enjoy drinking it slowly?"

  "Is it because they're so old their bodies would colpse?" Rob said.

  "I think they like the slight head buzz, but not getting actively drunk," I ventured.

  We all ughed at this.

  "Oh yes," Marty said, taking on a lofty, aristocratic voice. "Yes, waiter, please, I'll have a single drink so I can take the edge off my stressful day's work at the office."

  We ughed again.

  "Think we'll ever be like that?" Casey said. "Look back at the way we drink now and think it's weird?"

  A beat.

  "Nah," we all said.

  Marty and Talon wanted to py music, but I didn't want to draw undue attention to the house. Rob suggested video games and I was about to run up to my room to grab my console when I realized this was the perfect time to get him alone. After all, he and I had unfinished business. A month back, when we'd been at Rob's house and I probed him for information as to why it was so weird between him and Talon, he'd left my questions mostly unanswered. But it was my home turf this time and maybe I could use that to my advantage.

  Rob was sitting on my rug, legs extended, rifling through apps on his phone. I leaned forward and hit him lightly on his ankle.

  "Come upstairs with me," I said. "Help me pick a game."

  Rob nded on an app. "Just pick Smash Bros."

  "I don't have it."

  "Mario Kart, then."

  "Just come look. Maybe there's something better suited for five people."

  Rob looked at me now, biting his lip to stop from ughing. "Five? Uh, Ryan, unless you're talking co-op, like Among Us, I'm not sure what to tell you—"

  I groaned. "See? I need your expertise. Let's go."

  Once upstairs in my room, I unplugged the old Wii and folded the cables on top of the console. "I got games in my desk drawer. No, other one. Yeah."

  Rob sat on the edge of my bed with the stack of games.

  "I don't have many good ones," I said, "so whatever you think is best."

  The stack wasn't rge. I needed to broach the topic before he had a chance to make the obvious choice from the pile.

  I pced the console down, leaned back against my desk, and cleared my throat. "Hey, look, Rob, we need to talk."

  "Huh?" he said absently, turning over the Donkey Kong case and inspecting it for some information he deemed salient.

  "Something's up between you and Talon. You wouldn't answer me at your house. He won't talk to me about it, either. Can you fill me in?"

  Rob swallowed. He rested Donkey Kong on his knee. "There's nothing to say."

  "Yeah, there is. You two barely look at each other." I gestured at the framed picture of them on my desk, both twelve years old: Talon with a pstic pistol in hand while wearing Han Solo's vest, Rob draped in Luke Skywalker's robes. "You used to be close."

  Rob's cheeks colored. He gnced at the stack of games. "I think we should go with—"

  "We can sort this out," I said. "Whatever it is."

  "There's no fixing it," Rob said quietly.

  "Fixing what?"

  Rob took a deep, steadying breath. "You know side quests? In games?"

  "Yeah, of course."

  "I thought Talon and I would be friends forever," he said simply. He paused for a second, biting on his tongue and I wondered if he was doing so to control his emotions around that sentence. "I know you two are best friends and everything. But me and him? We have a lot in common. We both love RPGs and high fantasy. Remember when we tried to learn Elvish together? And when I found out who my dad married… you guys were all good about it, but Talon, he checked in with me more than you'd think. He really got it: the loss of someone who feels like they should always be with you. I thought me and him were a good duo, I guess. Link and Navi. Han Solo and Chewie." He took a moment to organize the stack of games, arranging Mario Kart on top. "But I realized, after all this time, I had it wrong. He was just a side quest. I don't have to engage with him. Life goes on."

  "A side quest?" I said, trying to keep the anger out of my voice. "Why would you say that?"

  "He screamed at me," he said tightly.

  "What?"

  "I shouldn't say. It's not my pce."

  "Rob," I said. "Please." I didn't want to reveal too much, but maybe showing my hand a bit would encourage him to talk. "Talon's had a tough time with his dad tely."

  That's vague enough that it could mean nothing, I thought, or maybe get him to say what he knows.

  "What kind of tough time?" Rob said slowly.

  I shook my head, hoping not answering would propel Rob to fill the silence.

  "Shut your door," he said.

  I did as he requested.

  Rob sighed and rested his chin in his hand, staring at my carpet for nearly a minute. "This all happened back in the summer. Early August, I think. That's when my mom first started seeing Doug."

  "It's been that long?" Ten months had flown by.

  He nodded. "Back then, they were always drinking when they got home from their dates. You know how there's that table right near the kitchen? Where Mom and I usually eat breakfast?"

  I said I knew the one.

  "Well, obviously I game at my desktop computer instead of in my bedroom. For the screen and the mouse control. I have those amazing Grado headphones too, you know? You can't hear anything through them. I've told my mom that a million times, about how much they block external noise. So, they're drinking and I'm gaming and it was like—God, it was probably nearly one in the morning at that point. But what they didn't know was my headphones were broken then. That was before I sent them in to get repaired. I was wearing them by habit, I don't know. They're comfy."

  "Right, sure," I said, trying to follow the tangents.

  "Anyway, they didn't know I could hear them while they talked. That's my point. All night they were yammering on about stuff and I was just kind of filtering it out, lost in my game. Then I heard Mom say something like, 'I see more of that than you'd think. A couple years ago, we had to call them for Rob's friend.' So naturally, I heard that sentence. I pretended to keep pying but I tried to listen."

  "And what did she say? Called who?"

  Rob nodded and closed his eyes, maybe retracing the conversation so he could rey it to me. "They were speaking Spanish, dude, let me transte."

  "Doug knows Spanish?"

  "Yeah, Mom won't date anyone if they can't speak at least a little. Anyway, she said something about my guapo friend—she always calls Talon guapo, so I knew it was him—being in the hospital because of a—of a…" Rob gnced at the closed door. "An attempted suicide."

  Sorrow pierced my chest. It was one thing to think you knew. For Talon to skirt around that time in his life, for him to hint at it. But Rob spelling out what happened so pinly and simply destabilized me for a moment.

  "She said the hospital was required to call CPS because of—this is where I'm not sure if I misheard—bruising around his, like—" Rob held his hands out in front of his hips. "—his hips and thighs and stuff. I think she used the word abrasion, too. There were enough marks that I guess they were legally mandated to call. But then nothing came of it."

  "Nothing came of what?"

  "The CPS call or whatever. I guess nothing could be proved or they didn't find anything or maybe they were totally wrong. But Mom obviously thought he was being hurt. Abused, I mean." Rob swallowed. "I know. I should have asked my mom for crity, but she wouldn't have said anything. Confidentially and all that. So, I went right to him."

  "Talon?"

  Rob nodded. "Well, yeah, I mean, Jesus Christ! I know about those marks on his arms. We all do. Didn't he say that had happened when he was quadding with Griffin and Dean?"

  That didn't sound right. I was pretty sure Talon had told me a different story. The scars were small enough that you had to look for them in the right lighting to see them, so I didn't think of them often. But I told Rob to keep going with his story.

  "So, I mean, I was worried. I know it happened a while ago, but it seemed wrong to ignore it. I needed to ask him if he was okay."

  "Did your mom say when this happened?"

  "A couple years," Rob said, nodding. "For sure."

  Talon was sixteen st August. Because of his birthday—October 26th—he was technically the youngest of our group and one of the youngest in our grade. We were born in the same year but by the time he reached my age, it was my birthday less than three months ter. Two years prior to Rob's eavesdropping, Talon would've been fourteen. A hazy memory floated in my mind like a ghost. What had Talon said when we were sitting at Craigflower Creek? Something about Dean. It was—it was just when I was fourteen. There was something there, I was sure, but I couldn't connect the dots.

  Rob's story corroborated Talon's cims when he came into my bedroom, wasted and crying. Not that I didn't believe him—I'd only had that brief moment of denial, where I wanted the improbable to be impossible—but hearing this from Rob made Stephen's abuse dizzyingly real and solidified the shame around my uselessness.

  Just then, we heard Marty's voice ring out from downstairs: "HURRY UP! WE'RE BORED!"

  "ONE MINUTE!" I shouted back. "Keep going," I said to Rob.

  "I told Talon I wanted to grab iced coffee," Rob said. "I picked him up and we went to Beans. It took me almost an hour—seriously—to work up the courage to ask him, but I just said, like, 'is something going on with your dad?' And you should've seen the look on his face."

  "What was it?"

  "He just went bnk. Like, totally bnk. He didn't say a word for what felt like five minutes but was probably only a few seconds. Then he said something strange like, my dad's amazing, and it's been so hard for him since my mom died, but he pays for music lessons and he works so much and he takes care of us. Bh, bh, bh. Just going on. Like, huh, dude? That's obviously not what I meant and also—his dad's okay. But come on. Mr. Michaels is kinda weird and he drinks way more than any of our parents, right? I don't know, the whole thing felt off."

  "That's bizarre, yeah."

  "So, I left it until we got outside because I was getting a bad feeling. But then when we were standing on the sidewalk, I straight up admitted it: I said I overheard what my mom said and I wanted to know if it was true that he'd tried to kill himself. I probably didn't say it that bluntly, but I was pretty direct. Then I said, 'did you feel trapped because he's hurting you or something? Do you want me to help you talk to someone?' Then he flipped, Ryan. I've never seen him like that." Rob looked both pained and fbbergasted now, lost in the memory. "He yelled at me. I never even heard him raise his voice before. He said that my mom was confused, that she didn't know what she was talking about, but he didn't just say it like that. He said she was a fucking moron."

  "Talon said that?"

  The picture Rob was painting was so unlike Talon that it was difficult for me to even conjure up an image of Talon screaming or saying something as awful as calling Mónica a moron. But Rob's round cheeks were ruddy, his hazel eyes even a bit watery, clearly still bruised by this exchange from nearly a year ago.

  "Then he sort of realized he was shouting at me and calmed down a bit. But he was still visibly pissed. I think he was shaking. He said that I can't ever tell anyone what I just said to him. He said something like, 'if you ever repeat this, you could ruin my dad's life. You can't make up rumors about peoples' families.' I mean, I was still reeling from him yelling. But I hadn't even accused his dad of anything, I was just asking."

  "HELLLLOOOOOOO?"

  Rachel's voice came next, hollering from her own bedroom: "STOP! YELLING!"

  There was a beat from downstairs, and then Marty's voice again: "SORRY, RYAN'S LITTLE SIS!"

  Rob and I ughed a little at this exchange, although our energy was low. Rob pulled his gsses off and used the hem of his t-shirt to clean them. Still wiping at smudges that I was pretty sure didn't exist, Rob kept his eyes on my carpet.

  "He made me swear I wouldn't tell you guys." Rob shrugged. "So yeah, I swore. Then he said, 'you and me, we don't have anything else to talk about.' I thought he meant like… that day. But he didn't let me drive him home. He said he'd walk. I let him cool off for a few days, you know? Then I texted him. Called him. He never responded. I wasn't even talking about the… hospital stuff. I was just asking about games and movies. But he kept not answering. I even went to his house! He ignored me twice. I think he got his dad to say he wasn't feeling good or something. But on the third time—this was, like, a week before school started at this point—he came outside, and smmed his front door behind him, and crossed his arms over his chest. Still mad, somehow. He said we weren't friends anymore and to stop contacting him."

  "Shit, Rob," I said. "I didn't know he did all that."

  "What I don't understand is… Why would you react like that if it was untrue? It doesn't make any sense." Rob mulled this over. He put his gsses back on and cracked his knuckles. He still didn't look at me directly. "Maybe it brought up bad memories of CPS coming to his house and asking questions or whatever they do in that type of situation. I guess it'd really bother me if someone accused my mom of something that terrible. Maybe he was holding on to anger about the health care workers calling CPS and projected it onto my mom? But why be so fucking mad at me?" He sharply shook his head, as though casting off the pain of Talon's anger. "The other conclusion I came to was that maybe Talon was genuinely suicidal when he ended up in the hospital, but it was about something he didn't want to discuss with me. Okay, fair, fine. And his dad helped him through it, so the implication was extra nasty or whatever. I don't know. I'm sick of trying to figure it out. But yeah, we don't talk now."

  Of course, there was a fourth option. The true option. That Mónica was correct in her initial assessment, but that the CPS workers—a social worker?—hadn't been able to pull together the necessary evidence. Stephen had a good story, maybe, a narrative he'd crafted with Talon. In this scenario, Talon's anger made a certain type of sense, even if he handled it in a fucked-up way.

  As though Rob's synapses were taking the same pathway mine were, he looked at me with a peculiar expression. "Hold on. What did you mean when you said he's having a rough go with his dad?"

  "Oh, that," I said. "Yeah, nothing really. Mr. Michaels is taking it hard that his st kid's moving out."

  I hadn't anticipated Rob's follow-up question, but the lie came to me so easily that I felt faintly disturbed. I hesitated for a second, though. Rob was my ally. He cared for Talon—even if he was hurt by him—and he'd brainstorm a pn with me. Right? All I needed to say was something like, yeah, man, your instincts were right, and I don't think the situation ended. Stephen is dangerous. It's probably best if we put together our knowledge and tell someone.

  But Talon was downstairs. Fine. Safe. He didn't want us discussing this. His reaction to Rob made that abundantly clear. If I said anything now, maybe Talon would do the same cruel thing to me: simply remove me from his life.

  "Thanks for telling me," I said.

  Rob grabbed Mario Kart and we headed downstairs with the console and controllers. We'd been pying and joking for only twenty or thirty minutes when I heard a shuffle, a ssh!, and what sounded like a hand cpped over a mouth. I put down my controller, took the few steps to the hallway, and saw Rachel hanging down the stairs, face first on her stomach, Hilry and Sasha holding on to her ankles from the nding.

  "What was the pn?" I said. "Slither down the stairs and crawl to the Malibu?"

  "Pull," Rachel said, not daring to look at me, "pull!"

  Hilry and Sasha tugged her back up (Rachel compined about her pelvis bumping against each stair) and the trio scurried back to her bedroom.

  I enlisted Talon to help me find a better hiding spot for the Malibu. We took it from beneath the sink and tip-toed up to my bedroom, holding our breath. Once inside, I eased my door shut.

  We looked at each other, alone in my room. Golden light spilled in through my two windows—the one facing the road, and the other directly in front of the thick tree. Talon looked chest-achingly attractive.

  I pced the Malibu on my desk. "Let me get a picture of you." I pulled out my phone and aimed it at Talon. "No, don't make that face!"

  "That's my normal face!"

  "It's absolutely not." (He'd been forcing a dead-eyed, frozen smile.) "Think about, I don't know, Priority Three. Meeting Lev Oscar."

  He lit up at this.

  "Yeah, that's better," I said, "way less creepy."

  He ughed. "It wasn't creepy."

  "Now imagine Lev Oscar immediately sees how talented you are and he's floored by how well you sing and—what's that? He's inviting you to be the newest member of his band?"

  I got the picture while he was mid-ugh, mouth open and eyes half-closed.

  "This is a great one," I said, the photo open on my phone. "You look so handsome."

  Talon gently pushed my screen out of his vision. "Not really."

  "Yes, really," I said, and took his hand. I nodded at the rum. "First, we should find a more secure location."

  "First?" Talon said, looking down at our fingers. "What's second?"

  I pretended to think about this. "We probably have a few minutes, right?"

  A flush instantly crossed his face, and his lips parted. "Yeah," he said. "Maybe more."

  We smiled at each other. I'd had a beer and a half in pretty quick succession, and the shot of tequi, so I was definitely already tipsy. But still, soberer than I'd been at Kip Lamb's party when I downed two gummies back-to-back. There was something simultaneously nerve-wracking and liberating about being close to Talon like this, alone in my room, both of us having said we liked each other. The fact that we'd made out so recently and touched—well, yeah. Moving between these states—being his friend most of the time, maybe more than that at others—felt both completely natural and unbelievable. For so long, I'd wished to kiss him and have him kiss me back, to take the parameters of our friendship and bend them to something that made more sense for us. But that desire was buried under yers of denial. Besides what I fantasized about in the shower, had I ever even said it consciously to myself?

  I'd hesitated a beat too long and now Talon looked doubtful. He lowered his voice. "You meant… kiss, right?"

  I grinned. "If you want to, I want to."

  He stepped closer to me and used his other hand to tug me closer by my hip. We connected foreheads like we had at the party and brought our mouths together.

  Everything melted away while my body sprang to life. Electricity bounced between my chest and arms and fingers and dick and, somehow, the bottom of my feet. We kissed slowly, tilting our heads first one way and then the next until we found the best position, and Talon's fingers tightened both in my hand and against my hip. With my hand on the back of his neck, I brought his chin and mouth closer to mine. We pulled away for just a second to look at each other, both of us gauging the others' reaction, and the red on his cheeks made my own heat up, and we kissed again. I was sober enough that I worried about my technique, trying to follow his lead and match the amount of pressure he was applying to my lips. What had come to me intuitively when high felt complicated now. Was I supposed to breathe in between kisses, when our lips broke apart? Simir to front crawl: head down in the water, breath held, filling up your lungs every third stroke? Or just breathe steady throughout the entire thing?

  Talon's butt looked so good in the shorts he was wearing and my hand moved from his side to his hip and hesitated at the back of his waistband. Did he know how often I snuck gnces at his ass, wanting to trace my hands over its shape? Probably not. I was working up the courage to use my tongue the way he had at Kip's when the guys screamed from downstairs, likely something to do with Mario Kart.

  We froze in our positions. The noise reminded me of the task at hand.

  "Let's hide the Malibu," I said, reluctantly letting go of Talon.

  We both turned slightly, adjusting our waistbands to conceal the obvious.

  I wanted to move fast to fit in more kissing. Where to stash the Malibu? My closet? Under my bed? Both spots seemed too easily found should Rachel try and get into my room. From downstairs, the guys' voices rang out again. This time I heard Casey say something about the blue shell being OP and that we needed to ban it next round and Marty saying that's the fucking game dude what do you want me to tell you?

  "It's nice hanging out as a group again," I said, still searching.

  "Yeah, definitely."

  Distracted and a bit tipsy, the next sentence came out unpnned. "Maybe you can say sorry to Rob, though."

  Talon stiffened. He scanned my face. "What do you mean?"

  Ah. Shit. "It's noticeably tense between you two, that's all."

  Talon's shoulders rounded forward. He bit his lip. "Did Rob say something to you?"

  "Hm? What do you mean?" I didn't sound convincing.

  "What did you talk about when you were up here?"

  "Nothing. I mean, the games, that's all."

  "Please, Ry. Don't lie to me." His voice didn't sound angry, but desperate. He was speaking fast. "Please. What happened? Did you tell him? You didn't, right?"

  "He mentioned that you yelled at him. Last summer."

  "But what did you say?" His chest was moving up and down.

  My door banged open, followed by a fit of ughter. Rachel, Sasha, and Hilry were colpsed in a pile, halfway through my door, limbs tangled. They looked like they'd been creeping on all fours, trying to sneak into my room.

  "Uh oh!" Hilry said, hiccupping. Her freckled cheeks were very red, matching her hair. Hadn't they only had a beer each? Were they that lightweight?

  "Busted," Rachel muttered.

  They looked up at us from the floor, guilty.

  "We weren't looking for the Malibu, I swear," Sasha said. "That's the st thing on pnet Earth we'd ever try to find!"

  "You need to work on your recon," I said. "Leave, all of you. You're not getting the rum."

  Hangdog, they trudged back to Rachel's room. Talon pushed past me. I couldn't completely read his expression, but I saw confusion and stress and focus, like he was trying incredibly hard to keep himself in check. I followed him out into the hallway.

  "I didn't say anything," I whispered. I pced a hand on his arm. "Don't leave."

  Talon looked on the verge of a panic attack. "Give me that," he said, reaching for the Malibu. He unscrewed the lid, tilted it back, and took several gulps.

  "Whoa, hold on, hold on."

  Still guzzling the rum, he pushed my outstretched hand away. When he took his mouth off the opening, I snatched it back from him.

  "You don't have to drink that fast."

  "Is that Malibu?" Casey said. He was standing at the bottom of the stairs, likely pnning to retrieve us to settle a game debate. "Hell yeah, bring it down!"

  "Stay tonight," I said again to Talon. "It's okay. I promise."

  Talon followed me down the stairs and, mercifully, sat down beside me on the couch. His chest was still moving fast. I tried to catch his eye to tell him I didn't say anything, don't be upset but he wouldn't look at me. I felt springy from making out with Talon, and also guilty for getting the story out of Rob, and vaguely annoyed with both of them for being so awkward with each other. We repeatedly passed the rum in a circle; when it got to him, Talon took three solid drinks rather than the one we'd each committed to. His chest slowed and his breathing evened out by our third round, but maybe that was simply an effect of the booze. I was formuting a pn to get Talon back into my room so I could reassure him that I hadn't revealed his secret when, in the distance, I saw four guys at my fence, undoing the gate. It was quarter after seven, and definitely not dark out.

  Marty followed my gaze. "Shit, dude. I told them to come at nine."

  "You sure?"

  "Extremely sure." Marty turned his smartwatch towards him and tapped the watch face. He exhaled. "All right. I wrote 'come after night,' which was for sure supposed to say nine. But either way, it's not after night!"

  "Because that doesn't mean anything," Casey muttered.

  "Of course it does," Marty said.

  "Technically, after night would be morning," Rob said.

  But there was no stopping it now; they were already letting themselves in through the sliding door and suddenly, Dhruv Bhandari was standing in my living room. Matt Wilson and Gio Reyes said hey to all of us. Aaron McIntyre wore a ballcap, which made his lean face look narrower. He pulled off his backpack, eased into the chair my dad always sat in after dinner and propped his legs up on the coffee table as though he'd been here a million times. Casey lowered himself onto the rug with Rob. Marty sprang up to put music on, despite my earlier warnings.

  Dhruv sat down on the far end of the couch, repcing Casey. Oh no. The pillow. I'd meant to hide the pillow.

  He picked it up so he could rest it on the couch's arm, trying to clear a little extra space for himself. But as he did so, he noticed the stitching. He mouthed the words to himself.

  "That's my mom's pillow," I said. Hold on. Was I deepening my voice? "It's just—it's stupid."

  Dhruv looked right at me, for possibly the first time in my life. I feared he could sense every dirty thought I'd ever had about him and prayed nothing showed on my face.

  He shrugged. "My parents are the same way."

  Inexplicably, I now raised my voice, as though to compensate for artificially deepening it. "They're Christian?"

  "Not Christian," he said. "Hindu. But my dad's got an entire collection of prayer mats, so I get it. Am I right in remembering your dad's a pastor?"

  "Yeah," I said, trying to keep my voice at its regur pitch and tone and mostly succeeding this time. I had no idea Dhruv knew about my dad.

  "So religious pillows are on brand," Dhruv said. He looked at Aaron. "Dude! Pass me my shit!"

  Aaron was unloading cnking bottles from his backpack, bootlegged alcohol of varying sizes and quality. Aaron grabbed the Wild Turkey whiskey and we passed it around until it reached Dhruv.

  "And the mini bottles too, bro," Dhruv said.

  Aaron did as instructed, reaching into his bag for a handful of those travel-sized liquor bottles that I'd seen kids drink occasionally.

  "Those are for you," Dhruv said to me. "For letting us party here."

  Party? Here? Surely Dhruv was only referencing the fact that they could hang out here for the next few hours. I took the mini bottles from Aaron: sambuca, whiskey, moonshine, gin, and vodka.

  "I didn't know what you liked. So go ham," Dhruv said.

  "Cool," I said, "thanks." Inside each bottle there was about a shot. I turned to Talon beside me. "Which one do you want?"

  Panic was clearly still simmering directly beneath Talon's carefully contained surface, but he pointed at the vodka. He downed that and I swigged the sambuca.

  Matt and Gio had both noticed the abandoned Mario Kart game and everyone agreed they wanted a turn, too, so we started a new level. Matt, Gio, Dhruv, and Rob grabbed controllers while the rest of us watched.

  "What next?" I said to Talon, throat and chest still burning from the straight shot.

  Following the vodka, Talon seemed more at ease. He took the whiskey, and I went for the gin. Now we only had the moonshine next to the empty minis on the coffee table.

  "It's yours," Talon said. "I've had one more shot than you. But be careful, it's strong."

  "You'll want a chaser for that," Dhruv said, repeatedly jamming his thumb into the A button to throw a weapon.

  Aaron and Marty were saying something under their breaths, looking at their phones.

  "I might have written plus one," Marty said, shooting me a guilty look. "But I meant to only reply to Aaron because I figured, what's one more dude on my birthday? Right, Ryan?"

  Matt tore his eyes away from the screen. He had a can of beer beside him. "Pal, you wrote that to all of us!"

  Gio turned his entire body to the right side, clutching the controller, as though his extra body movement would enable his character to turn better on the screen. "I definitely told Miles to come."

  Casey caught my eye. "It'll be fine," he said. "Everyone's chill."

  As if on cue, I spied two more guys near my back gate. The cropped hair and big ears were unmistakable, even from a distance—that was the hulking form of Kip Lamb. Next to him, Simon King, wearing a backwards cap over his messy hair, brazenly carried a six-pack under his arm. Inwardly, I groaned. The Birkensteins could be on their porch or in their wn for all I knew. Fortunately, when I got up to let Kip and Simon in, I noticed the Birkensteins were not, in fact, outside. But I pulled the curtains closed and reminded everyone to be quiet. In the kitchen, I drew the daisy-print curtains together, too.

  When I sat back down on the couch, Talon was chewing on his nail, shoulder turned away from Kip and Simon, who were standing next to the downstairs bathroom, already drinking beer. Right. Talon hadn't wanted to be around Kip at his house, either—and Simon and Kip seemed to target Talon with their dumb garbage throwing at the baseball game. But they were morons. Their attention was arbitrary and fickle, like a pair of toddlers.

  "Are there any chicks coming?" Simon said. He warily gnced at a framed cross-stitch scripture quotation on the wall behind him. He no longer wore his orthopedic boot. Instead, a poorly wrapped Tensor bandage poked out from his sneaker.

  "Our girlfriends," Marty said, "but that's it."

  I wondered if Rachel and her friends had noticed the volume increase from downstairs. More importantly, I didn't want anyone interacting with them.

  "Upstairs is off limits," I said to the group. "My sister and her friends are having a sleepover, and they're too young to drink."

  "Yeah," Casey said, and got more directly to the point, which I appreciated: "No one talk to them."

  "Loud and clear," Simon said, offering the group a salute.

  From his backpack, he pulled out a handful of squashed cheeseburgers, a few packs of fries, and chicken nuggets. The room immediately took on a musky, humid smell.

  "Grabbed McDick's," Simon said. "Anyone want nuggets?"

  Voices instantly called out and Simon passed around a couple extra containers, the red cardboard darkened in spots from grease and warmth. Kip tossed dipping sauce. Aaron, Dhruv, and Rob caught a couple each. A few plumb sauces tumbled, unopened, beneath the coffee table.

  "Too bad BTB wasn't working," Kip said. "Almost pointless to go in without her at the till."

  He and Simon ughed.

  "What's BTB?" Matt said, shifting onto his knees and yanking on the thumb stick, eyes glued to his character as she hopped from one end of a broken bridge to the other.

  "Who's BTB, you mean," Simon said, surprising me by understanding subject-pronoun agreement.

  "Big Titty Beaumont," Kip said.

  It took a minute for this to click in my mind.

  "What?" I said.

  "Big Titty Beaumont," Simon repeated slowly, as though I was an idiot. "Because she's got huge—"

  "No, yeah, I get the name," I said. "Don't call her that."

  "Oh shit," Simon said, ughing. "Got a crush? You want to see those bad boys up close, eh?"

  "She your girlfriend?" Kip said, tearing into his cheeseburger.

  "Well, not exactly, but—"

  Marty cut in: "He's seeing her, man."

  "They're going to prom together," Casey added.

  "Just call her Lily," I said firmly.

  Simon raised his hands in mock surrender. He took several swallows beer, leaned his head back, and let out a sour belch. Kip ignored me entirely, shoving cheese and pickles and soggy bun into his mouth before unwrapping a second.

  Not five minutes ter, Logan Wacwski showed up with Miles Campbell. Had no one gotten the memo about arriving once the sun went down? At least both had the sense to army crawl across the back wn, backpacks bobbing in the grass like giant beetles. Logan, a short guy with longish hair and prominent dimples, carefully eased open the sliding door and shut it softly behind him. Miles, a dusting of feeble hair beneath his nose which was supposed to be a moustache, asked me if he and Logan could grab gsses from the kitchen since they were splitting Crown Royal and needed to mix it with Coke. I said to go for it while I assessed the current situation. All right. There were thirteen of us downstairs now—and the three girls upstairs—which wasn't an inordinate amount of people and wouldn't count as a party, I didn't think. This was still a birthday hangout.

  Logan brought Marty an overflowing cup. (Okay, he'd used my dad's prized bronze mug instead of a gss, but whatever. Rachel gifted it to Dad one year—the white lettering spelled out Dad joke brewing.)

  "Double shot for the birthday boy," Logan said.

  "Hell yeah," Marty said, pouring the mug back and downing most of the whiskey and Coke in one go.

  We settled into a routine while we waited for the girls to arrive. Those of us with alcohol drank (Rob hoarded the Malibu), and we passed the controller around so everyone pyed a round or two. Talon, Matt, and I chatted about the recent album of a synth-pop duo we all listened to. Dhruv and Aaron said they and the rest of the baseball team were pnning to get smashed before prom, but Marty advised against it: if the teachers or chaperones smelled beer, or suspected you were drunk, you wouldn't get in at all and the entire night was a wash. It was Rob who offered up a solution to this conundrum, saying we should all stash a few bottles of alcohol in the school bathrooms in the days leading up to prom. When asked where we'd hide them, he said simply: in the back of the toilet. Oh shit, Dhruv said, good idea. Marty waved Talon over to the television, where Mario Kart had finally lost interest for us, and asked him to pick out some pylists. Matt, Gio, and I talked about the Chemistry final. Although they tried to conceal it, I heard twinges of sadness and apprehension when Matt and Gio told us about where they were headed to school—Lethbridge and Waterloo, respectively. At best, to get from one of their universities to the other was a multi-day drive. In between group discussions, Talon next to me with his arms crossed, rgely withdrawn. We spoke quietly when we could, but I saw the uncertainty on his face and regretted allowing so many people in my house. At the same time, my cumutive shots and swigs of rum were making everything seem completely fine and low-key funny. I'd always been a good kid, so what if I invited over a few extra people one time in my life?

  Marty eyed my unopened moonshine. Talon followed his gaze and offered up some tequi in the kitchen for our crew. The five of us got up and I took the moonshine ("that's fucking nasty," I said, swirling Coke in my mouth immediately after) and the guys all had a shot of tequi. Rob looked pale and possibly green. He'd been nursing the rum while we gamed, and his eyes were unfocused. He wouldn't stop hiccupping. The microwave told us it was ten after eight and that was why I wasn't expecting the girls to arrive then, particurly not at the front door.

  Against explicit instruction, the doorbell rang.

  I opened the door and ushered everyone inside, telling them to be fast.

  Ana, Kat, and Lily came in, smelling like several yers of nice-smelling perfume and lotions. Behind them, Lucas entered my house, as well as someone who I presumed to be his friend.

  "Who're you?" I said to the second guy.

  He was burly with a kind, rubicund face. "Oh, hey, dude. This your party?"

  "Not really a party," Talon said beside me.

  Between us, we sounded drunk—even I could hear it now—and the guy looked unconvinced and sort of amused.

  "I'm Carl," the new guy said, shaking both of our hands. "We'll keep it down, no worries."

  Lucas and Carl headed for the living room. They seemed to recognize some of the guys. I peered through the kitchen curtain. The evening sky had deepened to cobalt, the st burst of light before sunset shading the underside of the scattered clouds. Lucas hadn't parked his vehicle out front, at least. I assumed he and Carl would say hey and leave for an actual party with other people their age, who'd already graduated high school.

  Lily and Ana were busy unloading booze into the center of the now-crowded kitchen table: the usual envelopes, scraps of papers, Bible verses jotted down for sermon ideas, as well as our Tupperware filled with random, albeit useful, items. But also our take-out containers from earlier, a few dirty gsses we'd been using to take shots (my parents didn't own real shot gsses), pstic forks and spoons and soiled napkins. Lily and Ana carved out a space amidst the mess to plunk down their loot. Cheap beer, wine, Everclear, more Malibu rum, canned cocktails, J?germeister, three or four energy drinks, and coolers in pale pastel bottles. Stacks of solo cups.

  "Baby," Marty said, ogling Kat. "You look amazing. Is this for my birthday?"

  There was a collective intake of breath when we looked to Kat.

  She wore a plunging cream tank top that stopped just below her sternum, clearly braless from the way her nipples showed, a hint of areo visible beneath the thin fabric, and denim shorts that showed about an inch of her butt cheeks. If Lily thought her regur-length skirt scandalized my father, what would this outfit do to him? He'd probably pray until he passed out. Talon and Casey noticed but politely averted their eyes. Rob, wasted and swaying in one spot, openly gaped at Kat, his eyebrows raised.

  Kat tossed her shiny dark hair behind her. She wore red lipstick, and her teeth looked extra white in contrast when she opened her mouth. "Just felt like dressing up." Her voice was strangely icy.

  "Well, anytime you feel like dressing up, don't hesitate," Marty breathed.

  Kat stared at him before pointing at the table. "You owe me sixty dolrs."

  Marty looked confused. "For the J?germeister? Isn't that double the cost?"

  Ana's hair was in two short braids. She stood behind Casey, who was seated in one of the kitchen chairs, her arms around his shoulders. Over Casey's head, Ana locked eyes with Kat. "Wasn't it seventy?"

  "That's right," Kat said. "Seventy bucks."

  Marty cocked his head and then broke out into a slow grin. "You're fucking with me."

  "No one's fucking with you," Kat said sharply. "Believe me."

  "Inftion," Lily said, shrugging.

  "Plus delivery fees," Ana said.

  Lily wore a clingy navy dress that ended at her calves. She wrapped an arm around me. Now that she was close, I smelled alcohol on her breath. Talon stood to my right, and I tried to signal to him in some capacity that I was going to talk with Lily—if not tonight, for sure Sunday over coffee—but how was I supposed to convey that complex of a meaning in a single look? Besides, he was focused on the alcohol, eyes hunting out our beer.

  Kat turned her attention to Talon. When she did so, the recipient couldn't help but be riveted; I saw why Marty simultaneously revered and feared her.

  "What are you drinking tonight?" Kat said.

  Talon pointed at our beer, a cheap brand with a high alcohol content. "That's ours," he said.

  "Ours?"

  "For me and Ryan, I mean."

  Kat grabbed the amber beet bottle. She used her teeth to pry off the cap, that trick Marty found sexy. Kat walked up to Talon—so close that their feet touched.

  "Here you go," Kat said, pressing the bottle into Talon's chest.

  "Thanks," Talon said, taking half a step back.

  "You're welcome, Talon." Kat said his name slowly and intentionally. "How do you feel about Everclear?"

  "I'm easy," Talon said, smiling. "I'll drink just about anything."

  Kat bit her lip and tilted her head at his t-shirt. "Priority Three," she said slowly. "What's that?"

  Talon gnced down at his bck t-shirt; this was one of Priority Three's simpler designs, big block letters spelling out their name in columns. "One of my favorite bands," Talon said, lighting up. "They're from Vancouver. They just released a new album."

  "I don't think I know them," Kat said, pulling her shorts up by the belt loops. This move exposed more of her already-visible butt. "What kind of music do they make?"

  "I'd say they're pop-punk now," Talon said. He seemed unsure about how much information she really wanted about Priority Three.

  "Can you show me a song?"

  "Oh yeah," Talon said. "Sure." He grabbed his phone from his back pocket and opened a music app.

  "But first, let's take a shot," Kat said.

  Marty cleared his throat. "He gets a shot of Everclear, but I don't?"

  Kat turned her head to look at Marty, but didn't shift in proximity from Talon. "I'm sorry, what are you saying?" Her voice almost admirably dripped with palpable disdain.

  Marty gestured at Talon. "Dude, you can just py a song over the speakers."

  "Let's keep the music low in the living room," I said.

  Talon had already shifted the beer in his hand and taken out his new earbuds, but now he hesitated.

  "Ryan, do you have a shot gss?" Kat said to me.

  "No, my parents—"

  "That's fine," she said. She grabbed a red solo cup, unscrewed the Everclear, and spshed some in. "Tilt your head back, Talon. I'll pour it in your mouth."

  "Ah, well," Talon said, gncing at Marty, "I think I'll just take it myself."

  Kat smiled. "You don't trust me? I won't spill. Promise."

  Lily and Ana shared a look, stifling their ughter. Lily squeezed my side, as though I was also in on some joke between them.

  "Come on," Ana said. "She has good aim!"

  Marty stared stoney-faced at Kat and Talon, arms crossed.

  "Let me," Kat said, no longer waiting for Talon's permission. She reached up and touched his jaw and tilted it up and back. As she did so, she pressed closer to him, her hips grazing his. At her touch, Talon froze.

  "Kat," I said, "he said he can do it himself."

  But she wasn't listening. She poured the shot in Talon's mouth, and he swallowed, a shudder rippling through him.

  Kat wiped at his lower lip with her thumb and ughed. "Kinda gross, right?"

  Talon took a gulp of beer, presumably to get rid of the taste.

  "What are you doing?" Marty said. He wasn't saying this to Kat, but Talon.

  Kat turned back to the table, smiling to herself. As if on cue, Lily and Ana joined her and they grabbed booze—two bottles of wine, a pack of coolers—before heading into the living room.

  Talon avoided Marty's gaze. He looked uncomfortable and kind of embarrassed.

  "Hey, dude," Marty said now, snapping his fingers in front of Talon's face. "You're aware that Kat is my girlfriend?"

  "Yeah, man. Obviously."

  "So why were you flirting with her?"

  "I wasn't."

  "First of all," Marty said, "you were staring at her tits."

  Now Talon held up his hands. His cheeks were faintly red, whether out of embarrassment or indignation, I wasn't sure. "I absolutely wasn't."

  Marty's face was red, too. "You can't just touch her."

  Surprisingly, it was Rob who spoke up. "Kat touched him, dude."

  "Yeah," Casey said, "if anything, she was flirting with Talon."

  Marty didn't look away from Talon, though. "Why don't you call up Georgia? Or hey—what about Leslie Lamb?"

  Inexplicably, Talon looked as though he'd been struck in the stomach. "I—"

  "Don't talk to her like that," Marty said. There was a votile, startling rage just beneath his surface. "Are you listening?"

  Built like a bulldog, Marty was all stout, husky muscle. Talon was taller but leaner, gaining much-needed weight in recent weeks but still a bit scrawny.

  Talon didn't look away from Marty and said, "I'm zero percent interested in Kat."

  Casey and I gnced at each other. For a moment, I thought Marty might actually lunge at Talon. Both Casey and I were poised. Casey was half out of his chair, and I took a step closer to Talon.

  "Whoa," Casey said. "Take it easy, Marty. Seriously, man, Talon didn't do shit. Just take a breather. That's your friend."

  "Yeah, Marty, don't put that on him," I said.

  For a tense moment, I watched Mary, ready to get in between him and Talon if need be. But then Marty's wrath seemed to diffuse. He shook his arms out, as though flicking off his anger.

  "Do it again!" Simon said. "I cut you off the first time."

  We turned.

  From the kitchen in my house, you could see the bottom third of the wooden banister. What I couldn't see from where I stood was Kip Lamb. But only a second ter he came sliding down the handrail like an idiotic cartoon character. Simon was howling and filming as Kip did so. Kip was a big guy and although it was a short distance, he quickly picked up speed. His hip collided with the circur cap at the top of the newel post at the end of the staircase; right as he hit it, the cap flew off and into our front door.

  "Fuck," I said.

  Kip, only momentarily stalled by the cap collision, crashed into Simon and the two fell into a guffawing pile at the bottom stair.

  "Nice job," I said to Kip.

  "You broke the staircase," Rob said to them, swaying next to me.

  "Woops, dude, sorry," Kip said. "But I think that thing must've been cheaply made—I do that all the time at my house."

  He helped Simon to his feet.

  "Shit, man," Simon said, drunkenly investigating the wooden pieces now poking up where the cap should've been. "You can probably glue that back together." Affably, he punched me on the shoulder as they headed back to the living room.

  "We'll fix that tomorrow," Talon said. "Your parents won't even notice by the time we're done."

  "Yeah, maybe," I said.

  "I say we all have a drink and clear the air," Casey said.

  "Sure," Marty said. "Shot on me, I guess. My seventy-dolr J?germeister."

  Talon declined but the rest of us obliged. Only a few minutes after I downed the shot, I realized how wasted I was. Whoa. In the living room, I stood with Talon, making a what can you do? shrug to Lily, who was squished between Kat and Lily. Lucas and his friend—what was his name? Kyle? No, Carl—were still here, which was odd. They sat on the rug, talking to the girls while Marty glowered. Talon and I drank a beer each. There was a steady, enthusiastic din but I didn't think the level of noise was concerning. At the same time, my house had never seemed smaller. Had I not noticed how tiny my house was? Or were we simply overpoputed?

  At quarter after nine, the sun was below the mountains, the sky a rich indigo. In the st visible apricot light, I saw dark shapes near the back gate.

  "Who's that?" I asked.

  The guys turned to me, shrugging and looking apologetic.

  "Oh, I invited some girls over," Kat said.

  "No," I said. "We're at capacity. You'll need to rescind the invitation."

  "Marty said I could. He'll have to tell them, not me."

  Marty's eyebrows shot up. He'd been trying to get her attention for the st hour, but she'd been steadfastly ignoring him. "I remember you asking me if you could invite some people. I said no."

  Kat grabbed her phone and held the screen to me, not Marty. "See? He wrote 'np babe sorry.'"

  Marty looked exasperated, turning to his smartwatch to verify. "I said no babe sorry. I clearly meant no. Why else would I say sorry?"

  Kat conically shrugged.

  "It was a typo, man, I swear," Marty said to me.

  Gio must've spotted who it was as they approached the sliding door. "Hey, uh, Ryan? Maybe we can let in a few more people, don't you think? We'll turn the lights lower and be quiet. I mean, what's a couple extra bodies?"

  As if to demonstrate his point, he jumped up and opened the door. Five girls piled in, clutching bags. I knew their names, although I wasn't confident which name belonged to which girl: Caitlin, Skye, Noor, Fredrika, and Isabel C. Besides Kat—who the student popution agreed was a tier above everyone else—this group was widely considered the hottest, mostly because they were thin and wore expensive clothing. Lucas and Carl elbowed each other while they eyed them up.

  The guys looked at me eagerly, awaiting my decision.

  I shrugged at the five girls. "Cups are in the kitchen," I said. "But keep it down, okay?"

  Two hours passed in a vertiginous jumble. I took pictures with Casey and Talon and, weirdly, Dhruv and Aaron; in a five-minute crash course, I learned and recorded a TikTok dance with Noor, who needlessly but pointedly touched my upper arms a lot (a fact I only realized when Lily told me afterward); Rob and Fredrika were in a fierce debate about which game was better, Stardew Valley or Fields of Mistria ("you can't compare a complete game to early access," Rob said, "you just can't!"); Talon and I called out Skye and Gio when they tried to creep upstairs and they glumly retreated back to the first floor, holding hands and giggling. Logan and Miles livestreamed while they looped their arms together and chugged from the other guy's drink. For a worryingly long stretch, Dhruv and Caitlin disappeared into my downstairs bathroom. Laughing, Casey grabbed me by my shoulders and said I was absolutely obliterated, and that was probably the most apt term for my inebriation. Several times, I stood on our couch and reiterated to the disturbingly rge gathering to not go upstairs. Everyone drunkenly cheered at this demand as though watching a football game. Kat repeatedly approached Talon, but he ducked his head and retreated. After being spurned by Talon for the fourth or fifth time, she ended up whispering with Lucas, occasionally touching his chest while Marty looked on and muttered under his breath. When the music got loud, I requested the volume be lowered and, for the most part, people did as instructed—and when the music got too bad, as Talon put it, he went over to handle curation. I passed out brownies and cookies from my mom's tins. People I recognized and, worse, people I did not, happily took the treats and thanked me. At one point, a group of eight or so of us gathered in my dad's office for what felt like ten minutes but turned out to be forty-five. I couldn't even remember why we'd went there in the first pce.

  When I came back out, Aaliyah and Brayden trapped me and unched into conversation. I chatted with them for a few minutes before something dawned on me.

  "How'd you two get in?" I said.

  "Buddy, you are hammered," Brayden said, ughing.

  "Aren't you taking my shift tomorrow?"

  "Absolutely!" Brayden said cheerily, holding up his beer. "That's why I'm capping it at three and heading home. I didn't want to pass up a house party, though."

  "It's not a party," I said.

  Aaliyah ughed. "This isn't a party? There's, like, thirty people in here. Maybe more."

  I looked around with mounting horror: she was right. I spied Bug Rooney in the middle of the living room, expining the intricacies of his purple belt test; two guys who did not attend our school, huddled in a group with Lucas and Carl; several kids from different grades who I vaguely recognized but wouldn't have been able to name. When had this happened?

  Given that groups of teenagers had snuck into our home without me noticing, I thought it pertinent to check on Rachel and her friends. Her room was a mess. A movie, abandoned, pyed on Rachel's ptop. Two mostly finished bags of tortil chips sat at the foot of Rachel's desk, a jar of salsa with no lid was in the middle of her carpet, and sour candy and gummy bears and chocote chips spilled across Rachel's dresser. They'd pilfered booze. Six open cooler bottles and a couple of solo cups y scattered around Rachel's room. The room reeked of cumin and parsley and artificial sweetener.

  "What is this?" I said, pointing to the alcohol.

  "Oh, we've been up and down several times," Rachel said, hiccupping. "There's so many people, we just went—" She held up her hands, connected at the palms, and zig-zagged them to demonstrated. "Easy peasy!"

  "You took our rum," Hilry said. She was lying upside down at the edge of Rachel's bed.

  "It was simply payback," Sasha said. Her eyes were unfocused. She looked on the verge of puking.

  I held my hands up at them as though they were feral animals. "Stay up here. Do not come back down. There are people I don't even recognize. I want to make sure you're safe."

  "We saw boys!" Sasha said. "Older boys!"

  "Are they cute?" Hilry said, to no one and everyone. "Are they hot?"

  "You saw them, didn't you?" Sasha said.

  "We're coming down," Rachel said. "Operation triple prom—"

  "Operation triple prom is over. You failed. Look, maybe you can conduct operation double prom next year, I don't know and, to be honest, I don't care, but you're not going downstairs."

  I reached into my wallet and pulled out dad's money, all seventy dolrs. I extended the two bills to them. I'd been intending to give it to Rachel anyway, but this was currently my only bargaining chip.

  "This is all yours if you stay up here and don't come down for even a second. Got it?" I said.

  "That was s'posed to be mine," Rachel said. She hastily added: "But I'll take it!"

  Hilry rolled over so she was now on her stomach. Her braids were coming loose. "Ooh. We can order more alcohol."

  "No one's bringing you booze," I said. "You're fifteen years old."

  "Sixteen!" Hilry and Sasha snapped.

  "Do you need water?" I said to them, but they all shook their heads, entirely disinterested in the concept of hydration. I picked up the tortil chips and tossed them onto Rachel's bed. "Eat some carbs. Stay up here."

  I figured I'd round up Marty, Casey, and Talon (Rob was too drunk) and get them to help me shepherd everyone out. But right when I got downstairs, two things happened simultaneously: there was a collective gasp from the kitchen, and a group groan from the living room. I picked the groan first.

  "Dude, that smells like pineapple and rotten pork," Marty said. "I'm gonna barf too."

  Rob had puked directly onto Mom's favorite pillow. Lumpy red vomit covered the ruffled edges and yellow stitching. I spotted vermicelli noodles and chunks of brown battering from his dinner. "Sorry," he mumbled, wiping at his mouth with his wrist. "I don't feel good."

  The bodies crammed together in the living room stepped back from the rancid puke, covering their noses and asking out loud why it was so red.

  In the kitchen, a group of girls—Isabel C., Fredrika, and Caitlin—had spilled red wine across the floor. Drawers were hanging open and dishtowels strewn around, several already stained. Fredrika and Caitlin were on their knees, frantically mopping up wine.

  "We got it handled!" Isabel said.

  Lily appeared at my elbow. "Ryan," she said, and giggled.

  "Hey," I said, preoccupied. "We've got to shut this down."

  "Oh, we definitely do, one hundred and ten percent. But can we go upstairs first?"

  "I don't think that's the best idea with how crazy it is in here."

  "You've seen my room," Lily pointed out, squeezing my arm, "but I haven't seen yours."

  Marty and Casey, both holding alcohol I wasn't sure belonged to them, pushed my back. Ana held on to Casey from behind, her arms tight around his stomach, either hugging him or using him for standing support.

  "We got this covered!" Casey said. "Everyone will be gone by the time you two get back!"

  "Need a condom, bud?" Marty said.

  Talon had pushed through the crowd. "There you are," he said to me.

  But Marty and Casey were ushering me to the foot of the stairs. Lily ughed and gripped my hand, bringing me up behind her.

  Ana shouted, "Get it, girl!"

  I caught Talon's eye, trying to show him everything was fine and not weird—that because Lily was insisting that we head to my room, I'd simply talk to her and settle this mess between us—so I made the universal OK sign with my free hand. This spurred Marty to huck me a condom. He missed and it hit the wall. I didn't know if Talon was disappointed or angry or confused, but he didn't look happy.

  At the top of the stairs, I reached for my phone to text Talon. This was stupid and easily resolved. All I'd say was something like, I'm about to end it or we're just talking, be right back. But—where was it? I patted my pockets. No phone.

  Well, whatever. I figured Lily and I would talk for five minutes max. My sober mind now existed on some low, impossible-to-reach substratum of my consciousness, and I had little interest in rediscovering that rational, boring yer of awareness. What I wanted to do in that moment was take more shots—I could probably take another four or eight or twenty before passing out, I guessed—and tell Talon how much I enjoyed his mouth on my hand and also pn where else we could put our mouths.

  "Here's my room," I said, keeping the lights off. Silver moonlight from the front window illuminated the old television on my credenza. The rest of my room was rgely obscured by the semidarkness. "Kind of standard and boring."

  Lily looked around. "I like it! You're much cleaner than me." She went to my window and smooshed her nose against the gss. "Wow. This tree's, like, out of a storybook."

  "Yeah," I said, smiling. "That's the best part."

  "Do you ever climb down it?"

  "Oh yeah," I said. "Talon and I pretty much devoted our childhoods to climbing up and down, sneaking in and out."

  "So cool," she murmured. When she turned around, her smile was lopsided. "Hi, Ryan."

  "Hi, Lily."

  "Ana and I were talking downstairs," she said, and giggled in a way that revealed how drunk she was.

  "About what?"

  "Um, well. About how hot you are." She stepped closer to me. "And I was thinking that—you know—I haven't had a chance to do anything to you yet. The way you've done to me."

  I didn't want any credit for that, though; her framing of our hookups was generous but untrue. We'd been drunk or high or interrupted, and my attempts to give her any type of pleasure had been clumsy at best, baldly incorrect at worst.

  "Oh, no, I've barely, uh—it's okay."

  "What I'd really like to try is giving you a blowjob," she said.

  "Oh!"

  My carefully designed speech felt like it'd been excavated from the recesses of my brain. I couldn't remember how I was going to word it—something about casual and distance and staying friends.

  "You've never had one, right?" she said brightly.

  "Ah, no," I said. "But listen, Lily, uh—"

  "I think I know what to do," she said, pcing her hands on the button of my jeans. "But you tell me if you want it faster or wetter or deeper or anything."

  I pced my hand on hers.

  "Can we talk about something?" I said.

  She frowned. "Of course. Sorry, I didn't mean to push."

  "It's not that. Well, it kind of is, but…" My speech had been forgotten, but my determination was strong thanks to the alcohol. "Look, Lily, you're really great."

  "Oh, no." She pulled her hand out from under mine.

  "You're as awesome as I remember from when we were kids, but even cooler, actually."

  Lily shook her head. "Oh my God. This is so embarrassing. You don't need to say that. I get it."

  "But I mean it," I said. "I really like talking to you and hanging out. I just don't think we should—I don't think we should do sexual stuff. I want to go to prom with you, but as friends."

  Lily looked down.

  "It's not you at all," I said. "It's me."

  "Right," she said, sounding winded. "That's the line, isn't it?"

  "Okay, yeah, I hear how it sounds. But I mean it."

  "Did I do something?" she said quietly. "I thought… I thought you had a crush on me. At Rob's, you said…"

  I winced, thinking of how that would've felt on her end. "You didn't do anything," I said firmly. "It's just… it's just, uh, it's your category."

  "My category? Oh. Yeah, well, sorry I'm not as skinny as Kat."

  "No, no, that's not what I meant. Your body's great."

  The room was dark, but my eyes had adjusted. For a second, I thought Lily might cry. She held two fingers to the side of her nose. "It's big, I know. But it's my… my dad's side all has noses like these." Her voice became soft and ced with doubt: "Virginia Woolf had a strong nose, too. And she's still pretty."

  "Your nose is perfect," I said. "It's probably my favorite feature of yours."

  "Then what?" she said icily. "I'm not interested in waxing, if that's what bothered you. I trim and keep it tidy, and I think that's enough, and if you don't like it—"

  "It's nothing like that," I said. "I don't think I… I think, maybe, I don't really, uh, like girls like that. Like how I should."

  "You think you maybe don't like girls?"

  "Not so loud," I said, gncing at my shut door.

  "What are you trying to say?"

  Yeah, okay, fuck it.

  "This doesn't have anything to do with you because it has everything to do with the fact that I'm probably, most likely, into guys and not girls," I said. "I mean, not probably. I am. I'm gay."

  Lily stared at me, her expression changing every two or three seconds—from surprised, to empathetic, to confused, to pissed.

  "Oh, I think I get it," she said, voice taut with restrained irritation. "You needed to experiment with me to know for sure, is that right? Maybe I was kind of a cover for you so you could figure out your sexuality in private while appearing straight in front of your friends and family?"

  "That's right," I said, relieved at her understanding.

  "You're so smart and yet so insanely dumb."

  "What?"

  "Those were rhetorical questions! I'm so incredibly grateful for the honor of being a fun scientific experiment for you." She paused. "That was sarcasm, too, if you couldn't tell."

  "No, I know, and believe me, it wasn't a conscious thought like that, I—"

  "You just needed to hook up with me to know for sure? Test your hypothesis?"

  "No! Well, yeah, that helped, but—"

  She was exhaling in frustration, fingers pinching the bridge of her nose, when someone banged on my door.

  "Ryan?" Marty said, edging open the door. "That you?"

  "Hold on," I said. "Wait in the hallway."

  "Man, I need you right now."

  "One minute. We'll be right out."

  Marty shut the door.

  "I thought you were a good person," Lily said. Her tone had changed, taking on that curated customer service voice she used with my parents. "A nice guy. But you're just a—just a—"

  I mentally braced, waiting for a slur.

  "But you're just a selfish liar," she sputtered.

  "I know," I said, "I fucked up. None of this was intentional, I swear—"

  Over her shoulder, Lily called, "We're coming!"

  "Wait, Lily. One second," I said. She paused but didn't turn around. "I wasn't trying to use you, and I'm so sorry. But no one knows about me. Tell Kat and Ana I'm a dick or an asshole or a liar—it's all true. But don't say the other thing. Please."

  She left without saying anything, pushing past Marty. Guilt stabbed at me. If I had another minute, maybe I could properly apologize.

  "Dude, finally," Marty said. "I know you were about to hook up, but man, I need you."

  Under the hallway lights, Marty's distress was visible.

  "Casey's glued to Ana, Rob's fucked, and Talon, well—you're the tallest," Marty said.

  "What are you talking about?"

  "You gotta fight with me."

  "What? Man, I'm not fighting someone. Where's Talon? Have you seen him?"

  "Everything isn't always about Talon," Marty said through gritted teeth. Marty's voice got uncharacteristically wobbly when he spoke again: "I think she's fucking someone."

  "Who? What?"

  "Kat," Marty said. "She texted me to come upstairs because she wanted to show me something. But I only found Rachel—who is toasted, by the way—and then you and Lily. The only other room is your parents' and there are fucking noises, dude. I can't open the door. Come with me."

  "In my parents' room?"

  "Yeah, I know, I know, they shouldn't be in there, but more importantly—"

  "Come on," I said. "Let's go."

  Marty was right. From the other side of the door, we could hear disturbing noises. There was a somewhat performative moaning and a lower register grunt.

  "Hey," I said, swinging the door open. "You can't be in he—"

  Instinctively, I closed my eyes but opened them again when I realized that wasn't going to stop the scene unfolding before me.

  Mom and Dad's room was compact, filled with photos of our family, and the usual scripture; their bed was a roomy queen which took up most of the space, covered by a bedspread that had been quilted by my Danish grandmother, predominantly red and white geometrics ced through with yellow and blue. Behind the bed was a mahogany bureau that Mom referred to as vintage, which was a generous way of saying old and unstable. The square mirror, banced precariously on top, showed me standing in my parents' doorway, Marty behind me, and, unfortunately, the other angle of Kat and Lucas fucking.

  Kat was naked, sitting across Lucas's p and clearly on top of Lucas's penis, who was lying on his back on my parents' quilt. Horrifyingly, his bare ass was probably touching the same spot that my mom liked to nap on. His pants were down around his ankles, and his shirt pushed up to reveal a hairy stomach. Kat turned when I opened the door, but Lucas barely opened his eyes.

  "Oh, hi, Marty," Kat said. She pushed Lucas's shirt up higher, running her fingers along his chest, and began thrusting backwards again as though we hadn't interrupted at all.

  Beside me, Marty let out a pained sound.

  "What are you doing?" Marty said.

  "You guys have to get out," I said.

  "Happy birthday, babe," Kat said. "I thought you wouldn't mind. Since you fucked Mi-yeun Kang."

  Marty let out another strangled groan. "Kat, listen—"

  "Did you think I wouldn't find out?" Kat said, still somehow moving back and forth as though this was a commonpce setting for sex.

  "You piece of shit," Marty said to Lucas. "She's in high school!"

  "For, like, another week, dude," Lucas said. "Fuck off, we're—"

  "I faked every single fucking orgasm with you," Kat said. "I didn't come once. Did you know or are you that dumb? Maybe you thought you'd do better with a virgin like Mi-yeun?"

  But Marty was barely listening to Kat. Instead, his eyes were locked on Lucas as he moved toward the bed, all pent-up muscle and anger.

  "Marty, don't," I said, putting my arm across his chest.

  He pushed my arm up and lunged for Lucas. He charged into Lucas like a bull. Kat screamed and bounced back towards the edge of the bed. Marty wrestled with Lucas, trying to get a punch in, but Lucas gripped his wrists. They struggled like this for a moment. Marty yelled that Lucas was a predator and Lucas said Marty was a short tiny-dicked cuck, which caused Marty to try to spit in Lucas's face but miss—the loogie hit my parents' pillow instead. Kat shouted that Marty was a loser who peaked in high school and couldn't even cheat properly.

  All the screaming caused someone downstairs to lower the music. I didn't hear them coming down the hallway but suddenly Rachel, Hilry, and Sasha were beside me, gaping at the trio on the bed.

  "Why are they in Mom and Dad's room?" Rachel said.

  "Ew, is that a real-life penis?" Hilry said. "Why's it so red?"

  "I'm going to vomit," Sasha said. "I'm actually going to vomit."

  In the scuffle, Lucas accidentally kicked Kat, who fell off the bed and disappeared from my line of vision. Marty yanked his arms back and out of Lucas's hold, ducked his head and rammed his shoulder into Lucas's side, which resulted in both of them tumbling off the bed and smming into the corner of the bureau.

  For a beat, I thought the mirror wouldn't fall. It wobbled and swayed on top of the bureau and if I'd been on the other side of the bed, I could have easily used a hand to steady it.

  But I wasn't over there because I was still standing in the doorway. So I could only watch helplessly as the mirror shook and then toppled forward as though in slow motion, the heavy frame hitting first the wooden bedframe and then the mattress. Mom and Dad's knickknacks—spare change in ramekins; discarded earrings; a paperback—fell to the floor. The wood on the left side of the mirror cracked with a weighty crunch. Gss shattered. Kat, who was crouched naked beneath the mirror, screamed.

  "Careful," I said, moving quickly to the edge of the bed. "Don't move, Kat, hold on."

  Marty and Lucas wrestled in a squished bundle between my parents' bed, the wall, and bureau.

  "Let me get dressed! Fuck!" Lucas shouted.

  There was a growing, exhirated crowd at my parents' door, eager to witness the chaos. Casey, Dhruv, Aaron, and Gio stood behind Rachel and her friends. Noor was saying something to Aaliyah and Bug Rooney poked his head over everyone, trying to get a better view. Ana was struggling to get into the bedroom, asking if Kat was okay. Logan and Miles attempted, unsuccessfully, to worm their way through the group by crouching and pushing past peoples' thighs. Simon held his phone up, clearly recording, while Kip fumbled for his own.

  I heaved the mirror back up on the bureau. Gss covered Mom and Dad's quilt and the carpet surrounding Kat, who was kneeling with her hands over her head. Bits of shiny gss littered her dark hair.

  "Ryan, please," Kat said, sounding panicked, "what do I do?"

  "Hey, I know! Don't fuck another guy!" Marty shouted.

  "Both of you, get out," I said to Marty and Lucas. "No—not this way. Climb over the bed."

  People wolf-whistled when Lucas stood up, his hairy ass exposed to the group. He grabbed his pants and quickly tugged them up. Both of them crawled across the bed. Marty pushed through the crowd and disappeared.

  "Everyone, turn around," I said. "Rachel—can you grab Kat some clothes?" I didn't know where Kat's shorts and shirt were. "And shut the door."

  Guys groaned when Rachel pulled the door closed.

  Kat tried to stand up, lost her bance, and slipped. "Oh my God! My foot!"

  A stream of bright blood flowed from Kat's foot to the carpet.

  "Stand still for a second. I'm going to help you get past the gss," I said.

  I put my arm around Kat's waist, averting my gaze from her naked body as much as possible so she didn't feel even more vulnerable. Steadying her, I got her over the worst of the gss pile and sitting on the opposite side of the bed.

  Rachel cracked open the door and tossed in a bundle of clothes. Avoiding her cut foot, I helped Kat into a pair of purple sweatpants and a bck t-shirt that said SPCA Volunteer across the chest. Kat was crying.

  "I hate blood," she said, "I really, really hate it."

  "Do you feel faint or dizzy?"

  "Um, yes? That's what I'm saying! Listen to me!"

  She hadn't said that, but I knew panic overwhelmed people in moments of injury. I crouched down in front of her. Holy shit, I was wasted. (Beneath kids talking and screaming and Kat's crying, I thought I heard the unduting whine of a siren, but maybe that was an effect in a song.) My first aid acumen felt like it belonged to someone else or a better version of myself in an alternate universe. Still, I tried to focus both my brain and my eyes. Her foot was bloody and cut in several pces—the clean, sharp incisions gss makes. There was also a rger, more jagged piece of gss poking out from the sole of her foot.

  "There's blood everywhere!" Kat groaned. "Oh my God, it's so bright—does that mean it's worse?"

  I looked up at Kat, hoping I appeared more sober than I felt. "Kat, look at me, not your foot. Okay? Yeah, that's better. You've cut yourself on some gss. There's still a piece in your foot—no, don't look down—and I can't remove it right now, so we're going to call an ambunce. Not because it's a severe wound—it's not—but you might need stitches. I can't tell." (My vision's blurry and I'm super fucked up, I thought, but didn't add.) "Take a deep breath with me."

  She took a shaky breath. "But there's so much blood."

  "You've been drinking so, yeah, it looks a bit worse than usual. You'll be fine, though. I'm going to help you downstairs, and we'll wait together for an ambunce. Sound like a pn?"

  Kat looked at me, dark makeup smudged on her cheeks. She seemed to finally hear what I was saying to her; a fraction of focus returned to her eyes. She sniffled and nodded.

  From the nding outside the door, someone yelled: "POLICE ARE HERE!"

  "Bail!"

  "Shit! I can't get busted again, I'm still technically grounded!"

  Someone let out a series of impressive oinks: "ACAB!"

  "I'm twenty, I'm legally allowed to drink—what are they going to do?" (Was that Lucas's voice?)

  "Yeah? Well, I'm seventeen, dude!"

  "My mom's going to fucking murder me!"

  "Move! Move!"

  There was a thundering of feet as kids bolted down the stairs.

  Outside my parent's door, most people were gone from the nding, save for a small group: Rachel, Hilry, and Sasha, watching wide-eyed as I helped Kat walk so she could avoid putting weight on her right foot; Casey, Gio, and Matt; and Ana, Skye, and Noor. Gio looked queasy.

  "She's fine," I said to Gio, "but sit down for a minute so you don't pass out."

  Gio hunkered down on the carpet, ashen faced. Skye rubbed his back. I asked Casey to help me with Kat; we got her down the stairs and settled into a kitchen chair. Fuck. My head throbbed. The room span and my center of gravity was nonexistent. People rushed out the backdoor, fumbling and hollering and ughing. Through the front window curtains, blue and red lights lit up our kitchen.

  A familiar female voice shouted from outside: "Yes, officers, that's the one! That house right there!"