One night two summers ago, Thomas and his friends had climbed over—Jack must have been there, too. Sage and I stayed outside the fence, on watch. The full moon lit the pool, and Thomas started to swim lengths of butterfly up and down. Everyone stopped and watched him. He dolphin-kicked without making a splash, and his upper body arced out of the water, his arms wide and his hands coming together just in front of his head. His body could just move through water soundlessly. “God, that’s beautiful,” Sage had said.

Now Jack was walking ahead of me. “Watch out,” he said as we stepped over a pile of cement blocks someone had put on the path. He waited while I climbed over, and we heard the repeated bounces on the diving board and the splashes as bodies entered the water.

At the far side of the pool, I could see five or six figures still clinging to the fence, like spiders dangling from a metal web. Every one of them looked naked.

“Find a tree you’ll remember.” Jack had already started to take off his jeans.

I went to the far side of another tree and unbuttoned mine and took off my T-shirt. I left my underwear on. Jack left his on too.

“Here,” he said, stooping down and offering me his interlaced hands and a knee. “I’ll give you a head start.” He hoisted me up several feet.

I found my grip and started climbing. I went slow, squatting at the top with legs angled apart, trying to keep my skin wide of the barbs. My legs started to shake, even though we were only about eight feet off the ground. I got my second leg clear and started down the other side. Jack jumped the lower half and stood reaching up, catching me by the waist and landing me on my feet.

“Race you in,” he said, and he ran to the deep end, cannonballing in. When he surfaced, he shook the water from his head and looked toward me. I followed, giddy with the thrill of having scaled the fence, breaking in, being half naked in the dark. I cannonballed right next to him.

“Great form, Gallagher,” he said.

“I’m drunk.”

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you never to swim while drinking?”

“I was told never to drink.” I wanted to laugh out loud I felt so good. “Let’s just float on our backs,” I said.