She’d just finished writing a comparative analysis on the seventeenth-century English philosophers Hobbes and Locke and was lying on her bed contemplating truth when she recalled a quote from a William Blake poem she’d read in English class days earlier. If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.

The shrooms she’d been handed at a party weeks before seemed like a logical way to cleanse her perceptions. There wouldn’t even be Apple computers or iPhones if Steve Jobs hadn’t tripped on LSD, she’d reasoned. “I was planning to stay in my room,” she told Emma. “I was going to lie on my bed and experience whatever happened, but then everything looked like it was on fire, so I had to escape—I mean, you have no other choice when you think your bedroom is on fire. I don’t remember a lot after that except thinking my dad was the devil. It was so real. He had horns and a tail and red skin and—” She looked at Emma. “Are you laughing?”

“I’m sorry,” Emma said but continued to laugh. “I’m sorry. I know it’s not funny. I know I shouldn’t be laughing.”

“No, it’s funny.” Katie laughed too. “I mean the last year wasn’t, but remembering what my dad looked like is.” She continued to smile as she looked out the window.

The band was good, really good, but that wasn’t what kept Katie rooted to her spot on the blanket about twenty yards from the makeshift stage in Emma’s backyard. No, the lead guitarist, the boy with the serious eyes and full-sleeve tattoo was why she hadn’t moved in the past hour.

He was nothing like the preppy boys Katie was used to seeing at parties in the ritzy section of Howard County where large houses and country club memberships were the norm. He looked like someone more likely to step off a motorcycle than out of a BMW, and his dark spiked-up hair, jeans and tight black T-shirt stood out in the sea of collared polos and pastel shorts.

Emma’s brother, Ryan, wasn’t preppy either, nor any of the other band members, with their dark clothes and longish hair, but they looked like boys trying to look like rockers as opposed to their guitarist, who looked like the real thing.

Katie’s stomach did a little jump when their eyes met. Until tonight she’d never experienced what it felt like to be drawn to a boy. She’d had boyfriends but none that gave her butterflies.

“That’s Matt.” Emma yelled to be heard over the band. “He moved here from New York last summer. He’s kind of quiet, but he’s cool. You want to walk around and see who’s here?”

Katie didn’t, but she reluctantly came to her feet, not prepared to share that all she wanted to do was stare at Matt, so moments later she was following Emma into the crowd of kids who had gathered to hear the band.

The band played until about 11:00 p.m. As soon as they left the stage, Katie watched a blonde in a short skirt and tight tank top approach Matt. Katie was hoping she was a groupie, but when he started kissing her it was obvious that wasn’t the case, and she turned her back to them, unable to stomach her new crush making out with another girl.