This fantasy was that Dustin wanted to end his high school career by going to his senior prom not with a pack of guy friends, or even a smart Ivy League–bound girl whose GPA he admired, but with a gorgeous, completely out-of-his-league hot girl (he didn’t even care if she was smart). And he didn’t want just any pretty high school girl, he wanted a girl who was on the not-so-secret “secret” Manhattan private school Hot List that came out every year during the Christmas holidays, ranking the top ten private school girls in every grade. (He knew, of course, that the very existence of such a list was shallow, misogynistic, and demeaning to girls, but it’s not like he actively participated in the making of the list; he just viewed it. And then promptly hated himself for doing so.)

Dustin was wise enough to know this reverie of his was fueled by the fantasy-filled teen movies he loved, where the “nice guy” always ended up with the “hot girl,” but he didn’t care. He wanted what he wanted, and even though he felt guilty for having such a frivolous hankering, especially when the entire political landscape was a shit show these days, he let himself off the hook by viewing the matter scientifically. What he was experiencing was a biological imperative, or to put it more crudely, it was because he had just as much testosterone as every other teenage boy in America.

This prom fantasy of Dustin’s had morphed into an entirely different beast six weeks ago, on the night of Steven’s annual New Year’s Eve party. This infamous party came into existence four years prior when Steven had no choice but to attend Baruch, a New York City public school, for the first semester of his freshman year after he managed to get kicked out on his first day of Riverdale Country School. Steven, worried he was going to lose his social standing while he waited for his mother to get him into a new private school, asked his father to let him throw a New Year’s Eve party, while his parents spent the holiday as always at their beach house in Maui.