I turn to look for the bathroom and bump straight into Lourdes. “Hey,” she says, grabbing my hand. She pulls me to the front of the stage. “You got the T-shirt, you get front row.”

I’m about to ask about that ride home or maybe just try to flirt when a blond god of a boy pushes through the crowd, grabs Lourdes, and holds her, hand on the back of her neck, a gesture of careless intimacy a thousand times worse that a kiss. The energy changes in the crowd, and I know the boy is really someone around here—a band guy, probably. And Lourdes is clearly his girl.

It was only a kiss, an afternoon, an adventure. I want to be like the French women in the red-covered book of scandalous stories Kelly and I found at the library sale last summer. Instead I’m hollow, my insides whooshed down some infernal drain.

The band is tuning up now, the crowd gathering close to the stage. Punk Apollo lifts Lourdes to the platform, muscles bulging—maybe another drummer? They are adorable, the Gilman Street version of Kelly and Ben.

Las Pochas launches into their first song, frenetic ska-core that shakes my shoulders, a surprisingly good substitute for crying. The crowd churns like a washing machine, cycling me into the whirlpool center of the pit. A girl in a pink party dress and fishnets shoves me into a shirtless guy, who shoves me off and then grabs me to steady me. In turn, I pull him into the pit. A girl with knife-sharp eyeliner and no hair except for little devil-horn tufts shoulders me to the edge of the crowd, and I’ve got a mouth full of feathers. The boy I admired earlier grabs my hands and we’re dancing, laughing and careening into everyone around us. I’m having so much fun I forget to even look at Lourdes till the final song. Eyes closed, ponytail flying, arms tense and strong as she hits her sparkly silver drums—I wonder if she’s the girl I want or the girl I want to be.

“You got it bad, huh?” The bird-haired boy nods toward the stage.

I meet his eyes, about to admit the truth, but something stops me. “Wait,” I say, suddenly a little dizzy. “You look so familiar.”

“Dude, I go to your school.”

“Oh my God!” Suddenly, something shifts into focus. I think of those pale-feathered flocks soaring past me in the halls and how, in Kelly’s wake, I used to almost feel like one of them. Now, seeing Marco—because that’s his name, I’ve actually known it since middle school—I realize that he can’t be the only brown face I missed. “Kill me now,” I say.