“Hey, you,” he says, picking me up and spinning me around. I get that lightning storm in my stomach.

“Hi,” I breathe, then kiss him. He tastes like beer.

“Let her go, Gene,” Hilary says playfully. She’s getting cups while Abigail opens a bottle she brought in her tote bag. Hilary takes on her British accent. “We’re doing shots!”

“Guess that’s my cue,” I say, and he sets me down gently.

“Cheers, mates,” Gene says as he walks away.

“Mates is Australian, not British,” Hilary mutters as Abigail hands us each a shot of something that smells like cinnamon, but worse.

“My brother got us Fireball,” Abigail announces. “We are officially getting drunk for the first time together tonight.”

I sniff the plastic cup, and an anticipatory wave of nausea emerges in my stomach. “I was thinking of something more low-key for the first time I get drunk,” I say. My eyes travel over the swarm of people opening cases of beer and stacks of red cups. “Like beer, or a virtual simulation.”

“Shut up, Cham.” Hilary laughs. “Abigail and I will take good care of you. We remember our first time drinking, don’t we, Abigail?”

I see their universe bloom, and I’m just a bee buzzing around it. I laugh. “It was at Abigail’s parents’ ski condo, right?” I say.

“Yep, spiked hot cocoa,” Hilary says, but she’s only looking at Abigail. “Vomit.”

The harder they laugh, the more I remember that although we came to this party together, for lots of years theirs was just a party of two.

“Come on!” Abigail closes her hand around mine and shouts something about a big booty, because someone just turned the music on and more people have shown up. “We’ve basically made it,” she says, looking me in the eyes with her intense green irises. “It’s time to make some stupid decisions and bloom adventures out our assholes.”

Hilary wrinkles her face. “Can’t we just take a shot and see how we feel?”

“Oh, fine.” Abigail puts the plastic cup to her lips, then pushes my hand to my mouth too. I watch us in the mirror behind all the bottles, but then I feel self-conscious.

“PEER PRESSURE!” I shout as she clamps her hand over my mouth. I laugh. “Just kidding. Go ahead, hit me.” We put our shots to our lips at the same time, the liquid entering my throat and then my esophagus and then my stomach, all the way into my chest. I swallow my spit, which is slightly on fire, and that fire spreads throughout my whole body. “Wow, I guess that did hit me.”

Abigail grins, wiping her mouth and slamming her plastic shot glass next to the still-open bottle. “Let’s do it again.”

So we do. We drink poison and swallow fire. At first I feel a little wobbly, like I might just puke my brains out, but then I start smiling because I don’t want to forget what this feels like, standing in Gene’s basement with my lace-up combat boots on and Hilary and Abigail on either side of me and the music is the song that’s been playing everywhere we’ve been for the last few weeks and we’ve made it. We’re here.