My new life had a pool and a pool table. It had an eight-seat home theater in the basement. It had a designer wardrobe without a single pair of Wrangler jeans or Target T-shirts in the bunch. Why was I fighting this? Maybe I needed to take a chill pill as my dad embarrassingly says, and go with the alternate flow. What choice did I have? And it’s not like I really missed my old life. Everything here was new and improved, from my socioeconomic status to my relationship with my brother. Hey, what if that other reality was the wrong one? Maybe this was the life I was supposed to be living, and the universe, or God, or whatever, decided to fix it.

It’s amazing how a simple shift in one’s point of view can make things better. I can live with this, I told myself. In fact, I could live with it forever. It’s like Leo’s dad had said—it’s all about perception.

Hunter came gently knocking on my door somewhere around ten thirty. He was dressed to go out.

“What, no curfew?” I asked him.

He shrugged. “They won’t know I’m gone. And if they do, I’ll deal with it.”

I suppose it was easier to go unnoticed in a house this big. “I’ll cover for you,” I told him, actually glad that he had a social life—something that was iffy before.

“Thanks,” he said. “So listen, do you think you could hook me up? I promised my friends.”

“Huh?”

“Just a few X, and maybe a gram of the good stuff.”

I just stared at him, blocking out the part of me that knew exactly what he was talking about. I found myself looking at my desk—particularly the second drawer down. I reached over and pulled it open, then moved aside a notebook to reveal a kitchen storage container—the kind that snaps on all four sides. Inside were little Ziploc bags containing pills and powders and weed. The new memories washed over me. The second wave of the evening.

“I can pay you on Monday. C’mon, Ash—you know I’m good for it.”

Hunter was getting impatient. I was not prepared to deal with this now, so I closed the drawer and said, “Not tonight, Hunter.”

He looked at me like I had just slapped him in the face. “You can’t be serious!”

“I’m running low on everything,” I told him, and I couldn’t help but add, “besides, it’s not my job to get freshmen high.”

“Since when?”

“Since right now.”

He glared at me, waiting for me to change my mind, but I wasn’t going to. “Listen,” I told him, giving him some real and true brotherly advice. “You need to separate out your real friends from the ones who are just using you.”

“I already promised them!” he insisted.