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Chapters (57)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. CHAPTER ONE
  5. CHAPTER TWO
  6. CHAPTER THREE
  7. CHAPTER FOUR
  8. CHAPTER FIVE
  9. CHAPTER SIX
  10. CHAPTER SEVEN
  11. CHAPTER EIGHT
  12. CHAPTER NINE
  13. CHAPTER TEN
  14. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  15. CHAPTER TWELVE
  16. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  17. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  18. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  19. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  20. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  21. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  22. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  23. CHAPTER TWENTY
  24. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  25. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  33. CHAPTER THIRTY
  34. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  35. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  36. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  43. CHAPTER FORTY
  44. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  45. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  46. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  47. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
  48. CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
  49. CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
  50. CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
  51. CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
  52. CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
  53. CHAPTER FIFTY
  54. CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
  55. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  56. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  57. What’s next onyour reading list?

She can’t help it, though. She does care. At first, right after Sloane, it was a reflex to keep doing what she’d always done, to pretend that nothing had changed and everything was fine. Lately she’s not sure, but she keeps at it. Treading water. Staying afloat.

So before she gets in her car, Lulu texts Tae Young, who’s in her English class, to ask her if she’s studying for the final tomorrow. Tae Young invites her over to her house, where she and her friends and Lulu spend the afternoon googling themes and quizzing each other on quotations.

At the end of the afternoon Lulu convinces everyone to jump in the pool fully dressed. She goes with them, and then gets out to film the girls, their hair and their clothes billowing around them like soft flowers in the water. It makes her feel better about everything in her life right now, to know that at least it still looks like she’s living the way she always has.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

BEA IS SITTING on Rich’s lap, her knees curled to her chest and her head flopped lazily against his shoulder. Jules is sitting next to Rich, and Patrick is sitting next to him. Patrick’s girlfriend, Taylor, is perched on the couch’s armrest with her feet in Patrick’s lap.

They look like a puzzle, Lulu thinks, neatly put together so that everything fits. She’s sitting on the floor with the rest of the odds and ends: Emily Williams, who’s Bea’s best friend from elementary school, and Jason Aguilar, a junior on the baseball team who one of the dudes must have invited.

Lulu never knows what to call the thing that happens before the party—the part where whoever’s closest and most in comes over to hide valuables and lock bedroom doors and take shots together, to assert their ownership over the house and the night and one another before anyone else is allowed to come inside. Like so many things in her life, it’s a ritual she has no language for, because no one ever talks about it. It’s just—you get the Flash that says Come over at 8, or you’re relegated to some outside circle, and what you hear from a friend of a friend, that the party starts at like 9ish.