“Don’t give them the satisfaction, Stevie. Jesus, hold your head high. Otherwise they’ll think it’s true. I’m going. Fuck them.”

*   *   *

I relent. I’ll go. But I’m not sure what to wear. I am nervous, trying on a bunch of different things before settling finally on jeans and a baggy shirt—casual and not trying too hard, despite my efforts. Dee is here, sitting on the bed, eating a bag of chips. There’s a nervous energy pulsing through my body, making me jumpy, irritated.

“Try and stay out of trouble tonight, Dee.” I say, looking hard at her. It’s her fault if anything happens, and I am not going to take the fall.

She smiles. “Yeah? Why?”

I sigh, exasperated. “Just—maybe let’s, I dunno, just lay low for once. Everything doesn’t have to be a spectacle, does it?”

Dee pops a chip in her mouth. “I’m just saying. Tension is high. Something’s gonna blow. You can feel it. We just need to control what happens. We don’t want to be at their mercy.”

“When have you ever been at anybody’s mercy?”

She locks eyes with me and shrugs, the moment over, and I wonder, not for the first time, who Dee is, and how much I’ve changed since she arrived on the scene. Who I am.

“It’s getting carried away, Dee.”

“What? No way. We’re standing on a land mine, Stevie. It’s a powder keg about to blow. We just hafta be ready to run.”

“It’s just a party, not a revolution,” I say, trying not to care.

“If you say so.”

*   *   *

We get to the house, and it is already packed. It’s not quite a Superbad house party situation yet, but it is a regular suburban house that is already in full swing: pulsing from the inside out, people starting to spill outside like an overfilled bathtub that smells like body spray. People stare at us as we arrive, like we’re in an old-timey movie where the music stops when the cowboy walks in the saloon.

I scan the room. Looking over some heads just inside the house, I see Ava, Marta, and Antar. I wave, and they look at one another and turn away. Dee gives me a shove, and I make my way in their direction. Ava’s hair is piled on her head like a black bird’s nest, Marta looks like a tiny doll in a flowered dress, and Antar is in a suit that he is wearing the shit out of.

“Hey,” I shout over the music. Ava nods; Antar takes a sip of a drink and looks across the crowd. Marta smiles weakly.

Dee snorts at this. “Really, guys? That all you got?”

Ava takes a breath and gives her a hard stare. “What do you mean?”

“I mean what’s with you guys?”