Woepine High is like every other school: there’s a hierarchy. The cool, the pretty, the athletic, the slim, and sometimes, if all else fails, the kids with hustle and brains and chutzpah—they rise to the top. If they are cruel, they punish people for what they wear and how they talk and who they hang out with. They troll kids behind the curtain, throw shade grenades in the backstage life of their little handheld war zones: on social. And if they are displeased, they will drop you, ghost you, and swipe you into nonexistence; they do things that no one can really put their fingers on, because they are slippery. But when they are nice, they bless you with a smile, a dazzling sparkle of glitter that you find later in the cuffs of your pants, pick out of your teeth, and choke on if you’re not careful. I know all this. I knew the risks of falling from a height if I tried to climb the ladder. And yet.

By the end of the night, we were dancing with Paige, Breanne, Aidan, and a bunch of other popular kids I’d only ever watched from a distance. It was the best time I’d had so far in high school. We shared the drinks, hid from the teachers, stumbled into the bathroom laughing, danced until we were gasping and holding each other up.

“I like this girl!” Paige announced, holding my hand up to the others like a boxer who’d won a match. “She is so funny!”

And I preened in the spotlight in spite of myself, hamming it up, being a goof, being funny and fun and up for anything. I winked at Lottie, who rolled her eyes and laughed at me. She knows how insufferable I am. Our whole lives, it’s been me looking for a spotlight and Lottie calming me down. Lottie danced with her hair in her eyes, her long body bending and swaying; she was careless and happy and drunk. We walked home that night, the two of us, laughing at how funny life was. I mean, what were the chances that Paige would crash into us in the first place?

“They aren’t that bad,” I said, looking at Lottie’s flushed face. “I always thought they’d be total bitches, because … I dunno …”

“Yeah, they were cool. Who knew?”

And we grinned our rummy grins, the darkness of the night pouring out in front of us.