It was too much. But we drank more. At one point I passed out while Rob was playing volleyball with some cute girls down the beach. The sun felt so good. I felt so great. Sloppy, but sloppy at the beach isn’t terrible. In fact, at the time I was convinced things couldn’t get any better.

Big wrong.

I had started my job search a few weeks before and was already getting some pretty good bites. An interview with Los Angeles County to work on a youth-offender program was scheduled for the following week. It wasn’t a dream job, but it was a start.

When the sun sizzled into the distant edge of the Pacific, Rob returned and suggested that we hit a few bars. He’d motioned to a couple of girls a few yards away. They were like everyone in LA. Perfect. In every single way.

“They want to meet up,” Rob said, indicating the girls and fixing his secret weapon on them: that big white LA ortho-engineered smile flashing down the beach at them like a searchlight.

A tall blonde looped her beach bag over her shoulder and gave me a little wave.

“Sounds awesome,” I said.

The last thing I really remember about that night was getting Rob into his bright red BMW convertible. He was in no condition to drive. I wasn’t, either, but I was confident that if I stayed off the freeway and was extra careful, I’d be able to get us home. I was heading south on Pacific to Beach Boulevard when Rob started making the kinds of sounds that indicated he was about to hurl. No one likes that noise—or what was about to happen. Indeed, I’m one of those people who actually sympathy-pukes when I hear it.

“Hold on, Rob,” I said. “Let me pull over.”

“Man,” he said, “going to blow chunks.”

“Stick your head out the window!”

I opened the window and gave him a little nudge so he could get his head in position before I found a place to stop. Cars lined the side of the road. There was nowhere to pull over, so I sped up to find one.

I didn’t see the van in time. I didn’t see the stoplight change to red, either. I was going forty-five miles an hour, and I somehow managed to swerve. I believe in God because of that. The van was packed. A family of seven from Phoenix had driven to Disneyland and had been working their way around the sun-drenched sights of SoCal.

Next thing I knew, I woke up in Huntington Beach Hospital, tubes everywhere. It was hard to process, while it shouldn’t have been. Blood had been drawn, and a cop was outside my door.

“What happened?” I asked a doctor.

Her expression was grim. “You ran a red light.”

That’s right. I’d been the one driving.

“Jesus,” I said, trying to sit up. I hurt like hell. My shoulder was bandaged like a cast. I couldn’t move. None of that mattered. My mind went to my cousin.