“That makes a lot of sense.” I take another sip, and shudder. Then, steeling myself, I drain the rest in a couple of gulps. Eleanor watches with wide eyes, then holds out her hand for my cup. She refills it with a look I can only describe as impressed.

“Have you been drunk before?” she asks as she passes back my cup.

“Yes,” I scoff. “Once. My friend brought a flask into the tenth-grade winter dance.”

“Ooh, watch out, we have a rebel over here.” Eleanor pushes my cup to my mouth, bursting into laughter as it spills over and soaks my chin.

It doesn’t take long for her to suggest we move on to shots. As far as I’m concerned, the drinks she was pouring weren’t far from shots to begin with, so it’s not much of a jump. She teaches me to breathe in and squeeze my thumb in my own fist before I tip my head back to get better control of my gag reflex. Her soda runs out after the first chaser, so she rummages around until she finds a bottle of wine she seems to think is fine to steal for some reason.

“Wine as a chaser?” I ask.

“It’s a sweet wine,” she says as though that explains it. This seems like a great point to me, which is definitely the vodka talking, so I just shrug.

We’re probably being antisocial, but as far as I’m concerned, our kitchen party is just as good as the one out there. We’ve been hanging in here for god knows how long when Eleanor slumps over. At first, I think she might be passing out, but then I realize she’s just sad. “Every time we do stuff with the Ashford guys, it’s weird now,” she says. “I keep expecting to see Oscar in the crowd. I wonder if that ever goes away.”

“I don’t know,” I say, taking her hand. “But it must be really tough.”

“It is. And we barely ever talk about it. It’s like—”

Before she can finish her sentence, someone speaks up behind us. “Hi, Eleanor.”

We turn together to find Santi, clutching a cup with both hands. He looks unsure of himself, like he’s expecting Eleanor to reject him. Her to reject him. Does he telepathically know that Eleanor’s decided she’s over him? Or, worse, did he somehow hear her tell me that, and it sparked his interest? Ew, if so.

But I’m gonna have to give him the benefit of the doubt, I think, because Eleanor’s busy looking at him like he just rode down from heaven on a floating cloud. I’m kind of glad she has a distraction from thinking about Oscar, honestly, even though I wish she had the chance to get her feelings out properly. “Hi,” she says. “You’re … here, at this party. How cool. So am I.”