So, she leaves me. I take several deep breaths until I feel calm and focused. And that’s when the anger and bitterness pours in, like I’m a lifeboat with a puncture in the middle. Fuck this. Fuck all of this. Fuck people thinking I’m queer, and fuck the fact that I can’t even tell them I am, and fuck the fact that I can’t even be by my own girlfriend’s fucking side when all I want is to be with her. Fuck everyone’s staring eyes, and their little theories, and their incessant obsession with our lives because their own lives are too fucking empty to satisfy them unless they’re fucking up mine. Especially fuck Harriet for kissing me without any warning.

And, unfair as it is, fuck Rose for being twenty feet away from me when I need her. I need her. Fuck her for not magically knowing that.

I stalk through the garden and slam the back door, Eleanor’s vodka tucked under my arm. I don’t know where Eleanor is, or Rose, or Molly, and I don’t give a damn. Upstairs, I find an empty room—a bedroom, with a pristine king-sized bed and a bookshelf full of classical novels that look like they’ve never been opened. I kick my shoes off, climb onto the bed, and pour vodka straight into my mouth. It’s basically like a shot. It reminds me of Rachel pouring her bottle in our punch that night at the winter dance. Wait, Rachel. Rachel I want to talk to.

I text her, and she doesn’t reply. Then I look it up and realize it’s the middle of the school day in Boulder. Of course it is. Fuck everything, including time zones. I’ll make myself feel better. I already know drinking enough can make me forget things, because I can’t remember the entire second half of the tenth-grade winter dance. So, my goal is to forget I ever spoke to Harriet tonight.

How many shots could that take?

THIRTY-FOUR ROSE

“So, I’ve started seeing the school counselor,” Molly says, with the air of someone who’s attempting to drop enormous news as casually as possible to best minimize the reaction. “Also, I’m going to the bathroom.”

Though Florence and Harriet were with us for a while when I first got here, the two of them eventually wandered off, leaving Molly and me together on a couch. It’s the first time we’ve been alone together for any extended period of time since everything, and we’ve lost our rhythm, though we’re both doing our best to regain it through small talk. So far, we’ve covered our homework, the absence of our favorite Ashford boys, the cleaning bill Florence is going to be faced with tomorrow, and now, apparently, our mental health struggles.