“Get off me!” she yells at the same moment her boyfriend’s fist lands on Asad’s chin, sending him reeling backward. Asad stands in the middle of the room, rubbing his face, the confusion in his eyes quickly changing to anger as he charges back toward the boy, fists swinging.

I swear the football boy laughs as he half throws, half pushes Asad off him, sending him slightly airborne across the room, directly into the card table holding the drink coolers. I watch him spiral toward them—and me—like I’m watching a slow-motion movie scene where each person’s head turns, mouth agape, as the moment of impact nears.

You just know it ends badly.

Asad’s body hits the table, tipping it and the coolers over. They fall, liquid sloshing, then flying in freeze-framed droplets through the air.

Toward me.

29

The cold is immediate and everywhere, soaking through my shirt, splattering my mask.

Worse than the cold are their eyes.

All of them.

Staring at me as punch drips in front of my face.

I rip off my mask to wipe away the liquid seeping into my eyes. Asad scrambles to his feet.

“Ava, I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

I choke back the tears. “I want to go home.”

Piper tugs me by my hand away from the flurry of whispers and raised cell phones into a bathroom with monogrammed towels and potpourri. She flips the toilet lid down for me to sit while she runs my mask under the sink, red punch spiraling down the drain along with white paint and fantasies of a normal night.

“If you want to go, we’ll go. But let me fix you up before you make up your mind.” She dabs at my face with a moistened wad of toilet paper. I push her hand away.

“I can’t keep getting caught between you and Kenzie,” I say. “You have to tell me what happened. Were you really supposed to be driving?”

Piper doesn’t meet my eyes. She drops her hands to her lap.

“Yes, okay? I was the designated driver. I should have been sober. I should have been the one behind the wheel. All of this”—she points to her wheelchair and then to her burned neck—“it’s all my fault. I did this.”

The door swings open and Asad inches his way into the bathroom, which is already tight quarters with Piper’s wheelchair.

“Everybody okay in here?”

I nod. “Yeah, just trying to figure out how this night unraveled into a total disaster.”

Asad clicks the door shut behind him and I can’t help but notice his knee pressed up against mine.

“Well, I wouldn’t call it a total disaster.”

“Oh really?” I say. “Name one part that wasn’t an epic fail—and I warn you that if you say the part where you attempted to dance, I’m calling BS.”