“You told me to come over! You told me to come help you get ready.”

“Yeah, but you’re not helping, Libby.”

“Did you actually think I would?”

“Yes.” He glanced over his shoulder, then shook his head. “I hoped that you might rise to the occasion and psych me up. Be my corner man.”

“What’s a corner man?”

He ran his fingers along the tie, straightening it behind his collar. “That guy in a boxing match who, like, slaps you on the face, and throws water on you, and says ‘You can do it!’ ”

“You should have told me that you wanted me to slap you,” Libby said. “I would have done it, like, twelve times already.”

Owen turned away from the mirror again and stood at the end of the bed, his bed, looming over her—as much as you can loom when you’re only five foot six. (Libby was three inches taller than Owen. That never seemed to bother him.)

“You’re supposed to be telling me I can do this,” he said.

Libby frowned and scooted back on the bed, leaning against the headboard. She pulled one of his blue-striped pillows over her stomach. “Do what, tie a tie? You can; I just watched you. It was slow and pathetic and crooked in the end—but you got the job done. Go, you.”

“Not the tie,” Owen said, licking his bottom lip. Resting his tongue there. It was a tic—the gratuitous lip-licking. It called attention to how thin his lips were. His bottom lip was a smudge, and his top lip wasn’t there at all. Really. It was just an edge, a rim, a thin pink bracket.

“Not the tie,” he said again. “The whole thing. You know this is the first time I’ve ever gone to a dance. I’m a senior. I’m seventeen years old. And this is the first time I’ve gone to a dance—”

He was getting riled up now. Theatrical. Waving his arms around. (He’d done a Mark Twain monologue last year in forensics, and he’d never abandoned the gestures.)

“—because it’s the first time that someone who I liked has actually said yes. You know I’m nervous, Libby, and you’re my best friend. Can’t you just try to be encouraging?”

Libby narrowed her eyes at him. There was hair in her eyes, so she pushed it behind her ear. “You. Can. Do. It,” she said.

Owen closed his eyes and shook his head again. “Thanks a lot,” he said bitterly.

“Whatever ‘it’ is,” Libby went on. “What is ‘it’ anyway? Is it the dancing? Are you worried about the dancing?”

Owen huffed and went back to his bow tie, frowning down at the tails and squishing his chin into his neck so he could see what he was doing. “I’m not worried about the dancing.”

“Because you’re a good dancer,” she said.