I know Andrew appreciates our help with girls, and if I asked for his help with guys, he would do the same for me; it just hasn’t ever happened. Guys don’t come up to me at parties and magically touch my shoulder. Before I can help it, an image flashes through my mind of Danielle and Chase naked and tangled together on the bed and I feel a little sick. I look around the party and try to imagine who I would approach if I could, who I would let lead me into the master bedroom like Danielle did. It occurs to me suddenly that I could do it, I could try to lose my virginity tonight, right now, on my eighteenth birthday, and then it would be over.

But there’s nobody here I want that way. Not Chase, who knows he’s the best-looking guy in our class and acts like it. Not Jason Ryder, who acts even worse. Not Edwin Chang, who everyone knows is in love with Molly Moye, or Jarrod Price, who is pretty much always high. Definitely not Andrew, who is basically my brother and is currently wrapped around Cecilia like a winter scarf, whispering into her ear as she wriggles in his arms.

I’ve known them all for too long—since they used to pick their noses, have farting competitions, eat melted crayons and glue. It’s hard to look past that now. I think for the millionth time about how college will be different, once I’m out of nowhere Vermont, once I get to the city and can walk down the street and be surrounded by strangers for the first time in my life—people who don’t all look and act exactly the same, who won’t know my parents or what I was like when I was ten, won’t think of me as Andrew’s best friend, as the girl Danielle tolerates—the least cool one allowed at the lunch table.

I shake my head and loop my arm through Hannah’s. “Andrew said I’ve got dibs on his bed. Want to share the room with me?”

“Yes. Thank God. I’ve been trying to find a spot to sleep for a while, but everyone’s claiming them. I tried to take the couch in the office and Sophie practically murdered me.”

Here’s the thing about parties in the middle of nowhere. There’s no such thing as Uber, and you’d be an idiot to drive drunk—especially with the snow—so everyone spends the night. It’s like one giant alcohol-infused sleepover.