Danielle is having a party the last day of school—the night before prom—something she’s coined “the last supper” because she wants to cook for everyone and, in her words, every party needs a good theme. She’s invited the whole class, even Ryder and Simon Terst, who she’s been mad at for weeks. Now that school is over, it’s like all the arbitrary social boundary lines that have kept us all segregated don’t even exist. My cousin Beth, who is seven years older than me, told me it would be this way: that just a few months after high school ended, we wouldn’t care about who was popular, or who hooked up with who, or who we were supposed to hate. I didn’t believe her at the time, but now I do. It already feels like high school was ages ago even as I’m still cleaning out my locker.

Just like we planned, Hannah and I get into her Jeep with the top down and scream as we race out of the parking lot. We put “Free Bird” on her stereo and blast it as loud as it’ll go, rolling down the windows and laughing, pointing our middle fingers out to the sky. It’s bittersweet to be here without Andrew. In the movie version of today—the one I planned in my head—the three of us were together, laughing and speeding away from Prescott, the same trio we were at the beginning of ninth grade now at the end of twelfth. But I saw him leave earlier with Danielle and I didn’t even say goodbye.

We all go down to the lake in the afternoon, everyone lying out on brightly colored inner tubes and inflatable pizza slices. There’s an ice chest full of beer hidden in the grass on the edge of the water, buried under a pile of beach towels so cops or parents or whoever else is around won’t know we’re drinking. The beach is crowded—practically everyone in our class is here, like we’re all trying to suck up every last minute we have with one another, savor every last drop. The sun is high in the sky, casting a golden summer haze over everything, and the beauty of it makes me ache. I know it’s never going to be just like this—like right now—ever again.