“All I’m saying is,” he went on, “you’ve got to be careful. You have a scholarship. Only one kid in the county gets that scholarship every year, and they chose you, Will. Without that money, there’s no way we can cover the family contribution. Not with all of the expenses that have piled up for the farm this year. We just can’t take on any more debt right now. There are a lot of kids around here that could take it or leave it. You’re not one of them.”

“I know, Dad. It was stupid,” Will admitted. “I was just blowing off steam, like you said. It won’t happen again.” Will gave his father a weak smile as he thought to himself, Dad would shit a brick if he had any idea what actually went down.

After he’d broken the glass door, he hadn’t known what to do. The boy assaulting Maddie had taken off into the house as soon as the glass shattered. Will kicked the remaining glass from the frame and stepped into the room. He tried to shake Maddie awake, but her eyes were closed and she was mumbling, not making sense. To his relief, a few girls followed him into the room and took over. He’d felt useless and embarrassed watching them coax her awake and pull down her shirt, and so he’d taken off to look for the kid, leaving Maddie to their care.

Will had waited all weekend for the cops to show up at his door. But somehow they hadn’t. By the time he’d gotten up for school this morning, he’d started to half-believe that all he’d done was get caught drinking in the woods. No big deal, as Trip had said. And then there was Maddie in the school parking lot, and seeing her made the whole thing suddenly feel very real. Will took a deep breath.

“Yo, what’s up man?” An arm hooked around his shoulders, and Will jumped. It was Brendan, a junior who ran on the JV track team. “I heard you got picked up on Friday night! Bad luck. Raging party, though.”

“You were there?” Will frowned. “I didn’t see you.”

“Hell yeah. Hey, I heard you were the one who put a hammer through the window. That shit was awesome.”

“Oh, yeah? I don’t know. It was a crazy night. I don’t really remember,” Will lied. He didn’t know this kid very well. Why was he talking so loudly?

“Anyway,” Brendan said, “cool party. How did you find that place?”

“I just heard about it,” Will said. “Like everyone else.” He felt a prickle of fear. Were people saying that he had planned the party? “Look,” he said, “it’s probably best not to talk about it.”

Brendan looked confused. “You get in trouble? I heard that they haven’t found the house yet.”