Chad wanted to throw something at her. Instead, that night he called his mom and asked if he could come live with her in Beverly Hills. Her parents were so excited she’d finally left his dad they said they’d buy her a house if she moved back. He got to California in time to try out for basketball, so in addition to being the new kid from New York he was the starting forward on a division-ranked team. Nobody knew he was a virgin who’d spent a year obsessing over the same girl. His teammates took him to house parties and just before Thanksgiving a friend said he heard that Mia Gregory, a frizzy-haired, flat-chested cheerleader whose dad owned car dealerships all over Southern California, liked him.

“I bet she’ll let you fuck her if you take her to winter formal,” said the friend.

Chad asked and Mia said yes and the week before the dance she gave him a blow job at a party. They went to formal as a group. Nine couples in a rented party bus, then a sleepover at someone’s house. They had a bedroom to themselves and he brought a condom. She brought one, too, and she didn’t ask him if he’d done this before. He kept his eyes closed and thought of Claudia. Like he always did. Mia was the ugliest girl in the group and it pissed him off that she was all he could get, even three thousand miles away from Manhattan. What was with these bitches?