On his way down, I handed him the footstool and warned him about the bucket—I kicked it when I made the leap for the stairs and sent its contents flying everywhere.

Oliver’s gulping in the kitchen air and shaking his head, wide-eyed, at me. “That was … worse,” he says between breaths, “than I thought it would be.”

He pulls out his phone.

“Leave before anyone sees you,” he tells me.

I stare at him. For a brief moment he meets my gaze, and I see him bristle at the distrust he finds there. Then the person on the other end picks up and he walks away, leaving me standing alone in the kitchen.

Only the two of us know about this. Oliver could bury the whole thing before anyone else finds out, and the fraternity could have the basement empty and clean by morning. But as I watch him weave through people dancing in the hall, I realize there’s nothing else I can do. I’m too tired and maybe a little too drunk to protest. And it’s very likely that I just destroyed any of my remaining credibility.

The guy driving my Uber wrinkles his nose when I open the door but doesn’t make me get out of the car. I stare at my reflection and streaked makeup in the window and wonder if Teddy will ever speak to me again.

Selfish, I think, was I really being selfish?

That night I allow myself to remember the fire. I pull out all the details one by one and flip them over, examining their edges, like a kid picking up seashells, wondering what kind of strange creature left them behind. Start at the beginning, that’s what we tell witnesses. What did you do that morning? That afternoon? Right before it happened?

Stretched out on top of the quilted bedspread in my childhood room, I blink at the ceiling and picture myself as I got dressed—she’s already a different person, the woman I see in my mind’s eye, with long brown hair, naïvely preparing for her day. That day started with Cade and Samantha barely able to keep their hands off each other and learning that Jay didn’t want to keep his hands to himself either. Katie—a mess, tearful, with a headache, but with enough energy to send her house mom in a tizzy and on an angry phone call to Truman, which he relayed in his own furious way to us. Then the phone logs, bringing in Tripp, then Cade again, and Michael. Feeling that they were hiding something. That it was right in front of our faces, but we weren’t able to see it. Michael, telling me to be careful. It felt like a threat.