The crowd started chanting, “Pete . . . Pete . . . Pete,” starting slowly at first but building into a crescendo. Pete was the name of the kid who had invited me, or whose parents had told my parents I should come over. Peter Singleton. Pete must have done whatever the crowd required of him, because there was another loud cheer, another pulsating movement. The group felt less like a gathering of individuals than a morphing, hungry mob, a single organism whose momentum could not be slowed. Panic rose in me again.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I pushed my way through the shoulders and arms and annoyance. I smelled alcohol, a strange and foreign smell, and it seemed we were too young for all this, though we were juniors and I knew that juniors all over the country were drinking at parties and getting into trouble. Sowing their wild oats. It felt to me like we had all been swept up in something we wouldn’t do on our own, something the mob was making us do. I don’t know—maybe to them it was simply fun. I fled the basement and the pulsing, shadowy crowd, squinted against the hall light, and tripped through the foyer until I found my way outside, into the crisp October air.

The front stoop was bathed in light, and people were still arriving, so I made my way around to the dark side of the house, finally breathing, relief flooding me. I was alone. I stared out into the country and wished I had my license, wished there was a way to fly away from there, soar over the quiet fields and narrow groves of trees. But for some reason I had never gotten around to taking my driver’s test. I resolved to get my license. That would free me from these things.

But simply being outside gave me what I had wanted. My only regret was that I didn’t have a book and a flashlight so that I could while away the next two hours before my parents came back to get me.

“Watch it, Charlie Brown,” a voice said as I tripped over something soft. I had to put my hands down onto the cold grass to keep from planting my face in the earth. But I didn’t take off my sheet. It was kind of nice, the anonymity.

“Sorry,” I mumbled. “Sorry.” I turned to go.

“Wait a minute,” a different voice called out, a girl’s voice. How many of them were there, sitting up against the hedgerow in the dark? “Is that Paul? Are you trying to escape the party?”

“Maybe.” I shrugged, glancing over my shoulder. A flashlight lit up and blinded me. “Who’s asking?”

“Another escapee!” the original, deeper voice said exultantly. There were a few chirps of quiet laughter. “Sit down, good man.”

“Well, I can’t see a thing.” My eyes were dazzled, but there was something in his voice that felt kind and welcoming.

“What’s your name?”