Then again, what the hell age wasn’t in-between? Twenty-five, Alexa decided. When you were twenty-five you must feel as though you were exactly the age you were meant to be. Alexa couldn’t wait to be twenty-five. She’d live in a funky bungalow in L.A., and she’d decorate it with succulents and tasteful throw pillows, and she’d press her own juice, which she would drink standing on her deck that would overlook some sort of canyon.

Aside from Morgan and Katie, she couldn’t pick any of the other girls out by name. They all had similar sandy blond hair and short shorts and skinny prepubescent colt legs. The big lights around the baseball field next to the park were all on, so it was practically as bright as daylight in this area even though the sun was almost down.

Then Katie saw her and waved and Alexa couldn’t help it, that warmed the cockles of her heart, which Alexa had learned in anatomy and physiology junior year were actually just the heart’s ventricles, and which could not actually be warmed by emotion.

Then she saw Tyler coming toward her down Merrimac Street, weaving in and out of the crowds and the vendors. He saw her; she could tell by the way he picked up his pace. Ugh. No. She didn’t want to see Tyler.

Her feelings about what had happened at the water stop on Tuesday were complicated and difficult to unwind. She was ashamed that it happened, and she was ashamed that Cam had seen it happen. To make things even more confusing she was ashamed that she was ashamed, because she knew that that was exactly the sort of reaction that kept girls from speaking up when they were sexually assaulted. But the spitting was not assault exactly (was it? was it?). It was just so strange and so hard to categorize, she wasn’t quite sure what to do with it, so she’d packed the whole thing up in a box and stuffed it into the closet of her mind.

She addressed the knot of girls. “Hey,” she said to them in general, but more to Morgan than anyone else. She sensed their attention shift. The more fashionable among them took in her outfit approvingly. She was wearing white cut-offs and her Free People Beacon tank, though she brought along a sweatshirt because she knew the mosquitoes would be wicked in about ten minutes. “When the lights go out and the fireworks start, I want you to stay right here,” she said. “So that I can find you when it’s over, and walk you back home, okay?” She was talking to Morgan but looking mostly at Katie. Katie and Morgan nodded and then went back to what they were doing, which was pretending to be engrossed in their phones while stealing furtive glances around at their friends.