Drew lays me down in his bed and perches on the side, watching me and waiting for me to get my shit together. “I just need a second,” I say, staring up at the ceiling. The spinning has slowed down a little, leaving me with a drowsy, sluggish feeling. My eyelids start to feel like someone’s pulling them down, and I try to push them open.

“Do you want to sleep in my bed tonight?” Drew asks me. “I can sleep in James’s. He’s not here.”

“Thank you,” I say gratefully.

“No problem,” Drew says, standing up and heading to his dresser. He comes back with a sloppily folded T-shirt and a pair of shorts. “You might want to change,” he says, handing them to me. “I’ll be in the bathroom.”

He leaves, and I get changed without getting out of his bed. His clothes smell clean and fresh, and when I’m finished I climb under the covers, the panicky feeling starting to be replaced by total exhaustion. When Drew comes back a few minutes later, I’m already half asleep, and when he goes to turn the light by his bed off, I stop him. “Can you leave it on?” I ask. “I’m sorry, I’m just . . . I’m scared.”

“Sure, I’ll leave it on,” Drew says. “If you need to shut it off in the middle of the night, go ahead, okay?”

“Okay,” I say. He turns toward James’s bed, but I grab his arm. “Stay with me,” I say, pulling him down on the bed with me. And that’s the last thing I remember.

NOW

We didn’t have sex. I didn’t even kiss him. There was a moment, right before I fell completely asleep, where his lips were so close that I think I wanted to, but I stopped myself. Of course, there is a definite possibility that was a dream.

The message boards would go crazy after that episode aired, saying that I was using Drew to get back at Corey for the whole Jen debacle. They figured that since nothing really happened, Corey wouldn’t have a right to get mad. The truth is, I was drunk, I was scared, and I didn’t want to be alone. I was practically convinced I was going to die in my sleep due to some alcohol-related vital-organ shutdown. But people saw it the way they wanted to, and settled on the jealousy theory.

So nothing happened. We slept in the same bed, and that was it. The light stayed on all night. On some level, I had to know, even drunk, that there was a chance Corey would find out about it. Even though he said he wasn’t going to watch the show anymore, one of his friends could have seen it or someone from home could have asked him about it. What never crossed my mind was that Corey might not even care.

THEN