When Dad goes to talk to someone he knows from work, I whisper to my mom and ask if she can find a way to get my father to allow Connor to sit with us.

She looks back at my brother, who is wearing a bizarrely conservative button-down and cardigan. The only part of the getup that looks like Connor is the BEAT IT button over his heart. Even when he tries to rein it in, he can’t.

Connor glances over and then looks away. He knows we’re watching.

For a minute, I’m optimistic. After all, it’s Christmas and Connor didn’t have to come to St. Sebastian’s. He has a million friends. A world of boys he’s replaced us with. He only came to this church because he knew we’d be here. That has to count for something. Even to my father.

But then Mom spins her wedding ring and says, It’s a holiday, Michael. Let’s not make waves. You know how your father is.

And any hope I have for a Christmas miracle is dashed faster than an eight-year-old’s belief in Santa Claus.

My parents would murder me if they knew I was standing outside Central Park at midnight on New Year’s Eve with my best friends.

They’d murder me twice if they knew I was drunk.

But Becky brought a flask of something that goes down like fire, and it’s freaking cold out, so we pass the container back and forth, while horses pull tourists around in carriages behind us. Then, in unison, we tilt our heads toward the sky, watching the clouds move across the moon, while the whole city explodes in noise and light and the possibilities that 1983 might bring.

Time kind of stops, and I hold my breath, trying to hang on to this feeling. We’re standing shoulder-to-shoulder—Becky, James, and me—for warmth, or friendship, or safety, or something I can’t name. James is in the middle as always, binding our little group together simply by being James.

He’s wearing this long, black, wool coat with tiny anchors etched onto the silver buttons that might make anyone walking by think he had military leanings, but the sharp architectural cut of his white-blond hair and the gray slash of his eye shadow would set them straight.

Next to him, I look like a mannequin for Sears’s Young Men’s department in my sweater and jeans, while Becky is channeling that new singer, Madonna, all teased hair, rubber bracelets, and a fishnet shirt under her blue wool pea coat.

James reaches an arm around each of us.

I lean my head on his shoulder, careful to avoid his TEARDROP EXPLODES: TREASON button.

Becky reaches behind his back and grabs my hand, her skin cold through her black lace gloves.

You know what, Michael? James asks, as he steps forward and turns to face us, backdropped by the fireworks, arms open wide as if he could embrace the entire city.

I shake my head and watch the snowflakes fly off my hair, each perfect crystal reflecting the flash of colored lights: red, green, gold.