I watch us dance. Watch myself nervously fidget with my favorite blue skinny tie, the one Connor found at the store and put aside because he said the pattern of guitar picks reminded him of me.

Gabriel doesn’t fidget. Gabriel dances like fire released. Gabriel moves like someone used to being watched. Someone who likes it.

Gabriel wears his jeans tight and his shirt loose, and I can see him sneaking glances at me as if I’m the type of person that someone like him would sneak glances at.

Lena’s voice soars loud, asking what we want.

What do I want?

What am I allowed to want?

The bouncers are selective, yet random. But somehow they always let in the old women who sell cassettes and flowers at the end of the night. Flower for you. Flower for your boyfriend. Flower. Flower. Flower.

Gabriel buys me an indigo-blue rose. To remember me by, he says, and I cringe at the finality in his words.

When he hugs me goodbye, his eyes are as black as a subway tunnel. The rose feels insubstantial in my hands; cold comfort when what I’m yearning for is everything contained in this boy in front of me.

But then he leans in, runs a hand under the edge of my sweaty shirt, up my back, and says, Next week.

Did it happen?

If I close my eyes, I can see Gabriel.

But through the Sunday fog of homework…

And my mother’s Run to the store and pick up flour, Michael…

Connor’s on the line for you, don’t stay on long, your father is expecting a call…

It feels like a dream. He feels like a dream.

After my parents are asleep, I call James.

I met someone last night, I whisper.

Tell me.

I tell him about Gabriel’s eyes and how he was wearing an earring with a cursive S on it, the one I couldn’t bring myself to ask about.

I tell James about how he sang along to the songs in perfect pitch and how, when we were talking, he’d duck his head and look at me through his coal-black lashes.

I tell him nothing that matters.

But I tell him and that matters.

I tell him “New Toy” is my new favorite song, and he laughs. What do you want?

I don’t think I have to answer.

In the morning, my mother sees the flower and asks if it’s for her. I can’t think up a lie so I say yes.

She transfers it to a bud vase and a few hours later, I have to change the blue-tinged water. I didn’t know you were into horticulture, she says, only my tired brain processes it as whore-to-culture and I choke, wondering what she knows. Then she has me get a wet rag to clean up the coffee I spit on her newly cleaned floor.

Becky comes to school on Monday in a hot-pink fishnet shirt and huge gold cross earrings. I bought this shirt from your brother, she tells me. Of course she did, Connor always gives James and Becky his employee discount.