I pause again for instrumentals. I look out at the crowd. They’re looking at me funny. I feel nauseous and shaky. Is it the alcohol or my nerves? I can’t see straight. But with my own music playing behind me, I feel more at home than I have in a week. Suddenly, I’m back in my element. I close my eyes and launch into the chorus.

“You don’t know, you don’t know, you don’t know me!” I sing, imagining Ben and the rest of the guys behind me, imagining that I’m onstage in some sold-out arena rather than at a party where I’m a stranger and the guy I like has a girlfriend and the father I lost doesn’t know that I’ve found him. “You say you do, you always say you do, but you never, never show me,” I continue. I’m in the moment, in my element. “You’re always telling lies to me, always in disguise with me. Open up your eyes to me and show me, show me . . . that you know me.”

I crack open my eyes at the end of the chorus and am a little shocked to realize that the crowd gathered around the TV is now sitting in silence, staring at me.

“Dude, she’s good,” I hear one guy say. He burps and shakes his head.

“This sucks,” whines a girl in a halter top. “I want to drink.”

Crap, I think. My heart starts beating faster. What am I doing?

It’s time for me to launch into the next verse. I glance at the TV screen, clear my throat and begin singing deliberately off-key. I purposely flub the first line.

“I, uh . . . I love, love, love you,” I sing.

“That’s wrong!” yells one of the guys.

“Yeah!” yells another. “Drink, drink, drink!”

A sea of cups go bottom up, and I breathe a sigh of relief. I’m back in the moment now. I’m no longer onstage with Ben and the guys. I’m at a party full of drunken strangers in Florida. And if I don’t sing off-key and screw up the words, someone’s going to realize who I really am. What was I thinking?

“Amanda?” I hear a voice from the back of the room and see Nick standing in the doorway, staring at me. I’m so surprised that I completely forget the next lines.

“Nick,” I say into the microphone.

“Sing!” yells a girl in the crowd. “What’s wrong with you?”

I stare at Nick for a minute. I’m just about to say something to him when there’s a bright flash of red and blue light outside and a man’s voice comes over a bullhorn.

“Break it up!” says the loud voice, which seems to be coming from the front yard. “Party’s over!”