"You should just talk to Baker directly," Wally says.

"And say what, Wall?" Clay says. "'Hey Bake, I think you're hot, wanna hook up again'?"

"Is that what this is?" Hannah says, her voice sharp with emotion. "You just want to hook up with her?"

Clay's entire countenance changes in an instant. His eyebrows draw together and his eyes narrow with scrutiny. He stares intently at Hannah, as if searching something out in her, and she remembers, with startling accuracy, the way she felt when they first became friends: that he possessed some secret truth she had never known, some kind of raw power that enabled him to understand people, to detect their insecurities, and ultimately to sway them to his side.

"No," Clay says finally, the intense look still present in his eyes. "Of course not. I think she's the prettiest girl I've ever seen-I've thought that for years-and I want to hook up with her again, yeah, but it's more than that. There's just something about her that makes me want to know her better. But I'm not sure how to do that. I'm not sure how to move beyond the physical stuff."

Neither Hannah nor Wally responds. Hannah feels a weird looseness inside of her, like her muscles have gone slack. Clay continues to look at her with his intense eyes, but there's a shade of uncertainty to them now, a tinge of pleading.

"I don't know," Hannah says after a moment.

Clay sighs in frustration and runs a hand through his hair. Hannah studies him-his tree-dark hair and eyes, his firm mouth, his strong jaw-and thinks inexplicably of the primordial Adam.

Clay shakes his head back and forth. "She's so hard to figure out. It feels like I've known her forever, but I still don't get her. I don't even know, like, the little s.h.i.t about her. I mean, you know that stuff, Han. Like, her favorite book and color and everything. Don't you?"

Hannah looks away from him.

"Han?"

"Perks," she says.

"What?"

Her chest swells. "The Perks of Being a Wallflower," she says, unable to keep a sharpness from her voice. "She named her dog after it."

"Oh. Yeah. And what's her favorite color?"

Hannah looks at the sun until it blinds her. Then she looks back to Clay, but she can no longer see him through the imprint of the sun on her eyes.

"Yellow," she says.

"Yellow," he repeats. "Got it."

"I still think you should just talk to her," Wally says.

"Maybe," Clay says, his eyes focused on the water. "We'll see how it goes at Tyler's party tonight."

They eat a late dinner with the Landry's-Mrs. Landry cooks pork chops-and then shower in preparation for the party. "So you're telling me there's going to be no drinking there?" Dr. Landry says in an accusatory tone, staring Clay down when they're about to leave.

"Not that I've heard of," Clay says innocently. "If there is, we'll come home."

"Be back by one."

"One?"

"You want to make it 12:30?"

"No, sir."

"Stay together," Mrs. Landry says. "And be good."

They walk through the cooling night air, down chalk-white sidewalks and past patches of gra.s.s so green they almost look fake. Clay and Baker take the lead, both of them dressed with social precision, Clay in a salmon-colored Polo shirt and Baker in her favorite navy sundress. Luke and Joanie walk behind them, swinging each other's hands loosely between them, Luke pointing out which beach houses he's going to buy when he's older, changing his mind on every new block. Hannah and Wally follow last, both of them quiet, an easy current of companionship between them.

"That one's just lovely," Luke says, pointing to a flamingo-pink two-story. "I can buy that when I go through my gay phase."

"We should live here all the time," Joanie says, swinging Luke's hand with exaggerated silliness. "Let's just quit school and get jobs lifeguarding."

"We should all agree to come down here in the summers," Clay calls back to them. "You know, during college and when we're in our 20s and everything. We can all rent a house together."

"You and your fantasies," Joanie says. "It's like you think we're in a sorority or something."

"Six-Pack for life," Clay says, raising his left hand and right pointer finger in the air.

There are very few people at Tyler's house when they arrive. "What's up," Tyler says, drawing out the last syllable as he greets them at the door. "Y'all came on the earlier side of things."

"Didn't want to miss the fun," Clay says, clapping him on the shoulder. "Can you hook us up with some drinks? We couldn't sneak anything past my parents."

"No worries. Come on in and have whatever you want. This one's gonna be a rager."

Hannah catches Baker's eye as the six of them move to step over the threshold. Rager, Hannah mouths at her, lifting her eyebrows mockingly. Baker shakes her head and bites her lip, and Hannah can tell she's fighting a smile.

They follow Clay into the house, waving hi and calling h.e.l.lo to the cla.s.smates they pa.s.s as they walk by. Clay leads them to a high kitchen counter and they all circle around it, preparing to start their ritual.

Clay pours six shots of whiskey and raises his gla.s.s in a toast. "To an amazing spring break," he says, his deep voice resonating around their circle, "and to my amazing friends."

"To our beautiful sorority," Luke says, winking at Joanie.

"And our beautiful faces," Joanie says. "And just how beautiful we are in general."

"To Luke's future pink house," Wally says, saluting him with his shot gla.s.s.

"Amen," Luke says.

"Han?" Clay prompts, eyeing her from across the circle, and she can tell that he's feeling her out, that he's checking to see if the two of them are okay.

Hannah elevates her shot gla.s.s higher. "To our friends," she says, "just like Clay said."

"May we always stay friends," Baker says, "no matter what happens."

"Let's drink these already!" Joanie says, clanging her shot gla.s.s against the communal pile.

They throw their shots back and slam the gla.s.ses on the counter, each of them sticking their tongues out and gasping in reaction to the hard alcohol, and suddenly Tyler appears and hangs his arms over Clay and Luke.

"Well come on, y'all," he says. "Come join the rest of us heathens."

Half an hour later, the party has swelled to include another 40 or so St. Mary's kids, so that Hannah has a hard time moving from one side of the house to the other. The music blares so loudly that she has to yell to Joanie to make herself heard, and eventually Joanie throws her hands up and mouths Can't hear before she pulls Luke over to the middle of the room to dance.

Several of the other senior girls have drawn Baker into conversation, and Hannah watches them curiously, noting their excessive smiling, their arm grabbing, and the small sips they take from their Solo cups. Baker stands confidently before them, her hand on her hip and her hair hanging loose over her sundress.

"Some party," Wally says into Hannah's ear.

"What?"

He gestures toward the back patio and raises his eyebrows in a question-Do you want to go outside?-so she nods and follows his path through the packed house.

"s.h.i.t," Wally says when they step out onto the porch. "I couldn't even breathe."

"It's really f.u.c.king loud in there," Hannah says, covering her ears to stop the echoes of the music.

"I know. I'd much rather be back at the house right now."

"Why didn't you say so? Maybe everyone else would've wanted to stay, too."

"Nah. They love coming to these parties. And I don't mind them too much. I like the people watching."

"You love people watching," Hannah laughs.

"I do," Wally laughs, touching the frames of his gla.s.ses. "I like trying to understand people and how they see the world."

"Mr. Curiosity."

"I'm only curious about some things," Wally says, looking sideways at her.

Hannah breaks eye contact with him. She lets out a short laugh because she doesn't know what else to do.

"Hey, by the way," Wally says, "were you okay today? In the water?"

The question catches her off guard. "Oh. Yeah. I just-I don't know how I feel about Clay and-and Baker."

"He means well," Wally promises. "I know he talks callously sometimes, especially about girls, but I think he really likes her, Han. I think it's for real this time."

"He told you that?"

"Not exactly, but I can read Clay pretty well at this point."

"Oh."

"Are you worried?"

Wally looks so kind, and so sincerely concerned, that Hannah almost wants to run away. She looks away from him and leans against the balcony railing, touching her hands to the cold, smooth metal. "I just-" she says. She feels the words stirring within her, threatening to come up. "I-she's my best friend, you know? My best friend."

"Yeah," Wally says. "You care about her. You want her to be with the right guy."

Hannah says nothing. Her throat thickens with welled-up words.

"You want to stay out here for a bit?" Wally asks.

Hannah swallows. She breathes in the salt.w.a.ter air. "Nah," she says, shaking her near-empty Solo cup. "I think I'll get another drink."

The party gets wilder as the hours go on. Tyler plays a quick succession of crowd-pleasing songs, and the party swells with peak noise when "Love Story" by Taylor Swift comes on. Everyone in the house, boys and girls alike, screams the lyrics with mad intensity, and suddenly all the girls are pointing dramatically at the boys when Taylor sings to her Romeo, and Luke's kneeling on the ground and serenading Joanie, and it sort of feels like everyone there has spent their 16 or 17 or 18 years simply waiting to sing this song together at a beach house in Destin.

Hannah tries not to watch Baker and Clay dancing together on her right, but as the song goes on, they seem to grow larger in her peripheral vision. Their hands are matched together as they sing, and as Hannah turns to see them better, Clay twirls Baker in a circle and smiles his big c.o.c.ky grin at her. She smiles radiantly back at him. Hannah's heart aches in her chest.

The song changes to a club song Hannah doesn't know, but the crowd around her shouts their approval and shifts easily into the beat. Hannah moves her body and gulps from her beer to have something to do. Wally smiles at her as he dances across from her, and she smiles back, fighting hard to stomp down her feelings.

But she can't ignore how Clay draws Baker in close to him and presses his forehead against hers. She can't ignore how their bodies move together and Clay's hand wraps around Baker's waist. She can't ignore how Baker seems to want it, how her hips move into his and her hand grips his upper arm.

"I need some air," Hannah says, though no one can hear her over the music anyway. She pushes her way through the packed room, and suddenly it's like she can't move fast enough, like her heart wants to push out of her throat before she makes it outside.

When she finally reaches the sanctuary of the balcony, her heart feels so high in her throat that she might choke. She takes long, deliberate breaths and orders herself to pay attention only to the here and now: what she can see, what she can feel, what she can smell and hear. She focuses hard on the smell of the salt.w.a.ter air, on the distant moving of the ocean, but the pain rises out of her anyway.

Please. Please can you make it stop hurting it hurts so badly. I don't want it. It hurts and I don't want it. I'm trying to make it go away. Please, just make it go away, just make it go away.

But there's an ancient voice deep inside of her that knows it will never go away, no matter what she does or how hard she prays.

She would be content to stay out here all night, fighting this thing inside of her, gulping down sea air to try and clean out her insides, but some cla.s.smates interrupt her.

"Oh, sorry," Lisa says when she and Bryce stumble out onto the porch. Bryce pays hardly any attention; he's kissing at Lisa's neck. "What's up, Hannah," Lisa says drunkenly. "Do you mind if we hang out here?"

"No, that's totally fine," Hannah says shakily, tipping her cup toward them in a pathetic, long-distance cheers. "I was just cooling off."

She steps away from the balcony and walks past them, but right when she reaches the door, Lisa says, "Did you see your girl Baker making out with Clay on the dance floor? How cute are they! You have to tell her I said how cute they are."

"Yeah," Hannah says, fighting hard against the pain spreading over her heart. "I will."

She can't find her friends when she reenters the house. She circles the makeshift dance floor, searching for Baker's dark hair, for Wally's gla.s.ses, for Joanie's neon headband and Luke's messy curls, even for Clay's c.o.c.ky smile, but none of them are there.

She disappears up the steps to the second floor, slinking in the darkness like a thief, hoping no one notices her. Her body feels loose with alcohol but her heart feels tight with pain.

She finds them in a bedroom off the main landing. Wally, Joanie, Luke, and Clay sit with their backs against white furniture pieces. They beam up at her when she opens the door, and the relief she feels is so sudden that she almost yells at them.

"Where the h.e.l.l have you been?" she says.

"Um, h.e.l.lo, I think it's pretty clear that we've been in here," Joanie giggles.

"Where's Baker?"

"She went looking for something...or someone...I don't remember," Clay says, tapping his head back against a dresser, a drunken grin plastered on his face. "But don't worry," he says, waggling his eyebrows, "she'll be back."

"Where were you?" Wally asks.

Hannah doesn't respond at first: she's too preoccupied with Clay's insinuation. After a pause, she sits down and mumbles, "Porch."

"Speaking poetry to the stars," Joanie sighs dramatically.

"Shut up."