Tina forgets about me and chats happily with Craig. I gather from their conversation that they were in the same dorm on North Campus back when they were freshmen, but that's about as clear as the references get. Everything else is a long string of inside jokes.

"Well, we've gotta get going," she says. "If you get bored, though, come find us at Stella's, okay?"

"Sure thing, Tina. You two have a good night," says Craig, and he waves goodbye.

I wave goodbye to Tina, but as I turn away start to follow Craig again, I suddenly stop dead in my tracks.

"Two?"

I spin around again, and my jaw nearly hits the floor as I see the tall, black-haired girl walking beside Tina. It's Maria from my cla.s.s this morning. How did I not notice her the entire time they were talking? Her long, straight black hair is hanging free now, no longer tucked into the hood of her coat, and she is laughing and talking excitedly with Tina as they walk up the street. The paralyzing fear I saw this morning is gone completely.

As I stare after her, Tina suddenly looks over her shoulder and glares at me. Her defiant, protective expression is so clear that not even a megaphone could have gotten the message across any clearer.

"Back off, buddy. Leave her alone."

She nudges Maria and whispers something to her, and then Maria turns and looks back at me. Her beautiful green eyes grow wide and dark as the laughter in them fades away, replaced instead with abject terror.

I am floored by the fear I see in her eyes, but even worse is that it's directed at me.

Maria is terrified of me, and I have no idea why. Does she think I'm going to tell everyone about her bad test score? I haven't even graded her paper yet! There's no way on G.o.d's green earth that I'd waste my Friday night doing that.

I shake my head as an uncomfortable memory flits into sight for a millisecond. I recognize the fear in Maria's eyes, and it's too late to close Pandora's box now.

The memory roars to life and hits me so hard that I nearly fall over. I gasp in shock, turn away, and grab onto the back of a nearby bench to steady myself.

I'm seeing Samantha's eyes. Maria has the same sad, broken look in her eyes that I watched choke out the joy and happiness in my little sister as Dad grew more and more violent.

I close my eyes and shudder as memory after memory suddenly resurfaces, each one just as painful as ever.

"Deep breaths, Owen... long deep breaths. You can do it," I think. I can usually calm myself down, but it isn't working tonight.

"You okay dude? What's wrong?" asks Craig, and he grabs me by the arm. "What happened?"

"I'm okay. Really," I lie, trying to shrug him off. In my mind, Samantha is falling again. She strikes the floor at bottom of the stairs with a terrible, sickening thud, and I shake my head as if it'll make the memory go away.

"I'm sorry... I have to go home," I blurt out, and I s.n.a.t.c.h my arm away from Craig. "I'll catch you later."

Craig shouts after me in confusion as I weave through the thick crowd of students, but I don't answer him. He doesn't understand what goes on in my head, and he'd treat me like a nutcase if I told him even half of my nightmares.

I need to be alone.

Friday, February 15 8:35 PM.

Maria.

Craig holds the door open for us, and I cling to Tina as we squeeze into the dark, crowded little bar.

"G.o.d, this place is awesome!" calls out Tina above the din, and I cannot disagree more strongly. I'm sure the architect was going for a different effect entirely, but the combination of a low ceiling, randomly-placed arches, and curved walls make me feel like I'm in a tomb.

I instinctively bristle as a guy b.u.mps into me while trying to get to the door.

"So where'd your buddy go anyway?" shouts Tina as Craig catches up to us near the bar.

"f.u.c.k if I know, babe," he answers. "He just got all weird and ran off on me. Said he had to go home."

Tina raises an eyebrow at him, and for a moment, I think she's going to lose her temper at the 'babe' comment. After a long stare, she thinks better of starting anything and brushes it off.

"Hey, open seats by the bar!" shouts Craig, pointing to three empty chairs at the opposite side of the semi-circle of booze worshippers.

Tina takes one quick glance at me and then shakes her head.

"Nah, let's grab that one in the corner instead."

She points to an empty c.o.c.ktail table with black leather chairs in the far corner, set apart from the milling crowd of students, and I breathe a sigh of relief.

"Okay, you girls grab the table and I'll grab the first round. Your old favorite still good, Tina?"

Tina raises an eyebrow again and then rolls her eyes and nods.

"Yeah, works for me. Grab Maria a Guinness while you're up there, okay?"

"Sure thing gimme a minute and I'll be right there!"

I don't want Guinness at all, but as I open my mouth to protest, Tina gives me the zipper again, grabs me by the arm and drags me to the table.

"So who the heck is this guy anyway?" I ask nervously. Tina rolls her eyes as she answers.

"Oh, Craig's a guy I dated back during freshman year when I was a bit more desperate. Good guy, but not what I needed."

I nod, understanding exactly what she meant. Back when we were freshmen, Tina dated pretty much anyone with a pulse just to feel like she had a connection to other people. She got better. I didn't.

"Tina, you okay with him hanging around? Want me to make an excuse for you?"

It wouldn't be hard to come up with one; I'm skittish enough from the crowd already.

"No, don't worry about it," she says. "He's a good guy. Really. Relax and just trust him, okay?"

I say nothing and instead awkwardly force a smile as Craig sits down next to Tina. As he puts down the drink tray, I scoot my chair so that the table is in between us.

"Okay... Guinness for Maria, Cosmo for Tina, and ye old Leffe for me."

"Oh G.o.d, that stuff is practically p.i.s.s-water," moans Tina, and she sips her deep red Cosmo.

"And yours is fruit-flavored battery acid," quips Craig. "I'll keep my stomach lining, thanks."

Just as I decide that they must hate each other, Tina bursts out laughing.

"You haven't changed a bit, have you?" she asks, smiling radiantly.

"Nope. Still an insufferable p.r.i.c.k."

"Good," she says, taking another sip of her drink. "Don't ever change. It suits you well."

I don't understand their relationship one bit. They might as well be speaking a different language to me.

"Who was that guy you were with earlier?" I ask, cutting in during a lull in their conversation.

"Oh, him? That's my buddy Owen. He's my roommate."

Tina's eyes light up at my question and she stares at me excitedly.

"Ooh! Did you think he was cute?"

"No, I was just wondering who he was," I stammer. "I thought I recognized him."

My face grows hot, and I bow my head and look down at my lap. Tina should know better than to single me out like that, and she definitely knows better than to think I'm attracted to him.

The only reason I asked is that I recognized Owen the instant Tina collided with him. He's my statistics TA, and I made an a.s.s of myself in front of him just this morning.

"Hey, he's single if you want me to set you up with him," offers Craig with a wide, toothy grin.

I look up at him wide-eyed and shake my head vehemently.

"Hey, he's an okay guy! You should really..."

"Craig, no. Drop it," cautions Tina, and she shoots him a glare that could kill kittens from a hundred yards.

"Okay, forget I said anything. But seriously though, I'll introduce you if you'd..."

"Craig!"

He shuts up instantly at Tina's angry hiss.

I let myself sink into the deep, comfortable cushions of my chair and manage to relax a little as I sip my beer. The thick, bitter drink feels so heavy as it goes down my throat that I know I'll never be able to finish the whole thing. It's perfect for a lightweight like me.

I watch Tina and Craig chat happily together start to unwind. This is fun. I can deal with going out when I'm not the center of attention-when I'm safe with friends and apart from the crowd.

I tense up again almost immediately as Craig turns his attention back to me.

"Dang, Maria you've barely said a thing all night. You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm... I'm fine," I stammer awkwardly, unsure of what else to say.

"You sure?" he asks, looking at me curiously. I'm starting to feel uncomfortable again.

"Maria gets nervous in crowds and doesn't go out a lot," explains Tina, coming to my rescue and drawing his gaze away from me. "She's a bit of a shut-in, and I'm trying to help her get out more."

He glances back at me, and I nod in agreement with Tina's tale. Her story is just true enough to hide the real truth.

The attention is off me again, and I relax again. I can feel the beer starting to take effect, and I both like and hate it at the same time. It's making me sleepy and making everything feel okay to me, but I also feel like I'm not myself. I feel exposed and weak because of it.

Maybe I don't drink very often because I'm terrified of not being in control. It makes sense to me in a stupid, Psych 101 sort of way.

I lean back and relax in the chair until Craig's voice grabs my attention away from the softly spinning ceiling.

"You know what? You're just like Owen," he says, staring intently at me, and he tips his bottle back and takes a big drink. I wrinkle my nose as I catch a whiff of the strong, acerbic odor of his deep yellow beer.

"How so?" asks Tina curiously, as if I'm not sitting right next to her and listening to the two of them talk about me.

"d.a.m.ned if I can get him to go out and do anything," he answers. "It took me weeks of nagging to even get him to say he'd come out tonight, and after all that work, then he went and had some kind of panic attack or whatever."

"Wait, seriously?" Tina and I ask in unison.

Craig seems a bit surprised by my sudden interest, but he simply shrugs and nods.

"Yeah, I've got no idea what's up with him. Dude's skittish."

For one brief second, I almost want to meet Owen. I want to see what he's like-maybe he's broken like I am. Maybe I could trust him after all.

Reality catches up to me in a hurry, smacks me in the face for being so stupid, and slams the door on the idea. I couldn't even hand him a test paper without panicking. How on earth could I possibly handle meeting him? Besides, all sorts of people have panic attacks, not just messed-up people like me.

Craig downs the rest of his beer, slams the empty bottle down on the tray so hard that I nearly jump at the noise, and then grins as if he's proud of scaring me. Tina looks like she wants to gouge out his eyes, and I almost wish she would.

"Here, this is for you, Tina. Happy birthday," he says, and with a tipsy grin, he pulls a yellow sticky-pad and pen out of his pocket.

"One: it's not my birthday, and two: a sticky-note?" asks Tina, looking disdainfully at him as he scribbled something on the paper. "Oh, and if this is your phone number, I'm gonna rip your throat out."

"You never told me when your birthday was, so I just made up a date. Here you go," he said.

He gets up from his chair and then bows politely to me.

"Good night, Maria! It was nice meeting you, but I've gotta go before Tina murders me. Have a great weekend."

I smile back at him and watch over my shoulder as he heads out the door. He's a weirdo but seems safe enough, I guess. Tina had fantastically weird taste in guys as a freshman.

I turn back to her just in time to see her tear the yellow note in half.

"What, did he seriously try to give you his number again?" I ask with a laugh.

She smiles awkwardly and then slowly nods. Tina is never shy about anything, so I immediately recognize the lie. Craig must have written something terribly embarra.s.sing for her to be nervous.

"Oh come on, let me see it. What else did he write?"