Six Years Earlier

“I promise you, you’re going to meet so many cute guys tonight,” my friend Candace whispers in my ear. “Plus I heard that there are going to be older guys there. Like they’ve already graduated and they have jobs and stuff. Can you believe it?”

She says it like we’ve won some kind of prize. I giggle as she pulls me down the sidewalk in a neighborhood near Stanford. We’re dressed to the nines and already a little tipsy.

I hear the party raging before we even see the house that it’s at. The house is modest at best, a little grey shack that’s barely big enough to hold two bedrooms. Loud music is pumping full-blast out of a pair of giant speakers in the yard; there are tons of people standing and talking over the obnoxiously loud music, and a few girls are dancing.

“See? What’d I tell you?” Candace says, squeezing my arm hard. “The real party is inside, though.”

I take her hand as we head up the driveway and squeeze between people to get to the front door. Inside is even more packed, with people having conversations while other people shimmy around them, heading for the front or back door.

“Tammy!!” Candace screams.

A pretty blonde head turns around. Tammy’s eyes widen, and she squeals with excitement. “Girls! You’re here!!”

We work our way over to where Tammy is, Candace throwing a couple of elbows here and there. I notice that Tammy is standing by a plastic table, which is a sort of makeshift bar. At least, there are twenty different bottles of cheap liquor on it, and another half dozen bottles of soft drinks.

When we get to Tammy, she already has shots lined up for us in red solo cups.

“Here, bitches!” she shouts, handing us each a solo cup.

I look at the purplish liquid in the bottom of the cup a little suspiciously. “What is it?”

“Don’t ask questions, silly!” Tammy says. “Just cheers!”

She and Candace toast, so I do too. Then we drink. I wince at the sugariness of it; I think that it is literally vodka with Kool-Aid mix and a ton of sugar.

“Amazing!” Candace says. “You’re the best bartender, Tammy.”

Tammy grins. “Come on, come to the back yard. They have an ice block set up back there to do shots!”

“Omigod, really?” Candace shrieks.

I sigh, tagging along behind them. If I weren’t so petrified to meet guys alone, I would never even be here. But I am here, so I go along with whatever they want to do.

For the next two hours, I do shots, play beer pong, and try my hand at some card game that everyone seems to know called Kings and Assholes.

About an hour in, things get a little blurry around the edges. I blearily try to count how many drinks I’ve had, but I can’t. My friends are getting sloppy drunk, and apparently so am I.

We get friendly with a group of guys that Candace knows from high school. Candace makes out with one of them quite extensively. Then two hours in, Candace runs outside to puke in the bushes. I go with her, trying to clean up, but the guy that she made out with shoos me away.

“She gets like this sometimes,” he says with a shrug. “I’ll take her home. No funny business, I swear.”

He half-drags her out of the party. I look around for Tammy, but she’s mysteriously missing.

God damnit. Now I’m drunk and alone.

One of the guys that Candace introduced me to, Brad, comes over and puts his arm around me. A red light goes off in my drunk brain. I need to get the hell out of here, now.

Thumbing through my phone, I slip outside and sit down in the trampled grass. I call Asher first, but his phone just rings until his voicemail picks up.

After a few tries, I scowl at my phone. “Jerk.”

I scroll through the other contacts, stopping on Jameson. Figuring that it’s worth a try, I call him. I don’t actually expect him to pick up.

Except, he does. The phone rings twice, then an out of breath Jameson answers.

“Hello?”

“Oh!” I say. “You picked up the phone.”

There’s a second of hesitation on his part, and the murmur of another voice in the background. I can’t hear what is said, but the timbre says it’s a woman.

“Hold on.” I hear noise, like the phone is being moved around. “Emma? You okay?”

“I’m at a party,” I say. Then, unsure if I’m slurring or not, I say, “I think… I think I need a ride. Asher’s not answering his phone.”

I hiccup, ending the statement there.

“Shit,” Jameson says. “Uhhh…. alright. Where are you?”

“I’m at…” I turn, squinting at the house. “704 Sycamore Drive.”

“Alright. Are you somewhere safe for now? Can you hang out for ten or fifteen minutes until I can get there?”

“Yep,” I say, then hiccup again. “I’m great.”

“Okay. Don’t move. I’ll be right there.”

I grin as the phone line goes dead. Jameson is coming here, right now. He’s going to pick me up!

I’m absurdly happy about that. I sit and wait, happily drunk.

“Hey there,” a strange guy says. He’s only a few feet away, wearing all black. “What are you doing over here by yourself?”

I squint at him. I’m pretty sure that he is way too old to be at this party.

“Who are you?” I ask. “You don’t look like you should be here.”

He chuckles, coming closer. “Don’t worry about that part. What’s your name?”

I frown at him. “I don’t like you. Go away.”

He squats down next to me. From this distance, I can smell the sour beer on his breath, taste the heavy cologne he has doused himself with.

He reaches out his hand, as if to stroke my face. Wincing, I manage to crab walk backwards, avoiding his touch. His smile only grows wider.

“You’re being very naughty,” he says, tsking. “Someone ought to teach you some manners. Maybe that someone should be me.”

“Get away from me,” I say, shaken by his words. I try to stand up, failing the first time. “I don’t want you to talk to me.”

“You’re pretty drunk. Let me help you home,” he says. “We wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to you.”

Out of nowhere, Jameson appears in the yard. He takes one look at the situation — me standing shakily, the guy approaching me with a grin — and rushes in between us.

“Get the fuck away from her,” Jameson growls. Next to Jameson, the other guy seems tiny and unthreatening.

“Whoa,” the guy says, putting up his hands. “I didn’t realize she was spoken for.”

That seems to set Jameson off. He lunges forward, grabbing the guy by the shirt.

“You don’t treat people like that,” Jameson grits out, shaking the other guy. “If someone says to leave them alone, you do it.”

“Alright!” the guy says, his voice going up a few scales. “Let me go, man.”

Jameson pushes the guy away. “You need to leave. I don’t want to see you around here again. Comprende?”

“Fuck off,” the other guy says, but he’s already moving away, across the yard.

I am standing there, shaken and grateful. Jameson looks at me.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“Mmmhm.” I want to throw myself on him and thank him. I want to kiss him, or maybe tell him that I love him. But suddenly, I feel a little sick.

I look at him, my eyes watering, my mouth filling with that kind of spit that tells you you are definitely going to throw up.

“Let’s get you to the car, okay?” Jameson comes closer, but I throw a warning arm up…

And then vomit on his Converse. He jumps back. “Fuck.”

I want to apologize, but apparently I’m not done. I run over to the bushes and wretch a few times, throwing up bright purple liquid. That is definitely alarming.

I am beyond ashamed. Not only am I vomiting, but I’m doing it in front of the one guy that I’ve been dreaming about since I was fifteen years old. That thought is never far from the surface, tangled up with everything else that is going on in my brain.

Jameson comes over and pulls my hair out of my face, and rubs my back until I’m done. I think he murmurs something soothing, telling me it’s going to be okay, but I’m really wrapped up in the business of throwing up.

When I’m done, Jameson guides me to his car and gets me inside. I slump against the door as he drives me back to his house that he shares with Asher, ashamed, exhausted, and drunk.

Jameson manages to get me into his house and to the couch in his living room. I sprawl all over the place while Jameson takes my shoes off my feet and gets me a glass of water.

He covers me with a blanket and turns out the lights.

“I’m sorry,” I slur, my eyes closing of their own volition.

I think I hear a smile in his voice, but I’m not sure. “Don’t be.”

“It’s not how I thought tonight would go…” I whisper.

Then I fall asleep.