Summer ended how it’d begun. School started Monday, and we spent our last weekend of freedom the same way we had our first one and many in between.

The plan went something like this—go to a hotel pool and work on our tans. Once security kicked us out, go to the beach or hang at the mall food court or shop for used CDs. Go home, shower, hitch rides to house parties and look for beer. The beer wasn’t for me, I didn’t drink, but if I wasn’t reading, running or volunteering, I had to be doing something. Anything, as long as I didn’t have time to think.

A year had passed without Manning, and it’d been the worst of my life. So far, 1994 had been a letdown. Kurt Cobain had died, not just died but killed himself. It’d put a lot of us in a funk, from my classmates to my teachers, and Tiffany especially. She’d been a little different ever since. After she’d helped break Manning’s lease, she’d started talking about getting her own place, but it wasn’t until Cobain’s death in April that she stopped relying on modeling, got an interview at Nordstrom, and began seriously looking at apartments.

Now, we were headed toward 1995, and the ache of losing Manning wasn’t as sharp, but it’d spread and seeped throughout my body like thick, machine-gun-black tar. The throb lived inside me. I’d thought of one thing with the onset of summer—Manning. Leather car seats gummy from the heat, and wet, salty hair sticking to my arms. I’d lived through an entire week in Big Bear. Campfire-and-pine-needle air took me back to him that night we’d walked to the pool, hedging our words, keeping just enough distance under a painfully beautiful sky. How was it possible to look up and see the same immovable stars I had a year before when so much had changed?

It’d been a particularly bad summer, but it was over now and Manning was coming home soon. Nobody would tell me exactly when. Dexter had said maybe as soon as September, which was now, but that he’d call when he had a date. Manning never answered my letters, and Tiffany didn’t volunteer much when I was around. “It’s not appropriate for someone your age,” she’d say about her visits with Manning, and my dad would agree. She didn’t really think that, I was sure. It was as if the information gave her power over me.

Tonight, my friends were on phase three of the plan to get drunk. We’d been unsuccessful all afternoon. Sun-soaked and sandy, Val and I flip-flopped into a classmate’s house in Laguna Beach, dragging our feet on the beige stone flooring. We’d come with Vickie and Mona, but they had a crush on the same guy and scattered to find him. Everyone showed off tanned arms and legs in tank tops, shorts, and dresses. The kids at my school took sunbathing more seriously than final exams. Even I had stopped slathering on the sunscreen. I looked better with a tan . . . not that I had anyone to look good for.

Val channeled Drew Barrymore tonight in dark lipstick and wild, curly blonde hair. She’d unbuttoned her red blouse a little too far, her cleavage buoying a necklace with a black cross. She called it her Poison Ivy look, because she was always referencing her life back to movies, music, or books. Next to her, I must’ve looked angelic in a baby-blue, short fuzzy sweater.

“I wish my name started with a ‘B,’” Val said. “Everything good starts with a ‘B.’ Booze, boys, books.” She stopped at a stereo and showed me a CD case. “Buckley-comma-Jeff.”

“Beavis,” I added.

“And Butt-Head.”

Val got me. The me I hadn’t known I was before her. Starting school last September had been a struggle. I’d wanted to give up. I’d played the scene over and over in my head, Manning being led away in cuffs because of me. The only thing I’d thought about was writing to him or trying to find a way to visit him. I’d been depressed and lonely when I’d met Val, who’d just moved to Orange County from Seattle with her mom.

“Did you know your sister’s here?” Val asked, nodding through a doorway.

Tiffany sat on a kitchen countertop surrounded by boys I recognized from her grade. Most of them were in college now, not all of them, though. She still hadn’t signed up for classes even though she kept saying she would. “No, but I’m not surprised.”

“Five bucks says she’s telling them about her big, bad prison boyfriend.”

My heart seized and then released, an automatic reaction to anything Manning. “Now you’re just tossing out ‘B’ words.”

“I can think of a couple more.”

Val and Tiffany didn’t get along. Neither had Val and I at first. The principal had asked me to show her around campus her first day, and I would’ve rather stuck my head in a garbage bin after lunch, but as always, I’d done what was expected.

“Is this place a lot different than Seattle?” I asked Val between the math and science buildings.

“What kind of a question is that?” she shot back. “Seattle has music, art, and culture on every corner. This place is as new and shiny as a polished turd.”

I gaped at her. “What?”

“Plus there’s the whole rain versus sun thing.” I must’ve looked pretty disturbed, because she added, “Well, don’t cry about it.”

I had cried in the bathroom twenty minutes earlier, and also during first period, and because of that, I really couldn’t have cared less about this new girl and her attitude. “Like I’d cry over an insult my five-year-old cousin could’ve come up with. You don’t need a tour. The campus is small. Good luck.”

I walked the length of the math building before she caught up to me. “Sheesh. The principal promised you’d make me feel welcome.”

“I’m sure he can assign you to someone else. I’m not in the mood for this.”

“Then why’d you agree to it?”

I picked up my stride, but so did she. “Because I’m trying for student of the month this year.”

“It’s only September.”

“If they pick me early, I won’t have to hear about not getting it all year from my dad.”

“Oh. Well, if it makes you feel any better, my dad’s dating someone five years older than me.”

I wasn’t sure why that should make me feel better, but I got the feeling she needed to say it. “Sorry.”

“Is that why you were crying? Your dad? By the way, you seriously need some, like, cucumbers or something. Your eyes are really puffy.”

I hugged my binder to my chest and turned a corner toward the amphitheater to show her where next week’s pep rally would be. “Yeah. I guess.”

It turned out I hadn’t needed to show her the way to the amphitheater. We’d gone to the rally together. I learned that Val’s idea of a good time was Vietnamese food with eighties romantic comedies, and if her mom was out for the night, a glass of rosé. I hadn’t really known what I’d considered a good time but it wasn’t any of those things—until Val.

“There’s my girl.” A familiar, deep voice boomed over the living room crowd. “Move aside, assholes. Let the ladies through.”

Corbin and his sun-bleached hair stood inches taller than anyone else. Even if he weren’t waving both hands overhead, I would’ve spotted him easily.

The crowd parted for Val and me. “Welcome home,” I told him. His nose was pink and peeling, but he was bronze everywhere else. “How was vacation?”

“My brothers and I tore up the shores of Hawaii. It’s unrecognizable now.” He nodded at Val, then looked down her blouse. “What up, V? Nice, ah, necklace.”

“Thanks. Are you the keg master or what?”

“No, but I can be.” Corbin filled three beers. I didn’t want one, but I’d learned if I didn’t carry a red cup around parties, everyone would try to force one on me. “So let’s see this infamous scar,” he said.

I extended my arm, showing the faint, pink circle of raised skin near the inside of my elbow. He ran a thumb over it and shook his head, tsking. “What the hell were you thinking, Kaplan? You can’t just pick up a stray cat.”

“It was a kitten, and it was in pain,” I said. In retrospect, yes, it’d been stupid. We’d been on a class trip to Laguna Art Museum and out front, under a lawn sculpture, had been a little, mewling furball. With teeth. I’d had to go to the emergency room—right away—but Lam, named after the museum—was alive, healthy, and had been adopted out. That didn’t change the fact that I’d gotten an earful from my dad about my weird new hobby.

It had started with the running, and the running had started with a need to burn off the things that ate me up inside. Guilt over what I’d done. Hurt that Manning had neither written me back nor asked to see me. At seven o’clock on a Saturday morning, I’d been jogging by the pier and had nearly stumbled over a beached dolphin. After I’d run to call animal control and waited until they’d arrived to guide it back into the ocean, the handler had told me, “You did good.”

You did good.

It was the same thing Manning had said to me before they’d taken him away.

Since then, I’d been volunteering at an animal hospital a couple times a month.

“I’m going to look for some chow while you two ‘catch up,’” Val said, air quotes and all.

She left us alone. Corbin opened one arm to me, and I hugged his middle as he moved us away from the keg. “I don’t want you to go,” I said, looking up at him.

“I really thought about staying,” he said. “But it’s where I want to be.”

Corbin was headed for NYU in three days, but he and I were as close as ever. He’d been good to me the past year. According to the whole school, Corbin and I had been dating since camp. It wasn’t true, but Corbin had been too focused on baseball, surfing, and NYU to date, and having Corbin as a rumored boyfriend was better than having guys ask me to school dances or for Friday night pizza or, God forbid, to the Fun Zone. I didn’t date. Had no desire to. Had no room in my mind for boys when there was only one Manning.

Corbin rubbed the fuzzy back of my thin sweater. “You look good, Lake,” he said. “Real good. You’re a knockout.”

According to my mom, my body had been changing all year, but I hadn’t noticed until recently. Summer had been good to me. I’d finally grown into my limbs, clocking in at five-foot-eight, almost two inches taller than my mom and sister. I’d lost ten pounds in the weeks after Manning had gone away and had started running soon after. My bras got smaller around the back and bigger in the cups. I had real breasts now, not as big as my mom’s and sister’s, which was disappointing, but I had them. Men had stopped looking around me to see Tiffany and my mom. That kind of attention didn’t seem worth all the fuss Tiffany made over it, but I figured I’d understand better once Manning was the one looking.

“Are you nervous for college?” I asked.

“Nah.”

We stood a little too close to the boom box, and Corbin raised his voice to speak over Adam Duritz crooning “Round Here.”

“What about you?” he asked. “You’re a senior now. Lots of responsibility.” Corbin tapped his Solo cup with mine. “How’s it feel?”

“Overdue.”

“Is that Corbin I hear?” Tiffany called from the next room.

Corbin and I exchanged a look. He put an arm around me and led me into the kitchen where Tiffany held court from a granite throne.

“I haven’t seen a Swenson all summer,” she said.

“We were gone most of it.”

“Well, work keeps me busy anyway,” she said gravely.

“Still at Nordstrom?”

“And doing some modeling. Between that and driving all day to see Manning twice a month, I hardly have time for anything else.”

I looked into my cup. What I knew about her visits came from her conversations with other people. I didn’t believe most of it. Supposedly, he’d wanted conjugal visits but wasn’t allowed them. He held her hand while they talked. He shared all kinds of things about his past. I knew my sister. She’d say they’d had sex right there on the visitation table if she thought someone would believe it. Anything to shock people.

“Right.” Corbin nodded, glancing around. Everybody in school knew about Manning thanks to Tiffany’s big mouth, but Corbin was one of the only people who’d actually spoken to him.

I could ask for details now. Sometimes when I tried to get information, Tiffany shut down, but with other people around, she had a reason to blab.

Corbin beat me to it. “So he’s still in the slammer then?”

Tiffany shifted. “Ow.” She pulled up the outside of her thigh. Where her shorts stopped, her skin was red from the counter. “I’ve been up here too long. Help me down?”

Corbin knew better than to argue. He held her hand as she hopped off, her wedges thumping on the floor. She brushed off her hands and said, “He was supposed to get out for good behavior this month.”

Was? Visions of Manning packing up his things, filling out paperwork, making living arrangements, calling me on the phone—it all disintegrated. “He’s not anymore?”

“Her boyfriend’s straight thug,” someone said from behind us. “She told us all about him.”

I shot a glare over my shoulder at the gangly kid from Tiffany’s class who looked as though he’d spent the summer playing Nintendo in a basement.

“What happened?” Corbin asked. Even he perked up, leaning close, and in moments like these, I understood exactly why Tiffany continued to see Manning. He made for a good story.

“I don’t know if I should say.” Tiffany glanced at me from under her lashes and away. “It’s upsetting.”

“You told a stranger,” I accused, gesturing at the guy behind me. He knew more about Manning than I did, which might’ve surprised me if this whole situation hadn’t been backward from the start.

“He got in a . . . fight,” she admitted.

Corbin shrugged. “There are fights all the time in prison.”

“Not like this. He went after a guard, Corbin. And apparently, he almost killed him.”

I sucked in a breath. A guard? That he almost killed? I could barely picture Manning fighting another inmate, much less someone of authority, someone in the uniform he wanted to wear. “I don’t believe you,” I said. “Manning isn’t like that.”

“How would you know? You haven’t spoken to him in a year.”

I pulled back, stung. Would a year in there change Manning? How could it not? Fundamentally, though, at his core, Manning was good. He didn’t even belong in there.

“Did he get in trouble?” Nintendo kid asked.

“I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to him since it happened, but his lawyer said there’d be some kind of trial thing about a misdemeanor? If they decide it’s assault, it would mean more time.”

More time. It knocked the wind out of me, stealing my ability to do anything other than stay upright. But Manning’s good. As tough as he looked, as built as he was, he was a protector, not a fighter. Corbin took my free hand, maybe sensing my confusion. In moments like these, I wished someone knew the whole truth. I’d carried it on my shoulders so long. My only outlet was writing to Manning and even that had begun to feel painful and embarrassing as he continued to ignore me. Val and I talked about boys a lot, and I’d wanted to tell her what’d happened, but I could never convey the story the way it deserved to be told.

“Is he okay?” I asked.

“It took two guards to pull him off.”

Corbin raised his cup to his mouth. “I believe it,” he said before a sip. “He’s a massive guy.”

“But he’s okay?” I asked.

“Yeah.” She leaned her back against the counter. “I mean, Dexter wouldn’t really get into the details. He said Manning had to be subdued, and they put him in solitary confinement.”

“Subdued? Solitary confinement? Does that mean he’s alone?” I asked. “When was this? What does subdued mean?” Plastic crackled under my grip and beer erupted over the sides of my drink, down my top.

Corbin lifted the cup out of my hand by its rim, setting it aside. “Jesus, Lake.”

“I’ll know more after I see him,” Tiffany said. “It’s been a couple months since our last visit.”

That meant he’d potentially been isolated for some or all of that time. The wet spot on my top chilled my skin, and I shivered.

Corbin put a hand on my shoulder. “Let’s clean you up.”

“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” I asked Tiffany.

Tiffany shifted her eyes to me. “You know why. Dad doesn’t want you to know. He says it’s bad enough I brought a criminal around you.”

I clenched my teeth. Manning wasn’t a criminal, and even if he was, I’d known him first. She had some nerve acting as though she’d brought him around me. “You should’ve told me anyway.”

“He thinks I’ll corrupt you,” she continued. “If only he knew the truth.”

“What’s the truth?” Corbin asked.

My blood ran cold. Ever since Tiffany had said she’d seen me get in the truck with Manning late at night, there was a line to our arguments I couldn’t cross. So far, she hadn’t said anything to Mom or Dad about it. Whether it was for my sake or Manning’s, I wasn’t sure, but I was grateful. I didn’t trust my dad not to go to the police and try to make things worse for Manning.

So instead of fighting her, I closed my beer-sticky fingers into a fist around the mood ring I’d found in Manning’s bag of personal items. Top-heavy and too big, the stone often slid to the inside of my hand. It was real, colossal, and a constant and welcome reminder of him—and of my guilt.

“The truth . . .?” Tiffany said, letting it hang in the air. “The truth is that Lake has a crush on my boyfriend.”

My face flamed. “No I don’t.” It wasn’t a lie. A crush was fun and exciting, butterflies, pink cheeks, lash-heavy glances. My feelings for Manning were crushing. Late night sobs and black holes. Curled fists and fingernail crescents imprinted in my palms.

Regret.

Corbin snorted. “You’re disturbed,” he told her, leaving my side to swipe a dishtowel from the kitchen sink. He draped it over his arm, grabbed his drink, and pulled me away by my hand. “Come on, Lake.”

“Where?” I asked. I tried to gauge his mood, unsure if I should tell him that what Tiffany had said wasn’t true. He didn’t seem bothered by it, though.

“Bathroom.” He laced his fingers with mine as we cut through the party, his thumb rubbing the stone of my ring.

“Stop touching it.”

He glanced over his shoulder at me. “You’re weirdly superstitious about that thing. I’ve tried to tell you, it only detects your mood—it can’t ruin it.”

It did, though. I wasn’t sure how to explain that to him. I hated the idea of anyone else touching Manning’s ring.

Corbin released my hand when we reached the bathroom. “She’s sick,” he said to the people waiting in line, pushing me inside, not that anybody would stand up to him.

He locked the door, and I washed my hands. As I dried them, I looked from the ring to my face in the mirror. Did Manning still think of me in there? How did I look to him? Like I had back then, a young girl who’d made all the wrong choices? I’d been too timid when I should’ve been bold, too impulsive when I should’ve held back.

“What’s wrong?” Corbin asked.

What was wrong? My chest throbbed all the time, a gaping wound waiting to be filled or bandaged or prodded. Manning was alone and possibly hurt and nobody knew when he’d be back. As if I could tell Corbin any of that. What was wrong was that I was in love with someone who might never be mine. Someone I hadn’t seen in a year and whom I saw everywhere. I did double takes at the mall, in the supermarket—even, sometimes, at school. I’d felt his presence behind me as I’d ridden a horse by myself for the first time.

I worried I’d forget his face. I didn’t know anymore the exact spot I came up to on his body because I’d grown. I’d changed on the outside and on the inside, too. Seventeen was worlds away from sixteen. Did he know that? Could he tell from my letters? Did he know that no matter how much I changed, where he was concerned, I was the same girl who’d looked up at him on a wall and fallen right in love?

Corbin’s eyebrows knit together. “Here,” he said when I didn’t answer. He held out his beer. “Chug this.”

I took the drink. I took it to fill a black hole that couldn’t be filled. No matter what I put in there, it eventually seeped out. I took it to see what would happen. My friends were so obsessed with getting drunk. My parents talked about wine varietals and regions all the time. Val had a strange fascination with rosé. I downed the whole thing in one go.

“Damn,” Corbin said, grinning. “I leave you for a couple months, and you turn into a verified alky.”

I shook my head. “No. Not really.”

He took the cup from me, wet the hand towel, and pressed it to my belly. With a squeeze, he soaked my top, sending a rivulet down my tummy. “Lift your arms,” he said.

“Why?”

“You want to go home smelling like a brewery? Your dad’ll kill you.”

True. Vickie, Mona, and I were supposed to be having a sleepover. I raised my hands and he slipped off my sweater. He ran the stain under the faucet, averting his eyes until he finally snuck a glance at my bra.

I covered myself. “Don’t look.”

He smiled crookedly but returned to his task. “Why not?”

“Because.”

“Relax. I’ve seen you in a bathing suit lots of times.”

I frowned. “I wouldn’t say lots of times. Maybe twice.”

“Five times.” He took my top out and laid it on the counter to dab it with the towel. “There’s the one-piece you wore on the beach last summer and then again for boogie boarding the week of your birthday. Then you have the hot pink bikini with the rhinestones that you bought for that end-of-the-year pool party. You also have a blue Roxy one I’ve seen at the beach and when you came to watch me surf Thalia.”

I studied his profile as he focused on drying the stain. His golden hair was so thick, it didn’t even really fall when he bent his head. Somehow over the past year, he’d become my best friend. Val supported me just by being herself, by testing my boundaries, and making me laugh, but Corbin and I had a bond. He held up my top. “It’s damp, but it’s clean. Arms back up.”

It took me a second to register. The beer was already starting to hit me. I lowered my hands and stood there. Letting him see me in my bra didn’t feel as uncomfortable as I might’ve thought. What if? What if my life was easy and Corbin was ‘the one’? What if Manning wasn’t in the picture? Would I let Corbin’s hands warm and comfort me?

His eyes roamed another second, then he stepped closer. “You good?”

“I’m great,” I said. “Loose or something.”

He gripped my sweater, wetting his lips. “Lake.”

I smiled, wrinkling my nose at him. “Corbin.”

“Can I kiss you?”

I was so surprised by the question that I blurted, “In the bathroom?”

He chuckled, then passed me my sweater. “Good point. Come on.”

After I dressed, we left the bathroom, and I followed Corbin upstairs to a dimly lit room clouded with smoke. A few kids I didn’t recognize lounged on overstuffed leather couches passing around a joint. The glare of the TV turned the smoke green and blue, pink and white.

Corbin nodded at one of the guys. “Move.” He did, sloth-like as he rocked forward and off the cushions to give Corbin and me the couch.

MTV was on. The next music video started, the title “Soon” by My Bloody Valentine popping up in the corner. Corbin handed me a joint I hadn’t even seen him light. “Smoke this.”

It was the opposite of what Manning would do. He went out of his way to keep his vices from me. I remembered how he’d played with a cigarette on the wall, tapping it on his knee, sticking it behind his ear. Nothing took me back to him like the smell of cigarettes. This wasn’t what Manning smoked, but maybe it would make me feel close to him anyway. I put the joint between my lips, sucked as deeply as possible—and coughed for a full two minutes while my eyes watered and my throat burned.

Corbin laughed. “Sorry. I should’ve warned you that might happen. I’ve been toking so long, I forgot what it’s like in the beginning.”

I’d never even had a cigarette, but here I was, smoking weed. I put both hands on the sofa as my environment sharpened then softened. The black leather cushions made it feel like we were in the back of a car. I sank into them. The music video began to spaz, flashing colors, images echoing like sound.

“You all right?” Corbin asked with a lopsided smile.

I blinked a few times. It wasn’t unpleasant. The opposite, actually. I realized I was grinning. “I think so.”

He sat up, took the blunt, and put it on the coffee table. Angling in front of me, he blocked the TV and kissed me. Lost in the new sensations, I didn’t see it coming so I just sat there, stunned. I’d never been kissed, not even by Manning, not really. I had touched my lips to the corner of his, but that wasn’t anything. This wasn’t how I’d envisioned my first time. I didn’t care that it was at a stranger’s house or that we both had beer breath or that I was surrounded by stoners. I only cared that it wasn’t Manning.

“Why?” I asked.

“Why what?”

I didn’t know how to answer. I hadn’t meant to say it aloud. I had no idea what I was even asking. Someone sparked a lighter over and over.

Corbin pressed his forehead against mine. “I’ve wanted to do that since I saw you eating cotton candy on the steps that night at the Fun Zone.”

He was so close that his face doubled and I had to shut my eyes. Darkness began to swallow me up. I moved back against the arm of the couch, and Corbin took it as an invitation to lean on top of me. He slid his hands around my waist and pressed his face into the crook of my neck. My top stuck damply to my skin, but my chest prickled with warmth that spread down my tummy. The alcohol, the weed, the kiss worked fast, loosening my limbs, settling my thoughts.

I wasn’t sure how long I’d been sitting there. The song had changed to something I recognized, but it sounded both distant and all-consuming, like it was playing in the next room and in my head.

“Lake?” Corbin murmured. “You there?”

“Mmm.” Jesus, I felt good. I’d drunk the beer to fill a hole, but I didn’t truly believe for a second it would work. I’d been wrong. This was nice. Even having Corbin on top of me was nice. Maybe it wasn’t a betrayal. Maybe Manning wasn’t real, just a figment of my imagination. This was a better state of mind, less painful, an absence of ache. To be tipsy and wanted, it was a heady feeling.

Maybe this was real.

Corbin kissed me again, wet and slimy, but not in a bad way. At some point, I’d closed my eyes. I fought the urge to apologize for having no idea what I was doing. Was my breath fresh enough? Where did I put my hands? He put his in my top, sliding them up my stomach to my bra. “Let’s go somewhere,” he said. He slipped a finger into the cup of my bra, and my skin exploded with goose bumps. “It’s too crowded in here.”

It would be so easy to fall into the dark behind my lids, to give in, but the voice talking to me wasn’t Manning’s deep bass that’d rumbled against my palms when I’d hugged him, or the soothing monotone I’d clung to while contorted in the back of a truck the night the cop had nearly caught us.

Reality came back to me in pieces. The burn of my lungs, the murmur of voices, music. I should’ve recognized the song sooner, but it wasn’t until that moment that I did. I hadn’t heard it since the night Manning had driven Tiffany and me to the fair—I’d been trying to find it since.

I opened my eyes and pushed Corbin off to look at the TV. “Black” by Pearl Jam. I had to write it down this time so I wouldn’t forget, but I couldn’t move. “I need to get up.”

Corbin pulled back a little. “I know it’s . . .” He lifted a corner of his mouth, showing me his white teeth. “I’m not sure how it’s, like, possible, but I know.”

His words floated through my brain, disconnected from each other. What was he talking about? “You know what?”

“You’re so beautiful. You’re the center of everyone’s attention. But . . .”

“But?”

“You’re still Lake. So innocent. So sweet. I know you’re a virgin, but I swear it doesn’t bother me.”

I looked down and shook my head. Warmth receded from everywhere but my face. Corbin could have anyone. I wondered if he’d taken a girl’s virginity before—I was sure he had, or that he’d at least had the opportunity. “It’s not that.”

“Don’t be embarrassed. I can show you how.”

It hadn’t occurred to me to be embarrassed, not with Corbin anyway, and not about my virginity. I crossed my arms over my breasts. I didn’t want this, and for some reason, I felt guilty about that. “I’m sorry, Corbin.”

He sighed, kissed my forehead, and sat back. “All right. I’ve waited this long. I can keep waiting.”

I squinted at him. “Why?”

“Don’t you have any clue how I feel about you?”

“I—no . . .”

That wasn’t true. I had some idea. Corbin hadn’t asked me out since that night at camp when he’d walked me to my cabin, but Val had tried to warn me about the situation in her own weird way.

“Don’t you think if Vada Sultenfuss had known Thomas J. was going to go back into the beehive for her, she would’ve told him not to?”

“Um. What?” I asked. “Who?”

She sighed, exasperated. “My Girl, the movie. You’re Corbin’s best friend. You have to be careful or he’ll get hurt.”

“You’re going to college,” I told Corbin.

“So?”

“There will be more girls than you can count.”

“I’ve met a lot of girls, Lake. I still like you the most.”

Somewhere in the room, someone wrestled with a bag of chips. Crinkle, kssh. Pop. The top of my scalp tingled. Corbin’s eyes were naturally clear blue, but when they were bloodshot like now, it almost hurt to look at him. “You’ll meet someone better at NYU.”

“Better? What’s not better about you?” he asked. “I bet you can’t think of one thing that’s wrong with you.”

Everything, I wanted to say. Everything was wrong if Manning was gone, and now he’d be away even longer. I couldn’t even see that he was okay or tell him I was sorry. He wasn’t around to scold me for sitting on a couch smoking weed with a boy.

Crunch crunch crunch. The room smelled like Doritos. I covered my ears.

Corbin chuckled. “You’re too high for this conversation.”

Val walked by the doorway, skidded to a stop, and came in. She threw her hands up, a can of Cherry Coke in one and a white Airheads in the other. “I’ve been looking for you guys everywhere!”

“We’ve been here,” Corbin said.

“And in the bathroom,” I said, which made Corbin and me giggle.

“Weirdos,” Val said. She tore off a piece of taffy with her teeth and pointed the candy at me as she chewed. “Are you stoned, young lady?”

Corbin nodded to the joint. “Help yourself.”

“Nah. I’m kinda over this place. I would’ve rather had that Meg Ryan movie marathon. Sleepless in Seattle for the main course, followed by When Harry Met Sally for dessert.”

“Dude,” Corbin said. “You have to see Joe Versus the Volcano.”

“Dude, I already have, like five times. When you’re stoned—”

“Yes.” Corbin waved his hands excitedly. “When you’re stoned! Let’s rent it from Blockbuster and go to Val’s. I’ll find someone sober to drive us.”

She raised her Cherry Coke. “Find me a car, and I’m your girl. I only took a sip of that beer. It was flat and gross.”

Corbin stood, and they both looked down at me. I took his hand when he offered it, and he pulled me up. Val led the way downstairs.

“Please don’t touch my ring,” I told Corbin for the millionth time.

He raised our intertwined hands to inspect it. “I don’t know why you’re so attached to something you found on the ground. You don’t even know what the colors mean.”

“Yes I do. I figured it out, but when you change the color, I don’t know how to feel.”

“You change the color of the ring. It doesn’t change you.” He sighed but dropped my hand and slung an arm around my shoulder instead. A couple people snickered as we passed. I could already hear the rumors about how Corbin and I had been alone in the bathroom and then gone upstairs to make out. I didn’t care. They could think what they wanted. Only one person’s opinion mattered to me, and Manning would know when he got out that I was still here. Waiting.

I’d wait as long as it took. I would save it all.

For him.