Our Uber rumbled down the street with a purr of new tires, and I fussed with the hem of the button-up Sean had loaned me. It was made of some kind of very soft material I didn't recognize, and it had some kind of edgy nouveau-chic print on it that I thought was meant to be flowers—or maybe paint splatters. It was very colorful. Apparently, my clothes weren't cool enough for wherever we were headed.

"Will you just relax?" Sean, sitting next to me, reached over and smacked my hand. "Enjoy yourself. This is gonna be great."

"I dunno…" I had to stop myself from adjusting my sleeves. Sean had rolled them up for me just so and instructed me to wear the shirt open over one of my nicer tee-shirts. I felt very slick and very unlike myself. I wasn't a party person. I was a sports person, and I generally preferred to get my social time on the field. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"Dude, this is a great idea. You need a fresh start. A new approach. If you want a different result out of Wesley, you're going to have to approach him in a different context."

I sighed and looked out the window. The sun was sinking, and our Uber was loping over speedbumps in a very wealthy part of town. The houses were offensively massive, and I wondered if we were lost. "But the other context was my context," I protested.

"Okay, yes, but this isn't about soccer right now, okay? It's about you and Wesley, and it's about having a good time." Sean made some kind of energetic elbow-gesture that ended with him hitting his funny bone on the door handle and swearing in colorful Californian.

I smiled despite myself. "Okay, okay. You're probably right." Hadn't Duncan said something similar? I needed a fresh start with Wesley. Maybe a fresh environment was just the thing.

The Uber rolled to a stop in front of a multi-million-dollar mansion, and I decided that we were definitely lost. The driver probably needed to spend a minute with the GPS or something. Then Sean opened the door and waved at me. "C'mon. What're you waiting for?"

"What? Here? Really?" I scrambled out of the car and gaped up at the house. It had a statuesque pseudo-Victorian façade, complete with a spreading white wraparound porch and a witch's-hat turret. (I only knew what that was because my mom's an architecture buff). Our Uber had dropped us in a circular driveway that sported a weeping willow at its center. People clustered on the wraparound, and I could hear the mellow murmuring of their voices from where I stood. "I thought this was Patrick's party."

"Yeah, it is." Sean gave me a slow I-refuse-to-make-a-big-deal-out-of-this blink.

I was less committed to staying calm. "Why does your brother live on a fucking estate?" I squeaked.

"It's one of our parents' houses."

I thought, One of? but Sean was already turning away from me, headed for the house at a clip that told me the conversation was over. I stared at the silly Hawaiian shirt he'd picked out for himself. I never, ever would have guessed that his family was loaded.

The gathering on the porch seemed pretty calm, but as soon as Sean pulled open the front door, the music hit me like a bullet. I thought I felt my hair fall out of place from the sheer force of it. "Come on. You are going to chill the hell out, and we're going to have a good time. Stop dragging your feet." Sean grabbed me by the wrist, yanking me inside, and I sucked in a gulp of air before I went under. Here we go.

We stood in a wide, elegant foyer crowded with people—most of them strangers, all of them college-age. Dubstep blared against my eardrums, at odds with the polished hardwood and the chandelier that gently swayed above my head. The decoration wasn't ostentatious, but I could tell there was real money behind it. How would my life be different, if my family had that kind of money? I wouldn't have had to scramble for scholarships the way I'd done, and my mom wouldn't still be paying my dad's medical bills.

Sean spotted someone he knew, clapped me on the shoulder, and abandoned me. That was all right. I needed a bit to get my bearings in this place. Left to my own devices, I drifted through an open doorway into the dining room, where a gigantic crystal punchbowl took up the whole center of the table. A random hodgepodge of food covered the table around it, none of it fancy: potato chips, a box of donuts, a ten-pound bag of jellybeans. Someone had brought enough Kentucky Fried Chicken to start a business.

I flagged down some dude I didn't know and pointed at the punch bowl. "Do you know what's in that?" I asked. No one on the team was allowed to drink alcohol during the soccer season. Also, I was eighteen.

The guy followed my pointing finger, and then looked down at his own cup, which I guessed was filled with the same stuff. "Seltzer and Hawaiian punch," he said.

Oh, good, so there was something here for me. "Thanks," I said, and I filled myself a big plastic cup all the way to the brim.

Socializing at the party wasn't as hard as I'd been afraid it would be. I drifted around for a bit, passing from the dining room into the kitchen, then into a large, gracious living room where a group of people on couches were playing Never Have I Ever and another cluster on the floor had moved the coffee table out of the way for a mock séance. I talked to one guy with great hair, and another one with very fine cheekbones, and then a girl who was also signed up for my Humanities class and told me all about the reading I hadn't done yet. I felt good. The punch had a strange flavor to it, but I liked it. It must be a kind I hadn't tried before.

An hour or two in, someone had pushed open the breezy French doors that led from the living room to the porch, and I spotted Wesley talking with Patrick and some other guys from the team. He was laughing. I put my cup of punch—my second—against my cheek to cool it. I'd never seen Wesley look so happy before. He had a beautiful smile, and I found myself wishing that that beautiful smile was aimed at me. Maybe now was the right time to approach him.

I brought a new cup of punch for him as a peace offering and made my way outside. The stars were out, and the air felt cool and delicious on my flushed skin. Butterflies flapped against the walls of my stomach, but I ignored them. I felt confident. Totally likable and in control. Wesley was bound to finally come around to me. "Hey man," I called out to him, approaching the group. My voice came out louder than I meant. Nerves, I guess. "I brought you a drink—and guess what! I didn't even spill it!"

The whole group fell silent and turned towards me. The butterflies flapped harder with all those eyes on me, but I clung to my courage. My eyes found Patrick's. He smiled encouragement and jerked his chin at Wesley as though to say, Give him the drink.

I gave him the drink and watched anxiously as Wesley glanced into the cup. I waited for some kind of thanks or acknowledgment, but instead, Wesley looked back up at me with an expression of dawning rage. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" he demanded.

I faltered. "What do you mean? I just—I just brought you a—"

"Are you trying to get me drunk, Beckett?"

All the confidence I'd felt a minute ago evaporated. I blinked. "No! What? It's just punch. It's seltzer and Hawaiian punch. It's good!"

Patrick put a hand over his face. My stomach sank.

"Yeah." Wesley took a step towards me, and I reflexively took one back. "It's hard seltzer, Hawaiian punch, and Everclear."

Everyone on the porch had gone quiet—even the strangers. I wanted to shrink away and disappear between the floorboards. Horror twisted in my gut, and I wished I could throw up all the alcohol I'd accidentally swallowed.

"Are you trying to get me kicked off the team?" Wesley was still advancing on me, forcing me back, his voice rising. I wondered if he might actually hit me.

Then Patrick grabbed hold of Wesley at the same time that Sean appeared out of nowhere and seized my arm. "Great party, bro!" he yelled to Patrick, pulling me back towards the driveway. "We're going now! See you!"

Patrick didn't reply. He was too busy saying something hushed and urgent to Wesley while everyone else looked on.

Ten minutes later I was in an Uber, rumbling back towards campus while Sean alternated between trying to comfort me and just sitting in awkward silence. My head spun, and I sagged against the door. There was no way I could come back from this now. I was totally screwed.