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“What are you doing?” Cassie dodged my lips and shoved me into the headboard. “What the fuck do you think you're doing?” She was Shiva, the angry god, and she was going to tear my arms from my scrawny frame and choke me with my own hands.

“I love you, Cassie,” I said. Because trying to kiss her hadn't been bad enough. There had been a moment, a second, where I might have been able to pretend that I hadn't meant to try to kiss her, that it was all some monumental misunderstanding. Or I could have blamed it on that shot of tequila or the music or the stars or anything. But I didn't. No. Because I was a moron. Certified. When I died, scientists were going to cut open my skull and scoop out my brain, pickle it, and study it as a prime example of the long-term effect of love on the brain of a moron. Because surely, I was the biggest moron who had ever been in love with a girl.

Cassie stopped jumping. She was tethered to the earth now, a prisoner of gravity once again. “I know, Simon. You wear your feelings for me like a neon sign over your heart. What do you want me to do about it?”

The words were deadly shards of glass. They sliced my skin,
and I watched as my blood fountained from a million tiny wounds, spreading over the bed like a new duvet.

“I thought—”

“You thought that since I dumped Eli, you'd lure me into my parents' bedroom and make everything in my life all better because we jumped on a fucking bed? And then what? We'd ride the mattress into the sunset? You're like everyone else. No, you're worse because you're so naive.”

I grew smaller. I grew small. Insignificant. A worm not worthy of even her pity.

“I only wanted to make you smile,” I said. And I meant it. “I wanted to make you happy.”

Cassie laughed. It was dark and devoid of joy. “I don't need you, Simon Cross. I'm capable of taking care of myself.” Cassie sat down and slid off the bed, slipping her feet back into her shoes, ignoring any pain from her injured foot. “You don't love me. You love some girl you invented in your stupid pea brain. But I'm not that girl. She doesn't exist.”

When I said, “I do love you, Cassie,” my voice was as small as I was. It barely registered above the bass line of DJ Leo's latest song. I wished that guy had a mute button. “If you'll just let me show you.”

Cassie crossed her arms over her chest. “How about a barter, Simon?” Her voice kept cutting me.

“Anything.”

The anger Cassie had loosed was fading, wrestled back into Pandora's box along with that tiny flame of hope upon which my
future happiness now rested. “Prove that you love me, Simon. Prove irrefutably that you love me, the real me, not just some idea of me, and I'll give you anything you want.”

And then she left.

I was still standing on the bed, watching the space where Cassie had been, when Coop and Ben walked through the door hand in hand. Coop frowned at me while Ben just chuckled.

Ben dropped Coop's hand and leaped onto the bed. He hooted and jumped as I stood there bouncing in his wake, still stunned. He didn't jump with the same kind of innocent joy Cassie had. Ben was a madman.

I pushed Ben aside and got down off the bed.

Coop grabbed my sleeve. “Simon, what's up? You okay?”

Explaining what had happened wasn't at the top of my list of superfun things to do, so I stormed into the adjoining bathroom to get away from the boys. I shut myself in and sat on the floor.

Hardly a moment had passed before Coop slid open the door and poked his head in. “Hey.”

“What if I'd been pooping?”

Coop plopped down cross-legged on the immaculate white tile. “Remember the eighth-grade DC trip?” I nodded. “Remember the free oysters in the hotel?”

I chuckled. “We ate like a pound of those suckers. Stupid food poisoning.”

“Right,” Coop said. “I've seen things coming out of both your ends that would make a garbageman bleach his eyes out.”

“Point taken.”

Silence.

“Cassie hates me.” I told Coop everything. More than he probably wanted to know. When I was done, he patted my arm.

“You're an idiot.”

“Don't I know it,” I said.

“But you're my best friend,” Coop said. “And Cassie doesn't deserve you.”

I rolled my eyes. “You're supposed to say shit like that.”

“Yeah,” Coop said. “But this time, I also happen to mean it.” He was quiet again. “What are you going to do?”

I shrugged. “Kidnap Cassie and put her in your trunk? I'll keep her in a deep pit in my backyard. Nothing says ‘I love the real you' like kidnapping.”

“This is Florida,” Coop said. “You can't dig a pit in your backyard.”

“I don't know,” I said. “This was supposed to be different.”

Coop nodded. He knew what I'd expected. He'd probably also known I'd been delusional. “Quick question: You got a condom?”

Oddly, it was a relief to talk about something other than my monumental failure in the Cassie department. “No. My mom found the one I kept in my wallet and chucked it. Apparently, I'm too young to be having sex. She informed me that if she found out I was doing it with anyone, she'd neuter me.”

“Ouch. Someone should tell your mom that not having a condom won't keep you from having sex.”

“Luckily for her, social awkwardness is one hundred percent effective.”

Coop stood up and helped me to my feet. He put his arm around my shoulders and said, “Don't waste the whole night, Simon. If you love Cassie, prove it. If not, then have some fun. But you're only seventeen once. And for a dick, you're a pretty awesome guy.”

Only, I didn't feel pretty awesome. I felt like an ass. But Coop was right. It was time to crap or get off the pot. Cassie had issued me a challenge. And even though I was sure she figured I'd never be able to do it, I was going to prove to Cassie that I really loved her.

I was going to earn my kiss or die trying.

“Did that just happen?” Cassie asked as she stood in the doorway, staring at me, absently touching her lips with the tips of her fingers.

“No,” I said. “That was a figment of your imagination. Here comes your real kiss.”

For a moment, I thought that was going to work, but then Cassie smacked my shoulder and giggled. I didn't know what else to say. I was struck mute by the fact that Stella had managed to accomplish in ten seconds what I'd failed to do in three long, lonely years. I played the ridiculous scene over and over in my head: Cassie, standing by the doorway, smelling of tequila, looking beautiful—more beautiful than I'd ever seen her—telling me that I had to kiss her to get into the party. And then Stella, a girl I'd only just met, wedging herself between us and stealing that kiss like it was nothing.

“Sy?” Cassie pulled me aside as a group of girls I half recognized pushed their way into the house and were absorbed into the party.

I pinched my arm hard, which made Cassie giggle again. “I don't even know that girl,” I said. “I mean, I know her. I didn't pick her up on the side of the road. Actually, she picked me up off the side of the road. But there's a perfectly good explanation for that. Stop me from babbling any time.”

Cassie rolled her eyes and pulled me into the house by my sleeve. “Same old Simon.” Her smile was a shooting star—brilliant and gone before I could capture it. Cassie was beautiful without thought, without effort. And I was in her thrall.

As Cassie closed the door behind us, I stood in the foyer and looked around. The last time I'd been to the Castillo house, I'd barely made it past the unwelcome mat. Mr. Castillo had answered the door sporting a surly face, glaring down at me like I was wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words: “Future Baby Daddy.” Cassie had been beautiful that night too. But that was years past and this was now.

And in the now, the house was a wall-to-wall collection of people I barely knew in varying states of drunkenness and undress. The party was in overdrive. It usually took a couple of hours for people to start losing articles of clothing, but one girl was already down to her bikini top. I wondered what she'd bartered in exchange for her shirt. I was about to ask Cassie when I was interrupted by a crash from the room to my left.

“Contact Scrabble,” Cassie explained, as if that was somehow supposed to make sense. “The debate team started a Scrabble game in the library, but Jody got the lacrosse guys involved and, well . . . Contact Scrabble.”

“Should I break it up?” I asked, as if there was any way that I could do such a thing. Jody Johnson was a beast of a guy who spoke exclusively in grunts and wedgies.

Cassie shrugged. “Why bother?” She moved as if we were touring the Louvre rather than an illicit, underage party. “Over there is the beer pong table,” she said, pointing to the room across from the library. I took a peek. All the furniture had been pushed up against the walls and a green Ping-Pong table sat in the center of the room, under a crystal chandelier that was begging for some drunk dick to swing from it. Dean Kowalcyk and his harem of girls were the sole occupants of the room, which was fine by me. Dean and I had briefly been mortal enemies in seventh grade, and I'd avoided him religiously since.

“You invited Dean?”

“He invited himself,” Cassie said. She stood in the foyer and looked down the hall toward what appeared to be the kitchen. “They all did. I don't know half of these people.” For a second, I thought Cassie was going to lose it. Maybe I was being melodramatic—it had sort of been that kind of night for me—but I felt like I could see her standing on the precipice of some kind of emotional breakdown. She stood at the edge, looking over, thinking about jumping, and then used her own smile to tether herself to the now.

I wasn't just imagining it—there was something wrong with Cassie. It was so obvious that even blind Falcor could have seen it. And a better man would have put aside his own
selfish desires and tried to help Cassie. But I was not a better man. Not at that moment. I was still wearing blinders forged from the feelings of the more-than-a-crush I'd been harboring for Cassie since the first time I saw her. And I couldn't help but hope that whatever was going on with Cassie might make her willing to kiss me. I'm not making excuses, but sometimes guys don't always think with the brain that they ought to.

“Whatever,” Cassie said. “It's a party. Drink?”

Without waiting for my answer, she took off down the hallway toward the kitchen, seemingly unconcerned with whether or not I followed. I tried to trail her wake, but where she had sliced like a knife through the hordes mingling in the narrow hall, I felt like a salmon struggling upstream, petrified that even if I made it to my destination, a motherfucking bear was going to rip me out of the water and eat my head off.

Ben Kwon isn't a bear, but when he grabbed me by the collar and pulled me into the dining room, I jumped.

“Simon!” Ben said. He was slick with sweat and his eyes were bloodshot. “Got a condom? Tell me you have one in your wallet for that just-in-case that never comes. Unless you've managed to dip your fries in ketchup girl? Did you? Do you? Don't toy with me, Simon.”

I ducked out of Ben's grasp and clapped my hand over his mouth. I needed to get my bearings. I wanted out of this room; I wanted to get to Cassie before the party swallowed her up.

But Ben was staring at me like we were trapped on the moon and I have the only oxygen on the whole bloody rock.

“Why do you need a condom?” I asked, regretting my question immediately.

Ben tossed his arm around my shoulder and tried to wrap me up in a sloppy hug. I could smell the same tequila on him that I'd smelled on Cassie. “Simon, buddy, bro. Got a condom or not?”

“No.”

“Useless,” Ben said, and he let me go.

I tried to leave, but Ben yanked me back. I fell into him and he stumbled into the table, knocking a can of soda onto the floor. “Are you drunk?” I asked, righting myself and putting some necessary distance between us.

Ben stood up and brushed imaginary lint off his shirt. “I'm only a little tipsy. Cassie made me take tequila shots when I got here.” Ben tapped his chin thoughtfully. “I don't know what's up with party girl, but I'm digging it.”

“Cassie's acting odd,” I said. “Very un-Cassie-like.”

“Let me tell you something about women.”

“Because you're the expert.”

“In this room,” Ben said, “I'm the expert.” He grabbed a warm Sprite out of an open box and chugged half, following that with an impressive belch. “It's senior year, Simon. Cassie dumped Eli. She's finally realized that this is supposed to be the best year of our lives. A little late if you ask me, but better late than sober.”

I frowned. “I don't know.”

Ben put the soda on the table and sat in one of the high-backed chairs. “Maybe this is the real Cassie, and that other uptight girl was just an ugly outfit she was wearing to impress people.”

“You're pretty much talking out of your ass.”

“It is my best feature.” Ben leaped at me and tried to wrestle his way into my back pocket. “You sure you don't have a condom back there?” Ben was stronger than me, but I was wiry and fast, and I ducked out of his grasp. “Don't hold out on me,” he said.

“I don't have a condom!” I skirted the wall, trying to keep some distance between us. “And for the record, it's gross of you to ask me to help you and Coop get busy. You're practically my brothers. You should be ashamed.”

“I have no shame.” Ben broke out in a toothy grin and said, “Let's go find my boyfriend.”

We dove back into the party, letting the crowd and the rhythmic beat of the music carry us down the hall and to the kitchen—the usual hub of a party. People were dancing in the family room, playing beer pong in the living room, and brawling over the use of proper nouns in the library, but the kitchen was where everything else was happening. In the breakfast nook, some football jocks were sitting at a circular table, playing Bullshit for shots. It was pretty much a foregone conclusion that they were going to be comatose before midnight.