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That blood flows in the veins of the person whose knee is touching mine, and as I finish off the bottle Jack brought me I wonder if she can smell the blood-saturated dirt, or hear her sister’s screams still echoing off of trees.

That’s when I realize exactly how drunk I am.

Lately I can’t eat much. My throat doesn’t want to do anything other than say Adam’s name and my stomach only wishes to digest him. I might as well have popped an IV in my arm and hooked up to the keg as soon as I got here. There’s no food in my stomach and the alcohol is passing straight through its lining into my blood, soaring through my body to infect my brain, my heart, my organs.

Everyone around me is talking but my mouth doesn’t want to participate by doing anything other than wrapping itself around a beer bottle. I want to ask Jack if he’ll get me another one but he’s entirely lost in Alex, his eyes drinking her up like she’s the keg and he’s an alcoholic. I know I’m going to have to concentrate in order to stand up and I take a moment to identify the best way to do it, which foot to move first and what rocks to brace my hands against in order to get vertical.

I make it happen, and I’m on a path for the keg when Branley beats me to it, shoulders bare even though it’s nearly snowing. She’s coated in a sheen of sweat from sitting so close to the fire, her blond curls losing some of their bounce. One of the guys who has taken up a post at the altar tells her she looks like she needs to cool off, and sprays her down with beer.

She shrieks, her white tank top plastered to her chest. Beer is dripping off her and she stamps her foot, sending everything that will shake into a jiggle.

“Holy shit, dude,” one of the guys says, staring. “That was . . . not cool.”

“Yeah, not cool, man,” another agrees, but they all might as well have their hands down their pants.

“Adam!” Branley yells, and he’s on his feet to come to her rescue, her jacket in his hand.

I change my course, in no hurry to be near a wet, pissed-off, nearly naked Branley and my loyal—to her, anyway—ex-boyfriend.

I’ve got an empty bottle in my hand and no one to give it to. Despite the fact that a bum could come out to the church and make a fortune in recycling, I’ve never had the nerve to just throw mine in a corner. I drove around with bottles rolling in my backseat for a week once because I couldn’t bear to litter.

Sara’s deep in conversation with some of the other basketball players, something about how the ref lost them their last game. Everyone has settled down into groups for the night, people cuddled around fires they made, or curling up with each other in sleeping bags. I can’t even go out into the woods for fresh air and privacy because there are more people out there than in here by now. And they don’t want company.

Somebody is taking the bottle from me, and I just stare at his hand for a second. Big knuckles with drying skin, a broad silver band on the middle finger.

“Need a fresh?” he says and my eyes slowly find their way to his face.

It’s the blond tweaker. The chain on his face accents his sharp nose, the hollows of his eyes dark in the flickering firelight. This close his skin has the unmistakable rough quality of a long-time user, pocked yet oddly clear. But his eyes are arrestingly blue, and as I look into them recognition dawns.

“You’re Ray Parsons,” I say. “We were in study hall together my freshman year, third period, cafeteria.”

He smiles, the chain resting lightly on his cheek when he does. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” I go on, the details coming out with such clarity it’s obvious I kind of had a thing for him then. “You sat at the corner table. I’m Peekay. I sat over by the water fountain. You were a senior. You didn’t notice me.”

“I’m noticing you now, Peekay,” he says, dragging his eyes over my body and not even trying to hide it.

I know I look good tonight. I’m not Branley and I never will be. I’m not even Sara, with her athletic build, or Alex, with her green eyes and freckles. But I am small and cute, with a decent rack that I know how to accentuate. I put on a push-up bra tonight, opened my top two buttons, and zipped my down coat right up to the bottom of my cleavage. My tits couldn’t be more on display.

And Ray Parsons is definitely window shopping.

I feel a little rush in my stomach. A wave of motion that pushes my heart into my throat and makes my pulse skip. I haven’t felt that for anyone but Adam in a long time. Ray Parsons had my attention when I was a freshman. Basketball player, casual smoker, and the guy most likely to pull the fire alarm. He had an edge to him then that might have sliced some of the softer bits away in the past few years, but he’s still Ray Parsons and I’m so very alone right now that I don’t argue when he hooks a finger through my belt loop and takes me over to his friends.

“Guys, this is Peekay,” he says.

They all give me an up-nod and one asks what the hell kind of name is that.

“Nickname for Preacher’s Kid,” I answer as Ray throws my bottle over his shoulder and heads to the altar.

“Oh yeah?” They’re suddenly more interested, eyes going over me like Ray’s did now that he’s not here anymore.

“You a virgin?” one of them asks.

“Really?” another says. “You gonna ask her that?”

“Yep,” I say, not caring.

There’s a plastic cup in my hand now and Ray’s finger is back in my belt loop, his thumb rubbing up under my coat to press against skin.