It took way longer to get to LBI than usual. People can’t drive for shit in the rain. There were all these accidents and people were, like, doing twenty-five whenever they came to a frickin’ puddle. But whatever; I was there now. At Hammond’s. And from the look of it, everyone else was too. There were cars parked everywhere—in the driveway, in the street, in front of the neighbor’s driveway—like everyone knew they were in for the night so it didn’t matter if they blocked in everyone else. I took a deep breath and looked at myself in the mirror. My heart was pounding a mile a second.Ally was inside. I was going to see Ally.Probably should’ve used that four hour drive to figure out what to say to her.Shit. Whatever. Let’s get this over with.I got out of the car, pulled my hood over my head, and ran through the rain. When I shoved the sliding glass door open, a bunch of adults turned to look. Like I was some homeless guy crashing their party. They were all wearing linen pants and sandals and jewelry, and there was me in my coffee-stained shorts and crappy kicks.“Dude! You made it!”Hammond came outta nowhere and slapped my hand. He had a cup full of beer in his other hand and he was wearing a pink polo shirt. Where the hell does he get these clothes?“Hey. Yeah.” I glanced around the room. Ally’s mom and Dr. Nathanson were over by the bar, and I saw Faith’s mom and the Idiot Twins’ parents, and Quinn and her friends, but no Ally.“Jake!” Faith practically screamed. She wove through the crowd with her cup of punch over her head and air-kissed me. “What are you doing here?”“Did your mom unground you?” Hammond asked. “Thank God. It’s been boring as shit down here.”Faith slurped her drink and nodded. “So boring.”“Not exactly,” I said. I moved a little farther into the house and scanned the room, like I was looking for somewhere to put my sweatshirt. There were a bunch of graduated seniors in the kitchen. I nodded at them. No Ally.“If you’re looking for the keg, it’s out back,” Hammond said. “Dad’s cool with us drinking as long as everyone crashes here.”“No. I’m good.”“I know what he’s looking for,” Faith said in a teasing voice. She rocked up onto her toes, and scanned the room. “But you’re not going to find her here.”I chose not to argue. I was too tense to play games. “Where is she?”“Where’s who?” Hammond said stupidly.“Ally!” Faith squealed. Because the people in the cheap seats wanted to hear.“Oh. Right. Yeah. She’s not here,” Hammond said, taking a slug of beer.“Do you know where she is?”Hammond sucked the foam off his lips. He didn’t look at me. “Nope.”Something inside me flipped. “Yeah you do. Come on, dude, where is she?”“You sound like her mother. She’s been asking me every ten minutes if I know where this party is Ally went to.” He chugged the rest of his beer, crushed the cup, and tossed it toward the kitchen, where it hit some girl in the leg. “Fuck her. She doesn’t want to hang out with us, she doesn’t have to.”He started across the room toward the stairs, but I grabbed his arm.“Well, who’s she hanging out with?” I asked.Hammond took a deep breath and blew it out, like he was losing patience. “Some local dude. I don’t know.”“What local dude?” Faith and I said at the same time.“He said they were having a party at Chum and Howie’s, whoever they are,” Hammond said. “Some huge rager up by the lighthouse.”My teeth pressed together. Who was this local dude and why was he taking my girlfriend . . . ?She’s not your girlfriend. She is not your girlfriend.“So let’s go,” Faith said.My eyebrows popped up. Best. Idea. Ever. “Yeah. Let’s go.”Hammond appeared interested. “But I don’t even know where it is.”“There aren’t that many houses by the lighthouse,” Faith said, raising her palm.“Yeah. So we’ll drive around until we find it,” I added.Never before had Faith and I been on the same page. She grinned. Apparently she was enjoying it. I smiled back.Hammond looked around. His parents were yucking it up over by the fireplace with some other coiffed adults.“Shit. This party sucks anyway. Let’s go.”It took fifteen minutes to drive to the lighthouse. Another fifteen to find the “rager.” There were people dancing on the roof in the rain. From the look of the shack and its weather-beaten wallboards, I was shocked they were still alive. I slammed the door of Hammond’s car and started toward the house, but I was still two steps from the door when I froze. All the blood in my body rushed to my head, and I suddenly saw myself driving my fist into the wall.Because sitting—no, practically lying—on the porch swing, with her tongue down some blond surf dude’s throat, was my not-girlfriend.

“Jake!”The word exploded from my mouth before I fully registered that he was actually there. He held his right hand in his left. Both were shaking.“Ow! Son of a bitch!”He whirled away, flinging his hand out, cursing under his breath. Then Hammond came jogging up the steps.“Dude! Did you really just punch the wall?”For me. Jake Graydon had just punched a wall for me. I felt this euphoric rush and then Cooper stood up next to me, and suddenly Faith was there also, wrinkling her nose at the house and cringing away from the rotted porch railing. And the rush crashed spectacularly.What the hell were they all doing here?“You’re bleeding!” Faith exclaimed with another nose wrinkle.Blood ran in a trickle from Jake’s knuckle and splattered the floorboards between his feet. Jake just stared at me. At my lips. Which still tasted like Cooper’s ChapStick. Suddenly, and for no apparent reason, I felt like a cheating slut. But Jake was not my boyfriend. He was not.He was just the guy who’d punched a wall over me.“You should really get some ice for that, man,” Cooper said.“Who the fuck are you?” Jake spat.Cooper tilted his head quizzically. Like he had just been faced with some exotic and heretofore unidentified breed of asshole. “I’m the guy who was invited here. Who the fuck are you?”Jake took a menacing step forward, so Cooper did the same. Hammond’s hand instantly shot out, pressing against Cooper’s chest. This was going nowhere good, and it was going there fast.“Back off, loser,” Hammond spat.“These are them, aren’t they?” Cooper said with a laugh.“Them, who?” Jake said, his eyes darting to me.“The Cresties.” Cooper did air quotes. He was cackling now.“What the fuck do you know about it?” Hammond asked, shifting so his entire forearm was against Cooper’s chest now. Cooper jostled back, then shoved himself forward. Their feet scuffled against the floor. My heart throbbed behind my eyes.“Guys!” I shouted, putting my hands up. They froze. “We’re not going to do this.”“Do what?” all three of them said in unison.Like they didn’t know.“Ally, why don’t you just come back with us?” Faith said plaintively. “We could all hang out! Maybe we could go to Café Bacci and—”“Just stop, all right?” I blurted. “I don’t want to hang out with you. Not any of you! Take the hint already.”Faith’s face sort of crumpled and Cooper laughed. But I couldn’t stand there and try to make her feel better. I’d finally told her the actual truth. I took Jake’s wrist and pulled him down the steps. It was just drizzling now, and the water cooled my adrenaline-flushed face.“What are you doing here?” I asked through my teeth.“I came down to . . . I don’t know . . . to talk to you,” he said, looking past me with venom in his eyes, I can only assume at Cooper. “And then I find you . . .” He gritted his teeth and shook his head. “What the hell is up, Ally? Are you, like, with that guy?”“I don’t know . . . maybe,” I said.His jaw dropped and he took a step back. “Are you kidding me?”“Me? What about you? I haven’t heard two words from you since I left. . . . No wait, since Shannen’s party . . . and then you come down here . . . what? Expecting me to, like, fall at your feet or something?” I demanded.“What did you want me to do? You basically told me at Shannen’s that you never wanted to talk to me again. And then . . . when I tried to, like, explain it to you . . . you told me you didn’t give a shit about me,” he rambled. “God! Why am I even here?”“You never tried to explain anything!” I shouted back. “You just wanted to act like none of it ever happened.”This look crossed his face. Like, yes, that’s what I wanted. Like, what would be so bad about that? He didn’t get it. He was never going to get it.“I don’t get you,” he said.“Fine. Then maybe you should just go.”“Yeah. Maybe I should.”Neither one of us moved. He looked past me again and his eyes clouded over.“I . . . I thought . . .”My heart welled pathetically inside my chest. It was still waiting. Waiting for him to say the right thing. The one thing that would make it all better. But at that point, I had a feeling there was nothing he could say that would do that. Then his mouth snapped shut.“You should come with us,” he said. “Your mother’s worried about you.”The exact wrong thing.I snorted a laugh. “Oh, really? Is my dad worried too? Are my parents your best friends now? Why don’t you get them both on conference call and maybe the three of you can figure out where I’m supposed to be for the rest of the summer at all times. When you’ve got a plan, gimme a call. I’ll be right here.”Then I turned my back on him, stomped up the steps, and grabbed Cooper’s hand. Annie stood in the doorway and I nearly leveled her as I barreled by. I slammed the door so hard, a shower of paint shards fluttered to the floor of the living room.“Wow,” Annie said.I was shaking from head to toe as I breathed in. “That’s one word for it.”