twinkle lights in the windows and bookstores and at least three Dunkin’ Donuts. My high kicks in as we walk along the main road, much sooner than I thought it would. Hey, old friend. I follow Eddie when he turns onto a quiet side street with pools of light that spread across the asphalt like melted butter. I hear the house before I see it: laughter and music, a wraparound porch where smokers lean against the railing or sit on the stairs. It’s your typical Cambridge house, made of clapboard, a couple stories high. These places all look like a Pilgrim could just stroll on out the front door at any second. Someone on the roof calls down to someone on the porch. They laugh.
“Nolan!” A skinny guy with ripped jeans and a faded black T-shirt jumps up from his seat on the stairs when he sees us. “Just in time, man.” He glances at me as he throws down his cigarette. “This your girl?”
I shake my head. “Hannah,” I say. “Just … Hannah.”
“Sean.”
“It’s Hannah’s birthday,” Eddie says.
“No shit? We should celebrate.” Sean motions us inside. “After you.”
Eddie sticks out like a sore thumb among the Harvard sweatshirts and Urban Outfitters. He’s so obviously poor—he’s got wrong side of the tracks written all over him. It’s clear he’s the drug guy, and the energy spikes a little as Sean carves a path through the living room.
It’s not a big place, and there are more people outside than in. I don’t know what I expected a Harvard person’s house to look like, but when I take a look around, this makes sense. IKEA chic, a little messy. Stacks of books. Half-empty bottles of wine, hard stuff. A few people sit on a couch, passing a bong back and forth. They shoot curious glances our way, one of the guys nodding at Eddie.
“What up.” Eddie says this to the room at large, and he doesn’t linger—he knows anyone who wants to buy will follow.
Sean pushes open a door at the end of the hall and calls inside, “He’s here.”
Five people are sprawled on the furniture and one of the girls claps. “My hero.”
The room is painted turquoise, the lighting dim so that it feels as though we’re underwater. A bed in the corner is covered neatly with a blanket, and a few beanbag chairs sit scattered around the room. There’s a desk with a MacBook, a lamp, a cup of takeaway coffee.
I could borrow someone’s phone. Call Jo. Have her come pick me up. I could, but the sand is at my neck, and it’s so warm and cozy here. I flop down on one of the beanbag chairs.
Eddie takes out his plastic bag and opens up shop.
“A little present for the birthday girl,” Sean says, handing over cash and then putting a pill in my palm. I don’t know what it is, and I don’t care because for the first time in weeks and weeks I am so, so happy. I swallow it. I watch while people come in and out of the room.
“You go to school around here, Hannah?” Sean asks, plopping down next to me.
I don’t want to be the high school kid, so I lie. “Yeah. BU.”
“Nice. Major?”
Fuck.
“English.” Safe, right?
Sean nods. “Right on. My comp class is kicking my ass. Paper on Milton due tomorrow, and that’s … not fucking happening.”
We talk. Well, he talks and I listen, or I try to. I’m already half-gone. Sean is cute. Not as cute as Drew, but cute. A guy in the corner picks up a guitar and begins softly strumming it. I close my eyes, and the sand reaches past my lips. I ride the soft Oxy wave. I forget. About the promises I’ve made to myself, my parents, all the crap at home—all of it is gone. Eddie asks if I want to leave with him, and I say no.
“Hannah.” Someone’s shaking me gently, and when I open up my eyes, a stranger is looking at me, smiling. Wait, not a stranger. Sean. Harvard Sean.
“Sorry,” I mumble, disoriented. The room is quiet. We’re alone.
“It’s okay. Just thought you might not want to sleep through your birthday.”
“This is the worst birthday ever,” I say, and the feelings come, and the sand, and I don’t want to feel, not at all, because they will bury me alive.
“Then let’s change that, shall we?” Sean holds up a pill and puts it between his lips, then leans in, so close the tip of