Page 4 of Breaking You Open

“I said he’s fine,” Lilith insists, chewing her gum incessantly. “Same age as me.” I’m a year younger, not yet twenty-one, but it’s not as if I’m about to say it out loud. “Gonna let us in or not?”

Ravi rolls his eyes and turns to the biker with the sideburns—the one who laughed with his friend earlier. “What do you think, Louis?”

The biker—Louis—looks me up and down, eyebrows raised, and when he speaks, his deep, gravelly voice sends shivers up my spine. “Let the boy inside. I’ll keep an eye on him.”

Keep an eye on me?What does that mean?

Ravi rolls his eyes again. “Sure you will.” He steps aside, and Lilith leans into me as we enter the door.

“You heard him,boy,” she says with a grin.

I have no more time to dwell on what just happened. As soon as we step inside, all my senses are too busy keeping up with everything.

Music blasts into my ears in a huge living room, where maybe fifty people are all dancing, drinking, laughing, or talking. A few on a couch are snorting cocaine off a beat-up-looking magazine. At least, I think it’s cocaine. The white powder people inhale up their noses is usually cocaine, right? Aaron used to smoke weed with his friends, but he never allowed me to try any. Said it would make me think and talk too much, and I already think and talk too much. I feel too much too, and this is way too much for my senses to handle.

Lilith steps away from me, and I snag her sleeve in alarm.

“W-Wait.”

“What did I tell you?” she snaps. “I’m not your fucking babysitter.” I look up at her with pleading eyes, and her voice softens. “Look, just go over there and take a beer, okay?” She gestures at a big barrel of ice and beer bottles. “Drink it quickly, then take another one and drink that one more slowly. You think you can do that? And if you talk to someone, don’t ramble. Just play it cool.”

Easy for her to say. I already know Ishouldplay it cool; I just don’t know how. “But…where are you going?”

“To find another kind of fun,” she says, raising her perfectly filled-in eyebrows.

I’ve only known her for three weeks, and I’ve already seen her make out with five different guys. Two in our dorm hallway and two at the back of the school. The fifth was in our dorm room with her clothes halfway off. I wonder what it’s like to be that easygoing and popular with guys. I’ll probably never know.

With my only semblance of safety disappearing into the crowd, I move toward the beer as she advised. My fingers clench around the cold surface of a bottle. Now just to find something to open it with…

“Here.” As if the universe heard my prayers, a guy takes my beer and flicks the cap open with practiced ease.

I look up at him with big eyes as he hands me my beer back. “Thank you.”

His head is shaved, and he’s got a kind smile on his lips. He looks a couple of years older than me. Maybe a senior in college, maybe older than that.

“I’m Eric,” he says and holds out a hand.

“Sparrow.”

“Haven’t seen you around, Sparrow. New in town?”

“Mm-hmm,” I say, sipping at the beer and trying not to grimace at the taste. It’s not like soda, not at all, but Lilith told me to drink this one quickly.

“Freshman?”

I nod in reply.Play it cool. Play it cool. Don’t ramble.

“The town isn’t half bad,” Eric says. “Been to Mumphrey Hill yet?”

Shaking my head, I take another sip of beer, tilting the bottle further and further until the fizziness builds up in my nose, and I start to cough.

“Whoa there.” Eric laughs. “You don’t have to drink it all in one go. Eager, much?”

My cheeks burn. If I can’t even drink beer properly, how am I supposed to get drunk?

“Beer is slow,” Eric says. “I have something quicker if you want to get hammered.”

I give a tentative smile. “Okay.”

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