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swimming. It was my turn to swing out on a rope and drop down into the water, but I was afraid and I didn’t let go in time. Instead of falling into the water, I dropped on to the ground. My leg scraped against a stump, and I knocked my head hard enough to give myself a ringing concussion. I was crying when my mother came rushing from the back porch. She knelt down beside me and brushed my hair out of my eyes, asking me if I was all right. My brothers were looking down at me, their faces streaked with worry, their fingers fidgeting.
    Then I heard Michael’s voice. He was walking toward us, asking what I did this time, sighing as if my falling was the biggest hassle he’d ever faced. As soon as my brothers heard his voice, their faces changed. They stepped back away from me and tightened their expressions, replacing their worry with casual indifference. Toughening themselves up. Michael walked up to us and put a hand on each of their shoulders, telling my mother how clumsy I was, berating me for being dumb enough to forget to let go of the rope. I was scared, I told him, not dumb. When he asked my brothers if they thought that their little sister was being dumb, Ricky looked up at Michael and enthusiastically nodded his head. Then he elbowed Evan in the ribs until the pair of them were nodding and smiling at Michael like a pair of twin cronies begging for his approval. As they walked away from me and my mother, I saw Evan peek back, and for a split second, a small, sympathetic grin flashed at me. It was the first time I felt betrayed.
    In the years since then, betrayal and duplicity have become second nature to my brothers, and I’ve been stung by them more times than I can count. I’ve learned to distance myself from them, to shut them out whenever possible. Tonight, however, shutting them out is not an option. Unless I want to get into a huge fight. Which I do not.
    I get in the backseat and buckle up.
    We stop by Evan’s apartment to pick him up, and he fist-bumps Ricky as soon as he gets into the car, then turns around and gives me a nod. I think for a few moments that maybe it will be a decent night after all. But then Ricky pulls out of the parking lot and turns left, away from the theater and toward the university. Ricky and Evan start talking, and their conversation makes it clear that we aren’t going to see a movie. We’re going to a party. A fraternity party.
    Ricky looks at my reflection in the rearview mirror and starts talking to me. He says all sorts of shit about where we are going and how I am supposed to behave while we are there. I wonder what my Sunday-school teacher would think about my going to a college party. I’m silently laughing at the thought of it all when we pull up to the house.
    I am going to my first fraternity party at thirteen years old. I am both nervous and excited. Ricky’s behavior lecture was pretty clear. I can drink, I can smoke, I can dance...but I cannot tease his friends. I believe his exact words were: “If you are going to flirt with my friends, then you damn well better be prepared to put out. Nobody likes a dick-tease, Emma.” Uh, I am thirteen years old, you asshole. Putting out is not on the evening’s agenda.
    There are about a million people in the house. The floor is sticky, and I can barely hear myself think over the pulsating music. Evan introduces me to their friend Lainey who decides to take me under her wing. She grabs my hand and hauls me to the basement for a beer. My brothers disappear to God-knows-where. At least in the basement the music is quieter. People are playing Ping-Pong with cups of beer lined up on the table. They are shooting pool. They are bouncing quarters off the table and into full cups of beer. It is a brand-new wonderland, and I can’t stop watching them. They are all laughing and talking, and there is no awkwardness. There are no social bystanders. Only people having fun. I have been to a few high school parties with Jack, and I can