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talking about,” Scott echoes the thought. “My lips are sealed. Except I do have a question.”
    “What’s that?” I ask, aware that this girl is getting harder and harder to hold. She’s still snoring, still passed out. Letting me do all the work while she just lays there, limp.
    “What are you going to do with her?”
    I blink at him. Blink at Matt. Blink down at her near-lifeless form. All that blinking has gotten me nowhere. Then I remember her bag. “Someone open that up and find her I.D. Maybe then I’ll know what to do. But first, can you bring me my car? Keys are in my back pocket.”
    Matt fishes them out and sprints away while Scott reaches for the bag and opens it. “Are you sure I should be doing this?” he asks.
    I shift my weight, and hers, to my other hip. “It’s either that or we leave her here. Or I guess we could take her to your house…”
    Scott rips at the bag like a tiger attacking a steak. Pulling out a rectangle card, he holds it up. “Found her license. It says she lives on third and Hudson. Apartment 213B. Hope that helps.” He looks up at me. “Isn’t that Clearwater apartments?”
    It’s Clearwater. And it helps. In the way that a pack of cigarettes helps an ex-smoker.
    I sigh. “Yes, it does. Now, I just have to get her home.”
    On cue, my car pulls up. Scott opens the passenger door and I slide her inside, then turn to face the guys, my arms screaming in blessed relief. I rub my hands together, hoping to convey an authoritative edge.
    “Alright, who’s coming with me?”

4
    Kate
    “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now”
    —The Smiths
    I ’m moving. Swaying back and forth, my head giving an occasional bounce as we hit what feels like a pothole. My mind feels fuzzy, my vision is blurred, but I’m aware enough to know that I’m not in this car alone. But who is with me? I remember my friends, I remember the tattooed guy at the bar, I remember the other guy that bought me a drink and told me I was beautiful, that I was the present he’d been waiting for even though I was the one celebrating the birthday. I remember all of those people.
    But I can’t remember who I left with.
    I’m stopping. Being lifted and carried and cradled while someone fumbles with a lock. A door opens. It shuts. It’s dark inside the room, and I’m glad. I think even a pinprick of light might make my head explode.
    My head.
    It’s spinning.
    It’s spinning and I’m moving and I’m twirling and I’m stopping. Someone lays me down. Someone tucks a blanket around my shoulders. I’m cold, and then I’m warm.
    My eyes crack open for the slightest second, long enough to see muscle and tightness and strength and man. He’s warm, too, so I kiss him and giggle and kiss him again. He doesn’t kiss back. I don’t understand much, but this isn’t how a one-night-stand is supposed to go. But then I wasn’t supposed to have a one-night stand. I was supposed to drive my drunk friends home.
    His presence confuses me. His reaction confuses me. My lack of friends confuses me. My head confuses me. The cold confuses me. The wetness around my mouth confuses me.
    The odd sensations come all at once, overwhelming me until blood rushes to my head. I sink my head into the pillow, letting my arms and legs go limp on the mattress. This feels good, this feels normal. This is perfect.
    Everything goes black.

5
    Caleb
    “Diamond Eyes”
    —Deftones
    A ccident-prone was the term my mother often used to describe me. My elderly neighbor was less gracious—he often shouted “klutz!” at me across the driveway after another fall from a bike, a trip over skates, a stumble over my own two feet.
    While the cranky old man kept going with his taunts, without fail, my mother came rushing. After a wet rag and a well-placed Band-Aid and a smile, she routinely made my pain better with a kiss.
    I learned at a young age that a kiss always makes things better.
    It wasn’t until I grew older that I quit believing that