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“Because that’s what you wanted.” The sincerity broke through his inebriated gaze. She wished she hadn’t seen it. Analise rolled her lips inward to suppress another lump of emotion.

Taylor cradled his head between his legs. He held it as if keeping it glued together, and she thought maybe he fell asleep. But he finally lifted it, and their exchange turned distant and robotic as he directed her to his house.

“Where should I park?” she asked once they arrived at a massive colonial home.

“Behind the single garage,” he said with a long inhale. “Will you come inside with me?”

Analise nodded on impulse before she could search for and find all the reasons it was a terrible idea.

He stumbled out of his side. She got out, jogged over, and steadied his back.

Taylor laughed drunkenly and straightened. “I’m fine.”

“What if your parents wake up?”

“Good for them.”

Analise moved him along, not knowing which door, of the three, to choose from. He took the keys and fiddled them into the side garage door. “Wait. I hafta remember if I turned the alarm off.” He scratched his face. “Eh.” He unlocked it, and she held her breath.

It swung open to silence. Taylor pumped his fist in victory. “Told you I wasn’t drunk when I left.”

The garage held a Lexus, a Mercedes, and the third stall was empty. So distracted by the enormity of the garage, she forgot the risk of getting caught. He wobbled and bumped into the Mercedes. Analise grabbed his hand to steady him, and he led her inside the house, stepping into a mudroom. They plodded over rain boots, coats, and a mass of soccer gear in the dark.

Their grip tightened as they tiptoed through the kitchen toward a basement door. He opened it with a creak that felt as loud as a gunshot. She was going to have to leave this way? Each step downstairs, with his hand swallowing hers, felt somehow to be a step closer to a point of no return.

The basement looked like an apartment made of teenage boy dreams: flat screen television, refrigerator, gaming systems, foosball and pool tables, knee hockey nets and sticks piled in a corner, a sectional couch with soccer balls aplenty lounging on the cushions like pillows.

Taylor took her to his room and left her there, saying he had to pee. His desk light was on, casting a reflection across a large bay window. Outside was a sloping hill that tumbled into a swampy pond surrounded by naked trees. Beyond that stretched Lake Minnetonka. His room was a tug-of-war between childhood and adulthood. Autographed posters of soccer teams and players with names like Chelsea, Liverpool, Brazil, and AC Milan wallpapered one side. The other had a whiteboard with calculus equations and passages of diagrammed poetry. Above the desk, one shelf held the Harry Potter collection, Lord of the Rings, while the other was crammed with textbooks and novels from all his Advanced Placement courses. On his desk was a Manchester United beer mug filled with junk toys from fast food kids’ meals, unredeemed Chuckee Cheese tickets, and next to the mug was a divider with large, heavily stuffed envelopes that had return addresses: Augsburg, University of Wisconsin, University of Indiana, University of Virginia, University of Chicago, Luther College, Stanford. On and on.

She was still counting the envelopes when he came into the room. Analise didn’t look his way. She kept staring at the envelopes, at the endless possibilities he had awaiting his future.

She’d taken the ACT once and never bothered to open her score. What was the point? She wasn’t in AP classes, not even Honors, and the best she could do in her average classes was get average grades.

Taylor came close and followed her gaze.

“Where do you think you’ll go?” she whispered, crossing her arms, digging her nails into them—hard—through her sweatshirt to feel the pain. To redirect her nerves away from her budding tears.

Taylor didn’t answer. He unclenched her knuckles, lifting her fingers up one by one and sliding them through his. She focused on the carpet, looking for something to distract herself. Because the beating of her heart was much too fast, pumping a growing, intractable current. Does he feel this, too?

He stared at their enmeshed fingers and finally whispered, “I think I’m really wasted.”

Analise nodded and broke her hand free.

Taylor walked to his bed, and then, as if it were the most natural thing, and he’d done this countless times in front of her, bunched his sweatshirt and t-shirt up behind his neck and swept them onto the floor, unzipped his jeans, stepped out of them, and peeled his socks off. Analise held her breath, dizzy, her head floating upwards. Her traitorous eyes diverted briefly to see him crawl underneath his comforter, enough to see that he at least kept on boxer briefs. She dug her nails into her arms once more.

Taylor buried himself inside the covers, only his thick tufts of hair poked through. He shot his arm out, beckoning, and Analise went to him, kneeling at the bedside. He turned his face to her. “You can stay here,” he whispered, his eyes begging.

She shook her head. “Is it okay if I take your car back to my place, and I’ll pick you up in the morning?”

“Keep it, and take it to school. I’m not going.”

“Why?”

“‘Cause I’m going to feel like shit all day,” he said with his lips mushed against the pillow. “I’m sorry I dragged you into this. I’m bad at drinking.”

Analise ached to smooth the hair from his forehead, tuck it behind his ear, and trail her palm over his clean-shaven skin. “It’s okay, you needed a friend. Just please promise me you’ll never drink and drive again.”

He sighed and nodded, closing his eyes. It seemed he fell asleep when his breathing relaxed. She began to rise, but he said, “Thanks for being my friend. I know I don’t always say the right things—I actually say a lot of fucked up things. Maybe ‘cause you make it so easy for me to say anything.”