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“Are you done, Veronica?” I asked.

She lifted her eyes to meet mine, slowly lowering her hand back to her side. “It depends. Are you done lying to everyone?”

The girls surrounding her all shared knowing smiles. They were all looking at me like they’d won. And I had to wonder if they had. Would everyone else at school share their opinion? Was I about to be outcast yet again simply because I hadn’t shared private details about my family?

“There you are!” Anna gasped, looping her arm through mine. I hadn’t seen her coming, but I couldn’t have been happier she was here. I didn’t tend to shy away from confrontations with Victoria, but I was feeling too broken to handle her right now. “We’ve been waiting for you to get here.”

Anna was grinning at me, but when she turned and saw Veronica standing across from us, her nose scrunched like she’d just been hit by a foul smell. “Geez, Veronica, did your dress shrink in the wash or something? Seriously, you’ve got to leavesomemystery for the guys.”

Veronica didn’t look even slightly bothered by Anna’s comment. “At least my clothes are clean.” Her eyes dipped to the mud staining the bottom of my white dress. “I guess you can take a peasant out of the village, but you can’t turn her into a princess.”

She didn’t give us an opportunity to respond as she turned on her heel and disappeared into the crowd with her friends trailing behind her. Anna growled and started after her, but I grabbed her arm, pulling her back.

“She’s not worth it.”

Anna let out a slow breath and nodded. “You’re right. We’ll go get drinks and let karma deal with Veronica.” She lifted her head to the sky. “Karma, if you’re listening, I’m pretty sure I saw some poison ivy on the path here tonight. If you could help Veronica trip into it, I’d really appreciate that.” She grinned as she turned to me. “Just think, she’s got all that exposed skin…”

I shook my head at my friend. “That’s brutal, even for you.”

“Eh, she deserves it.”

Anna took my hand and pulled me into the party. We wound our way through the crowd of dancing students to the other side of the forest clearing. There was a long drinks table set up near the makeshift dance floor, where Cress and Sawyer laughed as they drank shots.

Wes was there too, holding two bottles of beer. He turned as we approached and smiled as he offered me one of the bottles. “I was just coming back to find you. You like beer, right?”

“This is great, thanks.” I took the beer, but I didn’t take a sip. My stomach was swirling uneasily and I wasn’t sure if beer was going to help. Ever since my run-in with Veronica, a wave of nerves had hit me, and I felt kind of sick.

“You’re here!” Cress squealed, gathering me in a hug as she found me standing behind her. She was smiling so brightly, but the smile fell from her lips when she took a good look at me. “You look upset. Why do you look upset?”

I swallowed the lump that formed in my throat. I thought I was holding myself together quite well, considering. But Cress somehow seemed to sense something was off. I didn’t know what to say, and it felt especially hard when my friends were all looking at me, waiting expectantly. I didn’t think I could utter the words without breaking down, and that was the last thing I needed right now. All I wanted was to forget. So, I stole the shot glass out of Cress’s hand and knocked it back.

The liquor burned as it made its way down my throat, and I scrunched my eyes as I shuddered. I wasn’t a big fan of tequila, and I chased the shot with a sip of my beer.

When I opened my eyes again, I caught Cress wincing. “That bad, huh?” she asked.

“It must be something terrible,” Sawyer added. “She didn’t even have salt or lime with her shot.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said. “At least, not right now. Let’s just focus on having fun.”

Nobody pushed me to explain, and Sawyer happily handed me another shot. “Well, if you want fun, you’re going to need another one of these.”

I took the drink without complaint before dragging the girls onto the dance floor. If they had been worried about me before, they would only be more concerned now. I was absolutely terrible at dancing and normally did anything I could to avoid being dragged onto the dance floor. But tonight, dancing was the perfect escape. All I cared about was numbing the pain that radiated through me and fogging my brain so I could stop thinking about the boy who broke my heart.

I danced with the girls for song after song. And for a little while, I was able to forget why I was so damn miserable. But the pain never totally went away. My body grew tired, and my blood started to cool. The alcohol no longer ran hot through my veins, and the ache in my heart returned with a vengeance.

When it grew too much to bear, I left the girls on the dance floor in search of another drink. I wandered through the dancing crowd to the drinks table but hesitated when I reached it. As much as I wanted to numb the pain once more, I wasn’t sure alcohol was the answer.

“You okay there, newbie?” I looked up at Luther standing beside me. My body stiffened. Where Luther was, Noah wasn’t usually too far behind.

“I’m fine. Just searching for a drink.” I gave him a tight smile, trying to hide the tension I was feeling.

“You don’t look like you’re fine,” he said. “Then again, neither does Noah.”

I tried to ignore the way my heart leaped and then plummeted at his mention of Noah. “Oh, I didn’t realize he was here.”

Despite the resolve I’d felt when I’d told Wes we should come to the party, I’d been doing my best not to look for Noah tonight. It wasn’t easy, and I still found myself glancing at people on the dance floor or by the drinks table. My heart would skip a beat when I thought I saw him, but so far, there was no real sign of him.

“He’s not here,” Luther replied. “He refused to come tonight and went back to his room after the ball finished.”