I sat on the counter, the cabinets digging uncomfortably into my back, while I sipped on a really awful blend of random liquors I had found around Kevin's apartment. My bare feet banged a painful rhythm into the wood below me as I swung my legs and observed the ongoing party from my post.

I waved off a guy who had detangled himself from the crowd and was making his way towards me. He flipped me off and sauntered away.

Charmer.

I continued watching the crowd through hazy eyes. People shifted like shadows in the murky lighting, fusing together and pulling apart. A kaleidoscope of nightmares.

Several couples were making out, oblivious to those around them. Boys hands wandered farther than they should've, but only a few girls smacked them away. The smell of weed drifting in from the porch made me gag.

I took another sip and gagged again, trying to remember what I had put into the cup. Kevin appeared at my side.

"How you feeling, Dash?" he asked. He had remained relatively sober tonight to make sure the party didn't get too out of hand.

"Same ole, same ole," I said. "Good party though," I added, gesturing towards the living room with my drink. It sloshed down the side and dripped between my fingers.

"Van's been worried about you the last couple of days," he said, handing me a dish towel. I twisted it around my hands.

"She's just being a paranoid friend," I said, chuckling.

"I know we don't know each other that well, and it's probably not my place, but just be careful. Take it from someone whose mom tried to use alcohol to escape her sister's death. Alcohol is the thing that makes time worse, not better." He patted my knee and walked away.

I stared down into my glass, feeling the familiar pressure build in my chest. I poured the rest of my drink into the sink next to me, placed the glass down carefully, and slid off the counter. On my way to the door, I grabbed my leather jacket off the back of a bar chair. My heels dangled off two fingers.

A male hand reached out from the throng, trying to pull me to his side. I elbowed him in the gut and he released me. Wrenching the door open, I slipped out as yet more people arrived, slamming the door on the deafening noise behind me.

Deep breaths, nose pinched between thumb and forefinger, I slid down the hallway wall.

"Get ahold of yourself, Dash," I said. If only Danny could see me now. He'd be so disappointed. "Why did they take you?" I whispered.

I thought about what Van had said that Danny was with me, watching over me. The same mantra my parents had told me to repeat to myself. But if anything, thinking that only made me feel colder. Danny felt a million miles away right now. He was locked in a pretty box underground where my thoughts would never reach him, where every day more and more pieces of him were lost, where every day less and less people thought of him.

It was all a bunch of crap.

I pushed myself up, wiped under my eyes, and made my way back to my dorm. I got to my door slightly after midnight, exhausted, leaden-foot, and stiff. A hair-tie on the door made me freeze in place.

I sent a silent prayer to a god I no longer believed in. Please, not tonight. The door remained stubbornly locked.

"Amber," I called softly, hating the rough scrape of tears in my voice. "Please, I need to get in."

The creaking of the bed and a muffled laugh was the only answer.

I knocked again, louder. "Amber!"

Nothing.

I kicked the door, biting down hard on my fist when my bare toes crunched in pain.

"Fuck you!" I yelled. I walked back down the hall, turning back only once to hurl my heels at the door.

Stars glittered coldly above me, mocking my earthly existence. Dew from the grass had already soaked into my back as I lay on the grassy quad, but I was past the point of caring. I used my pinky nail to trace constellations in the sky, making up my own when I ran out of the ones I could see. The moon was bright, flooding the college with a ghostly light.

In the distance I could hear parties' intent on carrying long into the night. The ground rolled slightly beneath me as though I was floating in the ocean; the alcohol leaving my body. Another wave of shame rolled over me as I thought about what Kevin had said.

I didn't want to drown Danny's memory in cheap alcohol, but my drunken reality was far better than my sober one. It was disconnected, weightless, how I felt now floating among a sea of stars just a little bit closer than usual.

A foot connected with my side and I yelped as a body crushed the air from my lungs. The person let out an "oof" as their face broke their fall.

"What the hell?" I shouted, trying to shove them off of me.

"Sorry," he said, pushing himself up so he could lift his legs off my torso. "What are you doing on the ground?"

I recognized that voice.

"Tyler?" I asked.

His phone light flashed in my face and I recoiled from the brightness. "Megan?"

I could smell beer on him, but he didn't seem drunk. He squinted at me in the light, taking in my wet clothes and tangled hair. His gaze traveled down to my dirty, bare feet. "Are you okay?" he asked.

I let my head rest on the ground again, folding my arm beneath me as a pillow. "I'm fine."

"So you're not fine," he said, crossing his legs beneath him, and looking down at me.

"What?"

"Every time a girl says 'I'm fine," it usually means the opposite," he chuckled.

"Well, I mean it. I'm fine."

He shrugged. "All right then, what are you doing out on the quad in the middle of the night?"

"Exercising my freedom to go where I want, when I want," I said, picking out the brightest star in the sky and focusing on it.

"Seems an odd place to employ that right," he commented, following my gaze upwards.

"Yeah, well I'm an odd person."

"Crazy maybe, a little tapped, but I wouldn't say odd," said Tyler. I caught his eye and he gave me a smile I didn't return. The moon cast his face in a weird light, where his eyes looked like volcanic rock, deep gray with a yellow light in the center. I shivered and looked away.

"What are you doing here anyway? Besides tripping over me."

"I was heading home, wasn't really in the party mood tonight."

I ripped up a handful of grass and let the breeze carry it away. "Me either."

"Wanna talk about it?"

"What makes you think I have something to talk about?" I tore out another handful.

"Are you always this warm and open, or is it just with me?" he asked.

My phone trilled in my pocket with an incoming text. I fished it out of my pocket to see a glowering accusation from Chris.

"Where are you? Vanessa said you left an hour ago and you're not in your room."

With a snort of disgust I threw my phone away from me. It landed with a muffled thump a few yards away. Tyler didn't say a word.

"So, what about the stars has you so captivated?" he asked after a minute.

I sighed. "I see them as the opportunities and dreams I have yet to reach, so staring at them gives me motivation," I said sarcastically.

"Really," he said thoughtfully. "I always thought they were just balls of gas burning billions of miles away, but I'm glad you can see them for a deeper purpose."

I turned my head, fixing him with a scathing look. It was hard to see him now that the moon had changed position. All I could see was his silhouette. "If you're going to be sarcastic at least be original, don't rip off lines from the Lion King."

Tyler burst out laughing, a deep, genuine body-laugh. It was contagious, and I found myself laughing as well, tears welling in my eyes and my lungs screaming for air. In a cliché stroke of realization, I couldn't remember the last time I had laughed like that. The sky and moon shook above me, joining in our joke. I sat up, trying to catch my breath.

"So why are you really out here?"

I wiped my face. "My roommate thinks the term "roommate" means her and another person of her choosing from the opposite sex."

"Ah, you've been sexiled," Tyler said, nodding slowly. "That means you're a fully initiated freshmen."

I half-heartedly punched him in the arm. "It's not funny."

"So, are you going to sleep out here then?" he asked, suddenly serious.

I shrugged. "I'm not really tired anyway."

He got to his feet, and offered his hand. "Let's go then."

"Where?"

"Well, despite the fact you seem to be sobering up, you are going to fall asleep at some point with the amount of alcohol still in your system, and I, being a nice person, am not going to let you sleep on the wet grass," he said formally.

"So we're going to your room?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Absolutely not!"

"My roommate's not here tonight, you can just take his bed."

"Then, I'm definitely not going."

"Why?" He seemed genuinely confused.

"Because I don't know you."

I could practically feel him rolling his eyes. "Look, Megan-"

"Dash," I interrupted automatically.

"What?"

"I go by Dash."

He didn't miss a beat. "Look Dash, if I wanted to get with you, I would've tried to be way smoother and you have known instantly. Just take the bed."

His hand was still out in an offer. A silver ring glinted on his middle finger of his right hand. I took it and let him pull me up. The calluses on his hand felt familiar.

"Fine," I said. "On one condition."

"Which is?"

I brushed past him. "You have to help me find my phone."

He started laughing again as he followed me.