Page 18 of Find My Way Down to You

“We’re going to a party,” she says. “On campus.”

Absently, my fingers reach for the threaded bracelet on my wrist. A memory tries to pull me under. I scramble to find words to remind Max why Ican’tgo to UC Santa Barbara’s campus. Why I’ve avoided it for so long.

After reading my face, she hastily amends, “SB Statecampus. It’s a dorm party.”

My breath finds a normal rhythm. “Max,” I start, uninterested.

“We have to go. Lake will be there.”

A bright pink blush fills the apples of her cheeks.

“What kind of name is Lake, anyway?” I say with a sigh.

“Says the boy namedAugust.” Her lips purse. “I really like her. We have a cosmic connection.”

I roll my eyes. Leave it to Maxine Cho to have a crush-bordering-on-marriage a week into college.

“Auggie—” She places her mug on the coffee table. Her body twists to face me. “It’soneparty.”

“It’s never one with you.”

“After yesterday, we need this.Youneed this.”

Max smiles innocently. I could say no just like I did last night when Junie invited me out. I could spend another night curled in my bed, watching my blank walls as one day ends only for another to rip me off my feet like the tide.

But I can’t let her go alone. Max hasn’t spent much time on campus. Besides Lake, who else would she know? What if something happens? She’s all I have other than my parents.

I exhale a long-suffering breath. “Okay. But we’re not staying long.”

She nods. “Two hours.”

“One.”

Her lips slope downward. “One? That’s not enough time to get Lake a drink, flirt with her, map out our future together—”

“Make it enough.”

I stand. My shift starts soon. I still need to shower and catch the bus.

On the way to my bedroom, I yell, “One hour, Max, that’s all!”

Santa Barbara State is a sprawling campus. Not near the size of UC Santa Barbara. But it’s just as nice.

The property line stretches from the edge of Shoreline Drive where the ocean growls to a few miles shy of downtown. Milk-white buildings with tiled roofs as red as tongues pop up everywhere. Palm trees and thick-trunked eucalyptuses rise from the grounds.

I follow Max past the library. Along the winding path of academic centers. We cross the footbridge high above Loma Alta Drive toward the west campus, where the dorms are.

Noises hit me before we reach the second floor. Voices straining above the music’s hammering bass. The clink of beer bottles. Laughter echoing off the walls.

The smell is next. A cloud of sour sweat and citrus-sharpalcohol and cast-off furniture no one has ever bothered to clean.

“Don’t make that face,” Max warns.

“What face?”

“We’re here to have a good time, Auggie.”

“No.You’rehere to talk to a girl,” I remind her.