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Between swigs of Beast, Sara bragged about losing two and a half pounds on the first day of her new lemon-water diet.

I needed to block out what was going on around me.

Another beer.

Then two more.

I was halfway through my sixth when I saw him.

Him.

Paul Parlipiano.

"JESUS CHRIST!" I screamed in Sara’s face, the way only an obnoxious boozer can. "IT’S PAUL PARLIPIANO!"

I clamped my hands over my mouth.

"OMIGOD!OMIGOD!OMIGOD! I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT!" screamed Sara, blowing my hair back. "YOU’RE IN LOVE WITH HIM!"

I clamped my hands over her mouth.

"SHHHHHHHHH …" I slurred. "You did not."

"I did too."

"You did not."

"I did too."

This went on in circles for a while, as drunken conversations tend to do.

"I’m just happy you’re not a lesbo," she said, finally, bringing the circle to a dead stop.

"You think I’m a lesbian?!"

"Omigod! Not me!"

"Then who? And why?"

"There has been talk, Jess," she said, "I mean, you’re a Jockette, and you haven’t so much as kissed a boy since you went out with Scotty in eighth grade."

"I have too!" I said, reluctantly remembering Cal. "I just didn’t tell you about it."

"Let me guess, he lives in Canada, right?" Sara said. "Niagara Falls area. I wouldn’t know him."

A nineteen-year-old computer genius/college dropout in Seattle didn’t sound much more credible. I didn’t even know what to say. I mean, me? A vagitarian?

"Hey, I’m the one who defended your heterosexuality, so don’t get pissed at me," Sara said with that all-knowing tone I love to hate. "I’m the one who pointed out to everyone how you faint dead away whenever someone so much as says the words Paul Parlipiano . So I did too know you were in love with him. I know it just like I knew that Manda and Burke were banging all summer, before I caught them.…"

Then she clamped her hands over her mouth.

Holy shit!

"Omigod! You can’t say anything!" begged Sara.

I was too stunned to say anything. Manda has been banging Burke all summer. Christ. It’s one thing to suspect the worst about someone. But it’s quite another for that low-down dogginess to be confirmed by a very reliable source.

"I promised Manda I wouldn’t say anything. And if Bridget finds out …" She started to hop up and down in a panic, much like I had moments before. "Omigod! Fuck! Promise you won’t tell Bridget! Or Manda! Or anyone! Omigod! Fuck!"

I looked for Paul Parlipiano. He was so beautiful. So pure. So … everything.

"Jess! Swear you won’t say anything!"

I needed to see him.

"I really don’t want to think about this right now," I said, meaning every word with the kind of conviction that only copious amounts of alcohol can bring. "Because Paul Parlipiano and I are at the same party for the first time ever and …"

I was silenced by the sight of him. There he was, not ten feet away, sitting cross-legged in the sand, sipping his beer, carrying on what seemed to be a perfectly intelligent convo with a Trekkish geek …

YESSSSSSSSS! HE’S NOT WITH A GIRL. Paul Parlipiano is confident enough with his own popularity to hang with a herb. That makes him ever so endearing. And approachable, I thought. Or I might have said this all out loud. I’m not sure. This is where my alcoholic amnesia starts to kick in. All I know is that my beer-buzzed brain started babbling about truths that I would have never believed had I not been under the influence of mind-altering chemicals. Not that drinking is an excuse for what happened.

Okay. It is an excuse. But it’s a lame one.

Fate brought me and Paul Parlipiano to the same suck-ass beach party.

He’s leaving for college—it’s my last chance EVER to tell him how I feel.

If I don’t tell him, I will live in agony, then die alone.

I must tell him.

"Excuse me," I said, brushing by Sara, who was still begging. "I have a life to live."

And thus began what is by far the most horrendous chain of events in my young, semitortured life.

I remember checking out my appearance in the side mirror of a car parked nearby.