I used to love these parties.
 
The sun was just starting to go down, and the criss-crossing strings of lanterns around our terrace were glowing in their fire-orange glory above our heads. They look like fireflies, I heard my ten-year-old self say, and almost smiled. Almost. Glasses clinked cheerfully all around me, the buzz of polite conversation mingling with the dull thrum of cicadas in the background.
 
Suddenly, I felt a hand on my shoulder. Someone had found me at this empty corner table after all.
 
My best friend Tyler put a cold glass of lemonade in my hand and gestured to the center of the terrace, where most of the teenagers were either dancing casually or chatting with their friends. “Why aren’t you out there?” he asked, sitting down across from me without waiting for an invitation.
 
Automatically my eyes flitted over to where my mom stood playing hostess, just like every year. “You know why.”
 
He sighed. “Em, that was months ago.”
 
I slumped back in my chair and took a gulp of lemonade, wincing a bit as it burned my throat going down. I didn’t know who’d made it this year, but it wasn’t me. I used to make it better. “Doesn’t change anything.”
 
There was a short pause.
 
“Your outfit’s pretty lit,” he said after a moment, gesturing toward the short, blood-red dress and inky black heels that I’d chosen to wear tonight.
 
“Thanks. Serena says boys are subconsciously attracted to girls wearing red,” I said with a rueful laugh. My sister had told me that odd factoid while standing outside the dressing room at Target a few weeks ago, her plastic smile practically begging me not to embarrass her. I can remember the first year I was old enough to wear a “real” party dress like Mom and Serena wore. I think it was the summer after I turned twelve—god, that was a good year. I can remember my mom’s laughter as I twirled around the kitchen in a frilly lavender sundress, losing my balance, clumsy with excitement.
 
Do I look like a grown-up yet? I’d asked.
 
I can remember her shaking her head, giving me that smile that always made something inside me warm up a little. No, you still look like my little Emily.
 
The memory made me feel sick.
 
“It’s supposed to help me get a boyfriend,” I told Tyler now, jolting back to the present with a laugh that came from somewhere deep inside the queasy knot in my stomach.
 
He smiled ruefully. “Well, you’re doing great at that,” he said sarcastically. When I didn’t say anything else, he added, “Mia’s here. Did you see her?”
 
I shrugged.
 
“Liar. Go talk to her!”
 
A few months ago, I would’ve taken the dare eagerly—I’d never been shy. But now I shook my head without even thinking about it. “No way in heck.”
 
“Come on, why not?”
 
 “I should not have to explain this again.”
 
He glanced toward my parents. “It’s not like you’re forbidden to talk to anyone, right?”
 
I shook my head. “But…you know how they’ll look at me…” I resisted the urge to squeeze my eyes shut as the familiar wave of panic surged over me again, only slightly numbed by the few short months that had elapsed.
 
“So? You’re gonna let that ruin your life now?”
 
“No, Tyler,” I said insistently, trying to make my words convincing enough on their own, since I had no argument to back them up. “You don’t understand what it’s like.” The slightly petulant note in my voice only frustrated me more.
 
“Well, you have to go talk to someone.”
 
“I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”
 
“Besides me.”
 
My patience snapped suddenly and without reason, the way it sometimes did these days. I pushed my chair away from the table and was halfway across the terrace before I stopped to think, my high-heels clicking over the tiles with the proficiency that four years of practice had given me. The same tiles that my seven-year-old self had danced across in ballet flats, chatting to the neighbors about my plans of becoming a ballerina, and my ten-year-old self had played hopscotch on with Christina McKay from next door, listening to her talk about her crush on the boy who sat behind her in social studies…back before I was old enough to call the emotion I was feeling “jealousy.”
 
Don’t, I told myself, stalking through the brightly lit space, weighed down by the shadow that I constantly dragged after me. Don’t even think about it.
 
I walked to the refreshment table and ladled more lemonade into one of the shiny little cups. Shiny like Cinderella’s slippers, a six-year-old Emily whispered in my ear. I used to think we owned a million of these glasses. No matter how many people used them, they never seemed to run out. After the party, we’d always do the dishes together, all four of us…Mom would wash and Dad would dry and Serena and I would dash around the kitchen putting everything away in the cabinets. And we’d be laughing. That’s what I remember most, laughing.
 
I leaned back, my left hand resting on the refreshment table, and downed the lemonade like a shot. If I was lucky, I could avoid doing dishes tonight. My parents were used to me slipping off to my room as often as possible these days.
 
Uncalled for, the memory flared up in my mind again…of racing up to my room, slamming the door and leaning my forehead against it, gasping through the sobs that tightened my throat, hearing my parents climbing the stairs and trying desperately to lock a door that had no lock on it, waiting…
 
“Emily!”
 
My hand jerked and I almost dropped the lemonade glass. Instant guilt washed over me, and I did one of my lightning-quick conscience checks to see what I’d done wrong. But when I looked up, it wasn’t my parents. “Oh hey, Mia,” I said, and instantly straightened up, running my hand self-consciously through my hair.
 
She smiled, showing her delicate dimples and perfect white teeth. “Nice party,” she commented politely, ladling some lemonade into one of the glasses.
 
“Really? I mean, um, thanks.”
 
When I didn’t say anything else, she suddenly stepped closer and leaned toward me conspiratorially. She smelled like grape lollipops, and I felt my chest warm up against my will. Instantly paranoid, I wondered if my parents were watching, but I couldn’t make myself look away from her. Here I was, six inches away from Mia Hayashi, in front of all of our friends…
 
“So,” she said in an almost-whisper, so I had to bend even closer to her to hear her words, “I saw you talking with Tyler Mathers alone over there.”
 
Oh. “Yeah, he’s my friend,” I said, taking a step back to try to clear my mind again.
 
Mia cocked her head and gave me that little half-smile that melted my heart every single time. “Sure. But you’d be such a cute couple…I mean, just imagine that he asked you out…”
 
I almost laughed. Almost. Tyler wouldn’t ask me out, I wanted to say. But I didn’t. I forced myself to look away from her coffee-colored eyes and busied myself with the only thing my hands could find—more lemonade. “Don’t count on it,” I said, sipping the lemonade again.
 
“But you’re with each other all the time…everyone says you’d be so perfect together!”
 
“No, actually…” Don’t you dare tell anyone about…this, my mom’s voice hissed in my head. I bit back the words, knowing I could never tell Mia the truth. “Yeah…no,” I finished lamely, staring at my fingers through the bottom of my lemonade glass.
 
I could see her out of my peripheral vision, hovering there like a butterfly in her cloudlike yellow dress, starkly contrasting with the razor-sharp line of her black hair. Don’t think about it, Emily, I told myself again, as if that command would make me obey.
 
“This is delicious,” she said, raising her lemonade glass to her lips again. “Did you make it?”
 
I shook my head. “I think my mom did. Or Serena, or…I really don’t know, actually.” I’d been up in my room all day, my earbuds blocking out the familiar sounds of party preparations downstairs.
 
Mia smiled. “I wish my family had parties like this,” she said, glancing over to where her own mother sat, talking with a few other adults. “You’re so lucky.”
 
Ha! As if, I thought. “Yeah, um…” I felt a sudden urge to cry, to just let my guard down and tell her everything. She looked so pretty, her soft brown eyes reflecting a dozen different pinpoints of light, like stars swirling in a coffee brown galaxy. I shrank away from everyone these days, but something about Mia pulled me closer. Like if I just said something, she might understand.
 
I didn’t test it.
 
Instead, I mumbled, “I’m sorry…if you’ll excuse me…” and walked quickly away from her, forcing myself to leave the bubble of space around her that constantly drew me in. Three months ago, I’d convinced myself that someone else “might understand.” I’d ended up sprinting along beside this same fence at 4am, my too-long pajama pants constantly about to trip me up, feeling the cold air stinging the tear streaks that ran down my face and neck, my only thought to get away…
 
I wasn’t looking where I was going.
 
Until I collided headlong with the one person who I really, really didn’t want to talk to.
 
The lemonade glass slipped from my hand and shattered on the pavement, bits of broken glass sliding along the tiles like stones skipping across water. I took a few stumbling steps backwards to catch my balance, my ankle turning painfully in my high heel, and grabbed onto the fence behind me to steady myself.
 
“Emily! I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you there,” said my mom. She was laughing. Laughing.
 
That’s disgusting, her voice screamed in my head. Unnatural. I blinked, trying to see her smiling face in front of me without the overlay of an angry, yelling monster who had watched me sobbing, apologizing, begging for forgiveness, and continued to pummel me with words that hurt more than blows ever could. And now expected me to continue as if everything was the same.
 
“Emily? You okay?” Her voice sounded concerned now, and I realized that I hadn’t spoken a word yet. I was still clinging to the fence. Still afraid.
 
“Yeah!” I answered with a bright smile, forcing myself to meet her eyes without fear. “Sorry, just zoned out there for a sec.”
 
Even as I said it, I could feel my shoulders hunching up, my arms drawing closer toward my body. It was routine now, this constant urge to defend myself from them.
 
My foundation-caked cheeks felt puffy, still burned by three-month-old tears that had never washed away. I could still feel the way I’d stood, shaking inside my thin pajama shirt, my hands nervously twisting the overly-long sleeves into hard knots against my palms. Mom, I heard myself saying, my heart pounding in my throat, choking me, as if trying to prevent me from saying the words that I’d hidden for so long, I think I might be…
 
“Pretty nice night, isn’t it?” my mom said. “Warmer than last year.”
 
…gay.
 
I closed my eyes for a second, forcing the memory further down again, stuffing it deeper inside me. “Yeah, great night.”
 
I felt like I was swimming through mud to try to get to her, to get to anyone. I was trapped, as if my very thoughts had been replaced with the words they’d put there. Always in her voice. Always the same.
 
Are you just trying to get attention? Some kind of teenage rebellion? Who are you trying to fit in with? And, of course, their favorite: That’s not the way we raised you. Where did we go wrong?
 
I swallowed hard. She’s not mad at you anymore, I thought to myself. Everything is fine. But I couldn’t believe her, and I couldn’t believe myself either.
 
I opened my mouth to make some sort of excuse to leave, some reason to get me out. I was a pro at that. There was always a way to slip off and be alone.
 
But before I could say anything, my mom gestured to the broken glass on the tiles and said quietly, “I’ll go clean this up.”
 
Something in her voice sounded tired, weary, resigned. So different from how it had sounded a moment ago. I looked up and realized for the first time that she had shadows under her eyes like mine. Her makeup was smeared in one corner and her carefully curled hair was starting to deflate. She looked the way I felt, tired and hopeless.
 
I glanced down at the sparkling, oddly beautiful shards of glass and back up at my mom. She looked so exhausted, yet she was trying. This is as hard on you as it is on me, I realized with a jolt.
 
“No, wait, I’ll do it,” I said quickly as my mom turned to go. “You go…talk to your friends or whatever, I can clean this up.”
 
She turned back around. The look of surprise on her face made me burn with guilt as I realized that this was the only time in recent memory that I’d offered her my help.
 
“Thanks,” she said simply.
 
For a moment, I thought she was going to say something else—perhaps the apology that I longed to hear. But she waited a moment, her eyes holding mine, and then disappeared.
 
I turned back to the broken glass on the terrace and watched the shards reflect the party lights like a thousand shattered stars.