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Julie, one of the Appleton twins, takes a toke off the bong. She is freckled and blond with eyes like green grapes, and she's crazy about Elroy. Terry knows that Elroy is getting it from her, but he just can't get his mind around that fact. It is too awesome an experience to imagine, kind of like going to the moon. The day Terry got the cast cut off his rebuilt hand, Julie wrinkled her nose at the way the index finger was pushed over to where the thumb used to be. "Yech," she had said. "What if it falls off?"

Julie passes Terry the bong. Terry waves it off. Sometimes pot hits him funny, makes him feel paranoid and estranged; he can not afford to melt into a miasma of self-pity. He doesn't want anything to taint the hard clarity of his rum.

The rum goes down easy with Coke.

"It's a bummer your cancer came back," Elroy says.

Terry can hear the wick sucking oil in the silence. They want to hear the story. He's not sure he can tell it without crying. He takes a gulp of warm rum and Coke.

"Yeah," he says. "It sucks man."

Elroy takes a deep toke of the bong, holds his breath. He exhales. "Hey," he says. "Tinkham's wife is preggers."

"Who told you that?" Julie says.

"No one," Elroy says. "I can just tell." Elroy has changed the subject; Terry is grateful.

The conversation gallops along for a while until Troll says, "Shhh!" They fall quiet. There's definitely some rustling in the woods. The crack of branches sounds closer and closer; the four partiers in Room C sit like baby animals in a den. There is a knock on the door.

"Hey," says a sotto voice from outside. "It's me. Miller."

Elroy unlatches the door. "Dickhead," he says. "Call out when you're coming, man. You caused some serious consternation in here."

"Sorry," Miller says. He's got a head of curly hair punctuated with a sharp nose. "Babs and Bobby are right behind me."

Terry can hear more thrashing in the woods. He scoots over to make room. Babs and Bobby are sophomores who seem to be queer on each other. They duck into Room C, settle into the cushions. Babs' nose is bloody.

"Babs, what's up?" Elroy says.

"Nothing," he says. "I'm OK."

"Bull," Miller says. "Idiot ate a whole bottle of aspirin. Fifty pills."

"What?" Julie is concerned; Babs is the younger brother of her best friend, Liz. Julie dabs at Babs' nose with Kleenex. "Babs," she says. "Why?"

Babs begins to cry; tears and a thin line of blood trickle down his pale face. Terry feels rage. Maybe it's the rum, but he can't contain it. He stands as tall as he can in the cramped shack. He casts a hunched shadow on the tapestries. "You wanna kill yourself? You wanna die? I'll help ya." If it weren't so tight in there he'd start swinging. "I'll trade places with you moron. I'll trade places." Terry snatches his rum and his Coke; he has to leave before he cries.

It's cold on the marsh. It looks like an early frost has settled on the marsh grass, bleaching it white, though it might be a trick of the moon. He can smell the tide and the sweetness of salt hay. Nobody has followed him out of Room C to see if he's OK. Terry tips his pint and drinks the rum straight, watching the bubbles gurgle in the bottle through the white moonlight. He exhales, his breath visible in the cold. How many more? he wonders. How many more good, clean breaths? He inhales deeply, holds it; exhales, luxuriates in the working of his lungs. He remembers what his grandmother said on her deathbed, dying from lung cancer: "It's like breathing through a straw." He drinks again. Easy, he thinks. Be cool. Ain't no use getting all bummed out now. You gotta enjoy what you got while you've got it. He hides the bottle in his waistband, picks up the thread of a trail winding through the brush. He approaches the shoulder of Route 1, sees headlights sweeping down this long, straight stretch of dark road. He thinks about rushing out there, sticking out his thumbless hand to bum a ride, seeing where it takes him. Knowing how way leads on to way, it would be fun to tap into that, just go where the rides and roads take him. Instead he hunkers down into the brush, hiding in case it's a teacher. He resolves right there to finish high school because he has never pictured himself as a dropout; dropouts are quitters and he will not be a quitter. He waits until the road is dark and he dashes across to his dorm.

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