The Night I Didn't Die (Socially)

My first house party freshman year, and I was already five minutes into a panic attack behind the laundry room door. The bass from whatever suburban trap song was playing thumped against my chest like a second, more judgmental heart.

"Yo, you good in there?" It was Marcus from AP Chem, holding a suspiciously bright red Solo cup. "You've been hiding like forever."

I straightened my flannel—because apparently this was my aesthetic now, even though I'd never worn flannel before October—and tried to look like someone who definitely belonged at Jessica Miller's rager. "Yeah, just needed a sec."

"That's bull," Marcus said, but he was grinning. "Come back out. Jay's about to do something stupid."

We walked into the kitchen where a literal bull of a senior—like, football-player beefy, not actually bovine, though the distinction felt blurry—was currently explaining the intricacies of whiskey to a rapt audience of freshmen who were definitely going to regret this tomorrow.

"Bro, I'm telling you," Jay slurred, "it's all about the bear. The BEAR. You gotta BEAR it."

I made eye contact with Marcus. We both lost it. Not in a mean way—okay, partially in a mean way—but mostly because Jay had been talking about "bearing down" or whatever for twenty minutes and nobody had the heart to tell him he was making zero sense.

Then Jessica's older brother walked in, and suddenly Jay wasn't the center of attention anymore.

"Running the show now, or should I come back later?" The brother asked, and everyone froze.

That's when someone accidentally knocked over a bottle of something expensive, and in the chaos of cleaning it up, I found myself next to this girl Maya who I'd been secretly crushing on since September. We were both wiping up soda with paper towels, neither of us saying anything, and somehow that was the most real interaction I'd had all night.

"This party's kind of a mess," she said, and I died a little because she was RIGHT.

"Yeah," I managed. "But it's better than studying for bio."

She laughed—an actual laugh, not the fake one she used when popular kids made bad jokes—and I felt something shift. Maybe it was the adrenaline from almost dying socially twice in one hour, or maybe it was just finally realizing that nobody else knew what they were doing either.

"Want to get out of here?" she asked. "There's a bear mascot costume in the garage and I kind of want to try it on."

I looked at the chaos of the party—Jay still pontificating about whiskey, the football players still holding court, everyone still performing for everyone else—and then I looked at Maya, who was already running toward the garage.

"Wait up," I said.

I didn't know it then, but that was the moment I stopped caring about being cool and started caring about being actually happy. Also, the bear costume was ridiculously comfortable, 10/10 would recommend.