When you smile you show all of your teeth. I am drowning in admiration and the need to be devoured. We are sitting in the darkened backyard of the neighborhood party house, where I am watching you nestled in a huddle of tipsy girls, all leaning in close to talk. A pang of envy darts across my chest like a rabbit into the night. I am not the one who is making you laugh, so I pull my jacket together at the front, to keep my desire in. The night is hotter than it's ever run here, and I'm roasting alive in my denim but god I look good in this jacket. Good enough for you to look at me, to notice that, oh god the beer in my hand is sweating like crazy and I can’t stop myself from wiping my palms on my jeans. My jeans that are so noticeably wet now. This wouldn’t bother me at all if I hadn’t quit drinking, but I did, and it does. Even still, I grabbed the same thing you grabbed out of the cooler on the back patio, where the cans floated in their shallow river like fat silver fish. Did I think you would notice? Maybe it could be something we talked about later. I picture you walking across the patio toward me as if parting the sea. The vision of it lays over the current moment like a veil. A bead of sweat drips down the side of my neck and dips below the collar of my shirt, it feels like static. The night moves on, to an hour where voices pierce the air so sharply they explode like little fireworks dotting the yard. I sweat, unmoving, as empty and half-empty cups spring up around me like mushrooms. My beer remains full, and warm. The night in it's pressing heat drifts toward dreamlike, the humid air is so thick that I watch people move as if wading. Somewhere in a cluster of plastic patio tables a song is being played through a phone speaker, it crackles into the air, indiscernible. By now the yard is populated with a dozen white plastic chairs, most of them full of sweaty partygoers. Jes and his idiot brother are each trying to use entire chairs as shoes, wagering a bet on a race to the edge of the patio. Someone brings out the duct tape and secures their feet, someone else starts the race countdown as everyone in the half-moon formation joins in. I mouth along, afraid of my own voice. They knock an innocent nearby chair over onto its back, it's invisible occupant stargazing. No one will right it. Not tonight. Instinctively, I look up too. Across the dome of night the galaxy simulation is running. Jes wins. It's beautiful. I hate feeling lonely in places like this, so I close my eyes and try to absorb the chaotic buzz of being in the middle of a good time. I let it slip into my bloodstream, just a little, just to feel connected to something. The energy of it all. Or maybe the great vanishing of this moment, an hour from now when the grass is wet and dark and quiet, and I am just far enough away to not see the porch light has been left on. I hold on to what I can. I’m holding on so tight I can’t hear her calling me until she’s laughing at me from behind the veil. Finally, I am the one she bears her teeth for, and I can feel myself getting red, so red, about it. “So are you going to drink that or what? You’ve been holding it for an hour now” All I can think about is how she’s been noticing me, for an hour now at least. I start to ask if she wants it, but she’s already airlifting it out of my drenched fist, our hands wet together now. “Sorry, cooler’s empty” she says it so lightly, smiling. Across the lawn a group of dudes roars in unison as something goes up in flame. I can hear my own shaky laugh, and for a brief moment a ring of fire sits behind her head like a halo. The night is so hot, and I can’t look away.