Carrie clutched my hand and yelled, “Run!”

We booked it away from the cops but ran into a wall of screaming, panicking teenagers. Utter chaos.

“EVERYONE HALT!” a loud voice boomed over a bullhorn.

And what did Carrie and I, obedient-to-the-end idiots, do? We halted. My palm was sweaty in Carrie’s hand. My other hand …

“OH MY GOD!” Carrie and I yelled simultaneously. We had both noticed that I was clutching my now-warm beer in my other hand. We looked at each other frantically for a second before one of the cops walked up to me.

He flashed a light directly on the drink in my hand.

I almost fainted. Oh crap, oh crap. THE ONE TIME!

“How old are you, young lady?” he asked.

Tears instantly filled my eyes. “Um, fifteen.”

Carrie stammered, “Sh-she was just holding it, I swear. We were just leaving!”

The cop shushed her and grabbed the beer from me. “Both of you, come with me.” No handcuffs necessary, both of us followed meekly.

We heard people yelling from inside the house and saw other kids being dragged out. Other kids who were way more drunk than I was. If you could even call me that. I was sniveling, clutching Carrie’s hand. She was patting my back and whispering, “It’s okay, Holly. I mean, they can’t arrest everyone. We’ll be fine. We’re clearly the good kids.”

As we approached the car, we heard David calling out our names. I turned to see him and some other guy sprinting toward us.

“You stop right there, kids!” the cop bellowed, and they slowed down to a trot. David called out, “Officer, they’re my friends!”

“He is, he’s with us,” Carrie said. I was mute. I didn’t know how to talk anymore.

The officer rolled his eyes. “Whatever.” We waved him over.

“Are you guys okay?” David asked, out of breath.

“No,” I finally said between sniffles.

“Um, Holly was holding that stupid beer….” Carrie pointed to the bottle sitting conspicuously on the hood of the cop car. The cop was writing something down on a clipboard. What could he possibly be writing about? “Two fifteen-year-old goody two-shoes followed me to my car and now I have to pretend to be doing something.”

David looked at me anxiously. “What’s going to happen?”

“I’m going to jail.”

“You are not going to jail, Holly, geez,” Carrie responded. But she didn’t sound very convinced herself.

I examined the dark-haired guy next to David. He had on black-framed glasses, a sweater pulled over a collared shirt, skinny black jeans, and was nervously tapping one of his Chucks. He looked a little familiar. “Who are you?” I asked, more rudely than I had intended.

He looked panicked for a second, and before he could answer, David said, “This is Alex Garcia. We had bio together last year…. I ran into him earlier when the cops came.”

“Hi, Alex! I’m Carrie,” she said, practically shoving me aside.

“H-hi,” he stammered. He avoided looking at her, and at me, for that matter.

“I’m Holly,” I muttered, watching the cop out of the corner of my eye.

“Yeah, I know,” Alex said nervously. “I mean, not that I know you but I know your column and stuff. It’s … it’s great.”

I looked away from the cop for a moment. “Really? Oh … cool. Yeah, um, maybe I’ll write a column about this?” I tried to laugh. He laughed really hard in response. Carrie not-so-subtly elbowed me in the ribs. I ignored her.

The cop finally looked up from his furious scribbling. “All right, I can tell you guys don’t usually do this type of thing. You seem like good kids, so I’m not going to report you.”

A huge swell of relief washed over me. Carrie grinned and whooped. “Thanks so much, Officer. You don’t even know.”

“You can just keep the thank-yous to yourself, missy. I am, however, going to call your parents. You should not be out drinking at your age.”

Oh. Please take me to jail instead. PLEASE!

After getting our phone numbers, the officer started making calls. I slid to the ground and went numb. I was dead. Beyond dead. My corpse had already been eaten by maggots and I was now their poop helping decompose the earth around my casket. David and Carrie sat down next to me, and that Alex guy just stood there awkwardly.

The cop called Carrie’s parents first and handed the phone to her after breaking the news to them. From Carrie’s side of the conversation, I could tell that her parents were concerned but not necessarily mad. Surprise, surprise.

David’s parents did some yelling, and he held the phone away from his ear. Then he muttered his good-byes and said he would be home that night.

“And you, kid, what’s your parents’ phone number?” the cop asked Alex. Alex looked as scared as I felt. He stole a quick glance at us and mumbled something. The cop put his hand up to his ear and said obnoxiously, “I can’t hear you, son!”

Alex spoke up. “I don’t … have parents. You can call my grandmother but you’ll have to speak Spanish.”

The cop cleared his throat loudly. “Well, there’s no need for that, I guess. Let’s just move on to the young lady here.” Meaning me.

The world went into slow motion. I saw the officer talking but couldn’t hear anything. Oh my God, did I just go deaf? I looked desperately at Carrie, who was watching the phone call intently. The officer scowled and handed the phone over to me.

“It’s your mom. Good luck, kid.” He grimaced. I shook my head frantically and his eyes widened. “NO,” I mouthed. I’d rather face the wrath of this cop than my mother.

Finally, Carrie grabbed the phone.

“Hi, Mrs. Kim, it’s Carrie. Everything’s okay so no need to worry.”

I could hear muffled yelling from where I was sitting.

“Yes, we are so sorry. She’s so sorry. No, I don’t think it’s a good idea to talk to her right now. But we’re safe. Liz is going to drive us home. No, nobody is drunk. Holly wasn’t drunk. She just … It was bad timing. Yes, I’m sorry. Yes, my parents know. Yes, we’ll leave right now. Good-bye. Huh? Oh, okay. Yes, bye.”

Carrie handed the phone back to the officer. “Can we go now?” she asked, barely disguising her impatience. He waved us off.

“I’m going to text Liz,” David said, pulling out his phone.

“What did she say?” I asked Carrie fearfully.

She took a deep breath. “Um, just a bit of ‘Are you crazy? You are liars and bad, bad kids. You should have been arrested to learn your lesson. Get home now. You are in huge trouble.’ And so on.”

“Trouble” didn’t even begin to come close to what was awaiting me at home.

“Thanks, Carrie.” I was never more grateful for my most loyal friend.

She gave me a hug. “You’re welcome. Don’t worry, everything will be all right.”

I started to cry into her shoulder, not caring that Alex was watching.

David walked over to us. “Um, Liz says she’ll meet us at the car.”

I nodded miserably. “Sorry, guys. Sorry I dragged you into this.”

“Oh, please, you didn’t drag us into anything. We wanted to come. At least we had our end-of-year adventure, right?” Carrie said good-naturedly. She punched David when he didn’t say anything.

“My parents weren’t that pissed. They’ll get over it. So … no worries.” He shrugged.

That was super comforting. Not. I caught Alex staring at me, and when I met his gaze he blushed and turned to David. “Well, I’m glad everything’s good with your friends. I’m, uh, going to head back now.”

“Cool, dude. See ya,” David said with a wave.

When he was out of earshot, Carrie interrogated David. “Well, who was that? Why have you been hiding such a cute friend from us?”

“Uh, maybe because you’re crazy and I don’t want you embarrassing me,” David said while walking quickly toward the car. Then he glanced at me. “Besides, I think he’s into Holly.”

Both Carrie and I stopped in our tracks. “WHAT?” we asked in unison.

But he wouldn’t elaborate. Carrie basically climbed up onto his shoulders trying to get him to talk. “What do you mean? Tell us! You can’t just say that and walk away!”

I jogged to catch up with them. “Yeah, did he say something?” I momentarily forgot about the death sentence awaiting me at home.

David let out a frustrated noise. “I knew I shouldn’t have said anything to you nutjobs! GOD. SO ANNOYING!” He wriggled out of Carrie’s death grip.

He stood there for a second, and I couldn’t understand why he looked so angry. Then he looked straight at me. “Do you remember anything about … a secret admirer?”

Carrie gasped. My jaw dropped and my heart started pounding. I’d forgotten all about the valentines — it had been months and I gave up trying to figure out who it was after that awful conversation with Daniel.

“What … is he … did he?” I asked, my heart pounding in my ears.

David looked injured. “So it’s true?” I had never told David about the valentines, and now I felt bad for keeping him in the dark. Before I could explain, he continued, “Anyway, he cornered me when I left you guys on the deck and kind of … confessed. I guess it was him?”

Carrie screamed in delight at the same moment we walked up to the car where Liz was waiting with Matthew Reynolds.

I looked at them, then at David and Carrie, then thought about my mom waiting up for me … and ran into the bushes and threw up.

“Oh my God, how much did she have to drink?” Liz asked with concern as she ran over to me and rubbed my back. I pushed her off. I didn’t want Liz’s mature nurturing right now. I just wanted everyone to leave me alone.

“I’m fine. I’m not drunk,” I said, straightening up. There was no way I could even look in Matthew’s direction. I just walked straight to the car and got inside. I closed my eyes and tried to doze off.

* * *

When I walked through my front door, I was exhausted and so unprepared for what awaited me. And what was it exactly that I walked into? I kid you not, it was my mom bonking me over the head with a plastic hanger. If I wasn’t so shocked, I would have laughed.

“Mom!” I screeched, batting the hanger away.

“You.” Bonk. “Are.” Bonk. “A.” Bonk. “LIAR!” Bonk.

“Stop!” I whined, running away from her.

“You drove up to LA?! You LIED to me?! AND THEN! The POLICE called me? Do you know what I was imagining happened to you?!” she screamed rapidly in Korean.

At this point, Ann came into the living room. “Mom, stop!” she pleaded. The only time my sister and I ever teamed up was when our mom was yelling at one of us.

Mom stared murderously at my sister. “You stay out of this. Or you’re next!” That shut Ann up, but she stayed in the room.

“I can’t trust you anymore! Look what’s happening to you! You’re not the same daughter!” Mom cried.

For the umpteenth time that week, I felt the tears rising. “I only lied because I knew you wouldn’t let me go!”

“OF COURSE I wouldn’t! WHO WOULD? Only a bad parent!”

“You mean like Carrie’s parents?” I yelled.

“They’re American. They don’t count. What Americans do with their children is up to them. You are my child! You follow my rules!”

I saw red. “YOUR RULES ARE CRAZY!”

My mom threw the hanger down and said calmly, “You are grounded. For the entire summer. You will only leave the house for family events and SAT school.”

“Fine! Whatever!”

Her shoulders slumped, and for a moment I thought I had gone too far. Before I could try and remedy the situation, she turned on her heel and stomped back to her room and slammed the door.

I sniffled, holding back my tears as best I could. My brain couldn’t digest anything from tonight. Ann stood by me, awkwardly trying to console me. “Sorry, I tried to calm her down but she threatened to kill me.” A little laugh escaped between my sobs.

“Where’s Dad?” I finally asked.

“He went to hang out with our uncles. He got laid off,” she said sadly.

“What? It actually happened?”

Ann nodded and looked like she was on the verge of tears. This was when my big-sister instincts kicked in. I tried to smile and sound reassuring. “It’s okay, Ann, we knew it was going to happen. Mom and Dad have a plan. We’ll just have to try and be more helpful.”

Her eyes were still watery but she swallowed and appeared to feel better. “Okay.”

Be more helpful. I felt a wave of guilt. While I was drinking beer at a stupid party in LA my parents had probably been stressed out over the layoff. Maybe my mom was right — I was turning into a bad daughter.

I walked down the hall toward my parents’ room, standing outside the closed door apprehensively. I knocked once, lightly. “Mom?”

There was no answer. “Mom?” I called again, a little louder. Still no answer.

I cracked open the door to see the room dimly lit by a bedside lamp, my mom sitting on the edge of her bed on the phone.

She was speaking in Korean, in a voice I recognized as one reserved for her parents. “I know…. It’s going to be fine…. No, the girls will be fine, too…. I know…. Okay. Yes … I know, we should have thought of these things ahead of time…. You’re right.” I heard defeat in her voice, and she looked so small sitting by herself on the king-size bed.

Maybe I wasn’t the only one who let her parents down all the time. I let a few seconds pass after she hung up the phone. “Mom?” I said cautiously.

She held her head in her hands and her voice was muffled when she said, “Holly, I don’t want to talk about this any more until your dad comes home. Go to bed.”

I walked in and sat down next to her. “I’m sorry. Sorry I lied.” I swallowed. It was really, really hard to say these words to my mom. I was always trying to prove she was wrong about everything.

My mom was silent for a few seconds before she said in a tired voice, “Okay.”

I started crying. “No, I really am sorry. I shouldn’t have done it. I’m sorry. I’ve just been so … frustrated and mad!”

Surprisingly, all the stress from the last few weeks seemed to lift off my shoulders with those words. It had been a long time since I cried to my mom about anything.

She stroked my hair. “I know it’s hard. It’s okay, Holly. It’s okay.” And while there was a world of things that could be said between us, those few words managed to keep us both afloat for that night.

* * *

“Oh my God, did you see how tacky Gretchen’s earrings were? I mean, where does she think she is, Riverside?”

I stared at the TV. I was about to throw the remote control into the face of one of the cackling witches on The Real Housewives of Orange County when the doorbell rang. Thank God! Rescued from reality-TV hell.

No one else was home so I ran to the door. “Who is it?” I called.

“Your mom. Here to beat you up with a coatrack,” David’s muffled voice said from behind the door.

I swung it open to see Liz, Carrie, and David standing on the doorstep. I recoiled against the sun. “Ugh, I haven’t seen daylight in two days.”

“Well, we’re here to bring the sunshine back into your life,” Carrie said optimistically. She whipped out something from behind her back and presented it to me.

I looked at it and squealed, “Beatles Rock Band?!”

“Yup, landed in my mailbox today.”

“But, I don’t have Rock Band,” I said, puzzled.

Liz and David looked at each other, then stepped apart, revealing the entire Rock Band instrument set — including drums.

My jaw dropped. “Dude.”

“I brought my set over since you’re spending your entire summer watching — is that Real Housewives?” David asked with disgust, peering over my shoulder.

I rolled my eyes. “Yes. Kill me now. There’s nothing on TV.”

“Oh man, then let’s switch it to ESPN. The X Games are coming on soon!” David exclaimed.

“Fine by me!” I said, happy to finally have some company. We carried all the Rock Band gear into my living room, where I had been camping out for the first couple days of my wonderful summer vacation.

“So, you’re allowed to have us over, right?” Liz asked, plopping down on the sofa.

“Yeah, I’m just not allowed to go anywhere. Ever,” I said dully.

Carrie waved her hand dismissively. “Whatever. Your parents never really ground you. They always feel bad eventually and cave after a couple weeks.”

“True. But this was the most pissed my mom’s ever been! My summer is going to be hell. I can’t believe I was dreading junior year. School seems like a freaking gift from the gods now.”

Liz’s phone beeped and she pulled it out to read a text. Her eyes flew up to look at me.

“Is that Matthew?” I asked.

Liz smiled uncomfortably. “Yeah.”

During the last couple weeks of school, Liz and Matthew had started talking and hanging out. It was still a little awkward between Liz and me because of it, but I was dealing with it. If Liz was into him then who was I to say anything? I really had no right to be upset about anything — it’s not like Matthew had ever liked me. And Liz had been really sensitive about it, asking me if it was okay. I felt stupid, giving her “permission” like some jilted older sister from a Jane Austen novel.

Now that summer had started, they were spending more and more time together. And I guess texting each other constantly, too. Oh well. I just hoped she didn’t start hanging out with his lame friends.

Plus, I had other concerns on my mind. Like Alex. Who I hadn’t heard a peep from, or even seen at school since the party. And David refused to bring him up again. Carrie, Liz, and I had spent hours speculating and reliving those valentines until I was seeing love letters whenever I closed my eyes. What kind of secret admirer admitted to their love and then just vanished? Was David making this up?

“I’m going to get us some ice cream,” I said, walking into the kitchen.

As I was reaching for my favorite seafoam-green bowls, David walked in. “Hey, can I have some water?” he asked.

“Of course. Help yourself.”

“Cool.” He opened the fridge for the pitcher of water.

As he poured himself a glass, something David had said earlier hit me. “Wait! Did you say you wanted to watch the X Games on TV?” It just occurred to me what day it was.

David nodded. “Yep.”

“You’re not going anymore?!” Clearly, I had to give up my ticket because I was grounded, but David had never mentioned not going himself.

“Nope.”

I stared at him. “What are you talking about? Did something happen to your ticket?”

“Nah. I just decided not to go after all,” he said, shrugging.

This was like a crackhead saying no thanks to crack. Who was this person?

“WHAT? How come?!” If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought that David was blushing. “Weeeeell?” I pressed.

He cleared his throat and tried to answer nonchalantly. “Because. I didn’t want to go alone.”

I stared at him again. “But you could have given my ticket to someone else.”

He sighed. “Holly. Get over it. I’d just rather play Rock Band with you guys today.”

“Huh?”

“I think … it’s important.” And with that, he walked out of the kitchen.

I blinked once. Then twice. What was happening to my life? I went back into the living room with the bowls and spoons.

“Ice cream?” I asked. They all scrambled over to me, shoving each other to get to it first.

Well, some things don’t ever change, I guess.