And it’s nothing, really, or might be nothing, or ought to be nothing, as he leans his head forward to press the tip of his cigarette to the car’s lighter. It sizzles on contact, a sound particular to its brief moment in history, in which cars have lighters and otherwise sensible fifteen-year-olds choke down Marlboro Reds and drive their mothers’ Buicks without so much as a learner’s permit. There’s a girl he wants to impress. Her name is Misty Zimmerman, and if she lives through this night, she will grow up to be a magazine editor, or a high school teacher, or a defense lawyer. She will be a mother of three or remain childless. She will die young of ovarian cancer or live to know her great-grandchildren.

But these are only a few possible arcs to a life, a handful of shooting stars in the night sky. Change one thing and everything changes. A tremor here sets off an earthquake there. A fault line deepens. A wire gets tripped. His foot on the gas. He doesn’t really know what he’s doing, but that won’t stop him. He’s all jacked up just like a fifteen-year-old boy. He has something to prove. To himself. To Misty. To his sister. It’s as if he’s following a script written in Braille, his fingers running across code he doesn’t understand.

“Theo, slow down.” That’s his sister, Sarah, from the backseat.

Misty’s riding shotgun.

It was Sarah who tossed him the keys to their mom’s car. Sarah, age seventeen. After this night, she will become unknowable to him. The summer sky is a veil thrown over the moon and stars. The streets are quiet, the good people of Avalon long since tucked in for the night. Their own parents are asleep in their queen-size bed under the plaid afghan knitted by one of their father’s patients. His mom is a deep sleeper, but his dad has been trained by a lifetime as a doctor to bolt awake at the slightest provocation. He is always ready.

The teenagers aren’t looking for trouble. They’re good kids—everyone would say so. But they’re bored; it’s the end of summer; school will resume next week. Sarah’s going into her senior year, after which she’ll be gone. She’s a superstar, his sister. Varsity this, honors that. Bristling with potential. Theo has three years left, and he’s barely made a mark. He’s a chubby kid whose default is silence and shame. He blushes easily. He can feel his cheeks redden as he holds the lighter and inhales, hears the sizzle, draws smoke deep into his lungs. His father—a pulmonary surgeon—would kill him. Maybe that’s why Sarah threw him the keys. Maybe she’s trying to help—to get him to act, goddamnit. To take a risk. Better to be bad than to be nothing.