Eva's mind went back to her teenage years, to parties in a farmer's barn or in the house of a school friend whose parents were away, which she'd sneaked out to while her mother was on the late cleaning shift. Music, dope, dancing, s*x, glorious escape for one night until the bleak, claustrophobic reality of her life seeped back in with the breaking dawn the next day.
She smiled, soaking in a bath of warm nostalgia. These were her people. Her tribe. This could have been her apartment and her party if she hadn't met Charlie. And it could have been Charlie's as well, if he hadn't had the relentless drive to slough off the past like dead skin and create a new self. She tried to imagine his reaction if he were here now. He would have refused to come inside the house, probably wouldn't have got
