Hazel
Maya lasted about four minutes before the crowd swallowed her whole.
One second she was beside me heading toward the drinks table and the next she had been pulled sideways by someone who called her name and that was it. She went without looking back. I watched her disappear into the room and thought about the very specific promise she had made at the door.
Stay together. First rule.
That had lasted less time than it took to get here.
I found the drinks table on my own. Someone had set it up along the far wall — bottles, cups, a row of things I was not going to touch. I stood at the end of it and looked over what was there and asked the guy behind it for a lemonade. He poured it into a cup and handed it across.
One of us needed to stay reasonable tonight. Knowing Maya, she was a
