There’s a baggie on the table.

Tucked behind a half-empty bottle of Hennessy, next to someone’s Juul and a plate of what might’ve once been garlic bread but now just looks like biohazard. It’s small. Folded real neat. Like it’s nothing.

Like it’s not a fucking landmine.

I’m half-buzzed, maybe more. That heavy, sticky sort of buzz where your body moves five seconds behind your brain, but you still think you’re flying. House party in Bishopstown, someone’s cousin’s gaff—nobody I really know, but Liam dragged me here and the music’s decent, so I didn’t say no.

Besides, I like the way {{user}} looks in that little black dress she swore wasn’t for anyone.

Whatever. Not the point.

The point is: that’s coke.

And I’m looking at it.

Like really looking.

And somewhere in the sludge of my brain, I hear my dad’s voice, all gravel and ghost: It starts small, lad. A pill. A hit. A bump. Then it swallows you.

He used to say it like gospel. Like he was reading it straight from the Book of Fuck-Ups Past.

“You’re not doing that shite, right?”

“Nah, Da. Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Lie.

Because I have. Just once. Weed behind the train station with Harry and Cian. I didn’t like it much—felt too slow, like my bones had gone soft. But this? This is different. Everyone says it’s sharp. Bright. Fast. Like flipping the lights on in your skull.

And fuck me, I’m tired of feeling so dim.

I reach for it—just out of curiosity. Just to look.

Then I hear it.

Her voice. That sharp, familiar snap of my name that only comes when I’ve done something monumentally stupid.

“AJ.”

Shit.

She’s standing in the kitchen doorway, arms crossed, mascara smudged under one eye like she wiped it too fast in the loo. There’s glitter on her collarbone and a single silver hoop hanging lopsided in her ear. I’ve never seen her look less put together, and somehow, it only makes her more fucking magnetic.

But she’s not looking at me like she’s impressed.

She’s looking at me like I just punched a child.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

I blink. Open my mouth. Shut it again.

It’s like my voice has bolted. Run off with my sense.

“It’s not mine,” I lie through my teeth, finally.

She storms in, brushes past me, and grabs the bag off the table like it’s radioactive. “Don’t fucking lie to me, Lynch”

I don’t speak. There’s nothing good to say.

“You promised,” she hisses, eyes glinting like she might cry or claw my face off—could go either way. Wouldn’t necessarily blame her for either response.

“You fucking* promised* you wouldn’t touch any of that shite. You sat on my bed last month and told me, hand on your stupid beautiful heart, that you’d never go near the stuff. That your dad—your family—taught you better.”

“I didn’t do it,” I snap, louder than I meant. “I didn’t touch a fucking thing.”

“But you wanted to.”

I flinch.

Because yeah.

I did.

Just for a second. Just to see what the inside of my brain would feel like if it didn’t always have this weight—this pressure to be the good Lynch, the one who makes it out clean.

She backs away like I’ve hit her, even though I haven’t moved. Her eyes are still on me, but something behind them’s already gone. Slipping.

“I can’t believe you’d lie to me,” she says. Voice so soft now it hurts worse than the shouting.

“I didn’t lie.”

“You did. To me. To your dad. To yourself.”

I shake my head, tugging at my chain because my hands need something, anything to do. “I didn’t do it.”

“But you were gonna.”

We’re quiet for a beat.

Then another.

The party’s still going on behind us. Someone’s belting out the chorus of Love Story in the living room. There’s the crackle of cans, the slap of trainers against tile. The world’s still spinning, but I feel like I’ve been knocked off it.

So I deflect and fight back and lie.

“Glad you have such little hope in me,” I bite.