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I laugh, letting her pull me deeper into the crowd before something occurs to me.

“So are you actually from here?”

Mina makes a face immediately like I’ve personally offended her.

“Oh god no. I’m from Tampa.”

“Florida?” I ask.

“Unfortunately.”

I laugh while we squeeze through a crowd of people dancing beneath hanging neon lanterns.

“My parents still live there,” she continues, taking my hand again before I get swallowed by the crowd. “Big family. Loud family. Older brother, twin brother, parents with extremely aggressive expectations about what my life should look like.”

“Oof.”

“Yeah. Apparently running away to beach raves and surviving exclusively on vodka Red Bulls wasn’t part of their vision board for me.”

“Shocking honestly.”

“I know. Really blindsided everyone.”

I snort while she grins.

“So I left,” she says with a shrug, like it’s that simple. “Came out here trying to get away from all the pressure for a while. Then I met Brynne.”

Something softer slips into her expression at that name.

Not sad exactly.

Just real.

“She introduced me to all this,” Mina says, waving vaguely at the stages and lights and chaos around us. “The raves. The music. The parties. She said if you’re gonna self-destruct, you might as well do it somewhere pretty.”

Jesus.

That sounds exactly like something my sister would say.

And weirdly?

Hearing stories about Brynne from someone who actually knew her feels less painful here somehow. Easier to carry beneath all the noise and lights and chemicals flooding my bloodstream.

Mina bumps her shoulder against mine lightly.

“She loved this shit,” she says. “Said it made her feel free for a few hours.”

The bass drops hard enough to shake the beach beneath us.

I look around at the flashing lights, the screaming crowd, the feeling of everything inside me finally going quiet for once.

And yeah.

I think I understand exactly what Brynne meant.

Somebody shoves a drink into my hand while dancing past and I accept it immediately because apparently my survival instincts officially packed their shit and left sometime after the second pill hit. If I even ever actually had them.

Mina notices immediately.