Surviving High School

of Never Have I Ever before she faced the party again. She walked to a door in the middle of the hall and, hoping it led to a bathroom, turned the handle.
    The door opened into a large, dark room. The only light came from the far wall, where a faint blue glow from a projector stretched over a large, empty space. As Emily took a step toward the light, a burst of green and yellow spread across the wall in the shape of her body, and she looked back to see a camera hooked up to a computer and pointed in her direction.
    Emily jumped up and down, and the colors on the wall swirled, copying her movements. She waved her hands, and bursts of red and violet sprouted from her projection’s fingertips. She couldn’t help but smile. She leaned left and right, watching her image change colors and move in sync with her body. She started twirling, the poofy bottom of her dress floating around her like a parachute, and her image glowed bright white. On the wall, the edge of her skirt became a golden circle surrounding her like a ring of Saturn.
    “Kind of geeky, huh?” said a voice from behind her, and Emily turned to see Ben in the doorway. Rather than the night’s standard guy outfit of dark jeans and a T-shirt, he wore pajama bottoms and a Golden State Warriors jersey, as if he were ready to crawl into bed. She stopped twirling, felt her skirt settle back down around her thighs, and watchedher projection fade to a cool green. Unfortunately, the room continued to spin as a wave of dizziness passed over her.
    “I, uh, thought this was a bathroom,” said Emily, leaning on a nightstand to steady herself. She stifled an urge to jump out the window. Couldn’t she go five minutes at this party without completely embarrassing herself?
    Ben smiled. “Well, I hope you figured out your mistake before you did anything regrettable in here. It wouldn’t be the first time someone at one of my parties mistook this for the bathroom.”
    “Don’t worry,” said Emily. “All I did was dance like an idiot.”
    “Don’t be too hard on yourself. You were pretty graceful, and your dress generated some really cool visuals, like it was on fire or something. Of course, I might happen to know a few tricks you don’t.” Ben stepped forward into the camera’s field of view, and his image joined Emily’s on the wall. “Watch this,” he said as he raised a hand and snapped his fingers. On the wall, a shower of sparks fell from his projection’s fingertips as if a firework had exploded in his hand.
    Emily raised her arm into the air and unsuccessfully tried to snap her fingers. She felt her face glowing red for what had to be the thousandth time tonight—embarrassment was becoming her default setting.
    She wondered if Ben had heard she’d never kissed a boy. Even if he didn’t know yet, he would by the end of the night. She imagined Spencer leaning over and whispering the news in Ben’s ear—and Ben trying to stifle a laugh as he realizedher inexperience. Her skin glowed even redder, as if she were a strawberry Tootsie Pop or cherry Popsicle. At least it was dark in here.
    She tried to snap again. Total silence. Ben looked up at her fingers, amused.
    “Wait,” he said. “You do know how to snap, right?”
    She tried again, pressing her fingers together as hard as she could, but the only noise she made was the soft rubbing of skin against skin.
    “I, uh, don’t know how to whistle, either,” she said.
    “It’s not too hard,” said Ben. “Here, you just put your thumb against your middle finger like this—”
    He took her hand and laid her fingers against each other. A few moments passed before he seemed to realize he hadn’t let go, and he quickly drew his hands back as if he’d burned them on a hot stove.
    “I, er, yeah, like that,” he said, taking a step back and smiling a little too wide.
    She tried to snap again, and a faint popping sound echoed through the room. A tiny shower of sparks appeared at her image’s fingertips on the wall.
    “Not bad, Kessler, not bad,” said Ben.
    “This is pretty cool,” said Emily. “What is it? Like, a Wii or something?”
    “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just ask that,” said Ben. “I actually designed this myself. See, the camera I set up over there sends a feed to my computer, where some software Iwrote transforms the image, then sends it to that projector on that shelf.”
    “Huh,” said Emily. “So you do use your brain for purposes other than hacking student