CHAPTER 2

**CHAPTER TWO** **THE CELEBRATION** **ALLISON'S POV** The last file uploaded with a quiet click. Someone at the back of the room let out a whoop, and then the whole class started talking at once. Chairs scraped. Phones came out. A few people clapped like we’d just finished something bigger than a group project. I sat there for a second with my bag already on my lap. Weeks of meetings, late nights, shared documents, and polite arguments over slide fonts were finally over. I should have felt lighter. Instead I was already doing the math in my head. Visiting hours. The bus. Whether I still had time to pick up the prescription before the pharmacy closed. Whether there was enough in the account to cover it without moving money around again. “Alli.” Ruby dropped into the seat beside me like she’d been waiting for the exact moment I started planning my exit. She looked put together in the way she always did—hair done, lipstick on, a jacket that actually fit her instead of hanging off her shoulders the way mine did after a long week. She smelled like the perfume she’d worn since we were sixteen. “You’re not leaving yet,” she said. “I was going to check on my mom and then go to work.” Ruby made a face that was almost sympathetic. “You always do that. The second anything’s finished, you’re already halfway out the door thinking about the hospital. It’s been a year, Alli. One night isn’t going to change anything.” People nearby were already talking about food. Someone mentioned the barbecue place two blocks off campus. Cheap plates, loud tables, the kind of spot students went when they wanted to feel like they’d earned something. Ruby hooked her arm through mine before I could stand. “Come on. You submitted the thing. You can sit down for two hours and eat like a normal person. I’ll even pretend I don’t notice you checking the time.” I almost said no. The word was right there. Then she squeezed my arm the way she used to when we were younger, before everything got heavier, and I let her pull me up. The restaurant was already half full when we got there. Warm air. Smoke from the grill. Plastic baskets of fries and sauce-stained napkins. Our classmates pushed two tables together. Someone ordered pitchers. I sat near the end and told myself I would have one drink and then go. The first few minutes were easy. People talked over each other. Someone laughed too loud. A basket of ribs landed in the middle of the table and disappeared faster than it should have. For a little while, it felt like what Ruby said it would be. A normal night. A finished project. Nothing hanging over the table except food and cheap drinks. I normally didn’t drink much. Tonight I did. It wasn’t even a decision so much as a slow slide. Every time someone filled a glass, I didn’t stop them. The beer was cold and a little too sweet. After a while the tight feeling behind my ribs loosened. I laughed at a joke I wouldn’t have found funny two hours earlier. I wanted to forget. Mom’s condition. The hospital bills. The debt. Work. Everything I had been carrying for the past year. I became slightly drunk. Not wasted. Just loose enough that the numbers in my head stopped lining up as neatly as they usually did. Ruby noticed. She watched me over the rim of her own glass, smiling like she was proud of herself. “Look at you,” she said. “I was starting to think you’d forgotten how to do this.” “I’m just tired.” “You’re always tired.” She reached over and tapped my glass with hers. “That’s what I’m saying. You let it control everything. The accident. The hospital. The way people look at you after they remember.” A couple of people nearby were still talking. Not all of them were listening. Not yet. Ruby kept going, her voice still light. “I just wish you’d stop acting like you’re the only one who had a hard year. People feel sorry for you without you working so hard to remind them.” The table went quiet. Everyone looked at her. Ruby’s eyes widened like she had only just heard herself. “That came out wrong. You know what I meant. I’m worried about you. That’s all. You’ve been running yourself into the ground since the accident. I don’t want you to look back and realize you never let yourself breathe.” I stared at the condensation on my glass. I didn’t want an argument. I was slightly drunk and emotionally tired, and the last thing I needed was a scene in a restaurant I should not have come to in the first place. “I’m fine,” I said. I wasn’t, exactly. I also wasn’t going to unpack it in front of everyone. A few minutes later I pushed my chair back. “I need air.” Ruby started to stand. “I’ll come with you.” “I’m good. I’ll be right back.” She hesitated, then sat down again. Outside, the night was cooler than I expected. Music leaked through the restaurant door. A couple of people smoked near the corner. I walked a few steps down the sidewalk and stopped under the awning, breathing in and out until the spinning in my head slowed. That was when I saw him. Charles Woods was standing a little apart from the others, one shoulder against the brick, a cigarette between his fingers. Everyone on campus knew who he was. Handsome. Wealthy. Brilliant. Charming. Polite. Confident. Seemingly perfect. He had a very good public image. The kind of person people expected to see at the center of a room, not alone outside a barbecue restaurant with smoke on his fingers. He noticed me. The moment he realized I had seen him, he dropped the cigarette. Stepped on it. Got rid of it like it had never been there. Then he turned to me and gave me a sweet, harmless, charming smile, as though I had seen nothing unusual. “Hey,” he said. “Needed a minute too?” I looked at the ground where the cigarette had been, then back at his face. “Do you smoke?” He tried to brush it off. “Not really. Just one of those nights.” I studied him. I wouldn’t have done that if I had been sober. I was more blunt than I normally would have been. His smile looked perfect. His eyes didn’t smile. “Your smile is fake.” Charles went still. Surprised. Not angry. Just caught off guard, like nobody usually talked to him that way. People accepted the image he presented. They didn’t look past it. He didn’t become dramatic about it. He didn’t lean in or stare at me like I had changed his night. He just looked at me a second longer than he needed to. Quietly interested. Curious, maybe, because I had noticed something most people didn’t. “Most people don’t say that,” he said. “Most people probably like the version they get.” A short breath left him. Almost a laugh. “That’s one way to put it.” “Is there another way?” “Usually people just smile back.” “I already told you that one looks fake.” His mouth twitched. “You’re blunt when you drink.” “I’m blunt when I’m tired. The drink just made it louder.” “Fair.” He glanced toward the door, then back at me. “Congratulations on the project.” “Thanks.” “You don’t look like you want to go back in.” “I don’t.” “Then I won’t tell them where you went.” It stayed easy after that. A little playful. Nothing heavy. He didn’t ask about my life. I didn’t ask about his. We stood there in the cold like two people who had accidentally ended up in the same quiet spot and didn’t need to make it mean more than that. Then the alcohol caught up with me. My stomach turned. I tried to move away. I didn’t make it in time. I vomited on Charles’s expensive coat. For a second neither of us moved. “I’m sorry.” I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. My face burned. “I didn’t— I’m so sorry.” Charles looked down at the stain. His jaw tightened. Then it smoothed out again. He didn’t explode. He didn’t raise his voice. His reaction stayed controlled, the way everything else about him seemed controlled. “It’s all right,” he said. “It happens.” It did not look like it happened to him often. The restaurant door opened behind me. “Alli?” Ruby’s voice. Then a pause. She saw all of it at once. Me. Charles. His ruined coat. She recognized him immediately. Surprise crossed her face first. Then something sharper. Allison, of all people, standing alone outside with the guy everyone knew. It was gone almost as soon as it appeared. She approached carefully. Not loud. Not cruel. Just close enough to take over the moment. “What happened?” I closed my eyes for a second. “I drank too much,” I said. “That’s what happened.” Ruby looked from me to Charles. “I didn’t realize you two knew each other.” Charles glanced at the coat, then at me. “We don’t,” he said. “Not really.” No one moved to fix it. The music from inside kept going. A car passed on the street. I stood there between my best friend and Charles Woods, slightly drunk, embarrassed, and very aware that the evening had stopped being simple. It was still just an awkward situation. That was enough.