Party Night

POV: Silver Preston

Deleting Leona's message should have felt like freedom.

Instead it leaves me feeling raw and exposed, like pulling off a bandage before anything underneath has properly closed. Every buzz of my phone for the rest of the afternoon makes me flinch. My body does not seem to understand that I am the one who ended the conversation.

Which is exactly why, when Americus bursts through our dorm room door that Saturday night holding two sequined dresses like she is leading a cavalry charge, my first and only instinct is to pull my blanket over my head.

"Party night," she announces, with the energy of someone declaring a national holiday. "Hockey house. End of first week celebration. Everyone will be there."

"Then I definitely should not go."

Americus holds one of the dresses against me without asking permission, tilting her head with the critical assessment of someone who considers this a professional skill.

"You cannot hide in this room forever, Silver. This is Yale, not a witness protection program."

"I am not hiding. I am recovering. There is a difference."

She puts the dress down and sits on the edge of my bed instead, which is somehow more dangerous than the dress.

"Come on. I will be there the whole time. Social navigation, color commentary, emergency exits. I have done this before."

Riley glances up from her laptop.

"You do not have to go if you genuinely do not want to."

I point at her.

"Thank you."

"But," she continues, in the tone of someone who is about to be annoyingly reasonable, "it might be good to do something that is not class, the dining hall, or this room. Normal college things."

"Traitor."

She almost smiles.

Americus leans forward.

"You know who will be there."

My stomach does something complicated.

"That is a reason to stay home."

"It is a reason to wear something that is not a Yale hoodie for the first time since you arrived."

She is already at my closet before I finish processing the sentence.

The hockey house sits three blocks off campus on a side street near Ingalls, and we can hear it from half a block away.

Bass heavy music pulses through the pavement. Light spills from every window across a front lawn where clusters of students stand in the October cold with red cups, shouting conversations over the noise.

Americus walks toward the entrance like she is leading a military operation.

I follow because I have apparently agreed to this.

Riley walks beside me at a measured pace that suggests she is here in a supervisory capacity and has made peace with that role.

Inside, the hockey house is exactly what I expected and somehow still more overwhelming than I prepared for.

The hardwood floors are sticky. The music comes from speakers that probably cost more than my textbooks combined. The walls vibrate with it.

Yale Hockey jerseys hang alongside team photos and a massive Yale Bulldogs flag covering most of one wall. Vintage wooden sticks are mounted above the doorframes. Someone has arranged team photos in rough chronological order going back what looks like decades, which is either tradition or the result of a very organized person living here at some point.

My pulse kicks immediately into the rhythm I associate with pre-competition corridors.

Too many people. Too many eyes. Too many conversations I would have to navigate without giving anything away.

Americus materializes at my elbow with a red cup.

"Here. Blend in."

I take it. Smell it immediately.

"This smells like it could strip varnish."

"Exactly," she says, already turning back toward the crowd like this is a completely satisfying answer.

She disappears into the room with the ease of someone born to every social situation.

Riley stays close.

"You do not have to drink it," she says. "Just hold it. Prop."

"Prop," I agree, gripping the cup and edging toward the wall.

I focus on manageable details.

String lights taped in approximate lines across the ceiling. The distant sound of what is probably beer pong coming from somewhere deeper in the house. A group of guys near the stairs arguing about something with the particular intensity of people who care a lot about something that does not matter.

Normal. Ordinary. A college party, not a competition arena.

No one is looking at me.

No one here knows my name.

The knot in my chest eases by a fraction.

I scan the room the way I have been unconsciously scanning every room since I arrived at Yale, checking sight lines, identifying exits, cataloguing who is present.

Old habit.

Leona trained it into me at competitions. Know your environment. Know where the cameras are. Know where the exits are.

That is when I see him.

Eli Hayes stands across the room with his back against the far wall, holding a cup loosely in one hand. Dark hoodie. Relaxed posture. The particular quality of stillness he carries everywhere, like he is always the calmest thing in any given space.

He is not participating in the party so much as observing it.

I recognize that too.

Then I clock the girl standing in front of him.

Tall. Brunette. The kind of effortless confidence that comes from never having had a reason to doubt herself. She is leaning closer to him than the noise level of the room actually requires, laughing at something he apparently said.

Something I cannot hear from across the room.

Her hand comes out and rests against his arm.

Lightly. Casually.

Like it is the most natural thing.

My stomach drops.

I do not understand the reaction. Cannot explain it to myself with any logic that holds up. He is my literature partner. I have had approximately four conversations with him, most of which I spent trying to end as quickly as possible.

I have no claim on how he spends a Saturday night.

But watching her hand on his arm hits somewhere specific, like finding out a bruise is deeper than you thought.

My grip tightens around the red cup.

The plastic begins to give under the pressure.

Around me, the party continues exactly as it was. Music. Laughter. A hundred separate conversations going nowhere in particular.

And I stand against the wall with a cup of something that smells like bad decisions and stare at a boy across a crowded room like I am not absolutely certain I should not care about any of this.

The cup cracks slightly under my fingers.

I loosen my grip before I crush it entirely.