Chapter 3 (Sera)

Leander and Caspian are watching when I return to the dance floor, their attention shifted into something quieter and more focused, the kind of watching that comes from people who notice when something has changed even if they cannot name the specific thing. Unusually for me, I do not mind it. I find it steadying. I lean into it instead of resisting it, and I let the music and Amara's laughter fill the space where the hurt was sitting.

We are dancing when it happens.

Amara spins beside me with her arms up, fully in her main character era, and then she is simply not there anymore. Gone from beside me, replaced by empty space, and I stumble sideways in my heels and round on whoever just pulled her away.

"What the hell," I say, to the broad back of a man who has just pulled Amara against his side like something he is in the process of reclaiming.

He begins to turn toward me.

I see Caspian and Leander move before I finish the thought. Simply there, flanking me, Leander a half step in front with his hands loose at his sides and an expression I have seen maybe three times in my life. The one that is very calm, very quiet, and very specifically dangerous.

"Finish that sentence," Leander says to the man, in a voice that is almost pleasant, "and see where the rest of your night goes."

The man stills. He and Leander lock eyes, and something passes between them in the air that has no name but is legible to anyone who grew up around people like us. A recognition of what each of them is capable of.

Then Leander's face changes.

The dangerous calm dissolves into recognition and genuine warmth, and Leander exhales a breath that sounds almost like a laugh, and the man mirrors the exact same exhale, and the tension in the air simply vanishes.

"Knox," Leander says.

"Leander," the man says. They embrace the way men who share real history do, and Amara is watching this reversal with the expression of someone who cannot decide whether to be relieved or exasperated, and I am watching it completely shook because this man who materialised from nowhere and grabbed my new best friend is apparently someone my brother genuinely likes.

Caspian wraps his arms around me from behind because I am listing slightly to the left and he clocks it without being asked, and rests his chin on top of my head while Leander and Knox catch up with the ease of two people who can skip every formality entirely.

"Your sister?" Knox says, nodding at me.

"Unfortunately," Leander says, which earns him a look he does not see.

"I panicked," Knox says, and when he glances at Amara the look he gives her is the most completely whipped thing I have ever witnessed in person. He is so down bad for her it radiates like heat. She is not his situationship. She is the main character of his entire story and it is written plainly across his face. "I saw how much she'd had and I just."

"It's fine," Leander says, almost amused. "Let's get these two some water and sit down."

We end up in a booth, the five of us, which is not the birthday plan I had in mind but which is probably better than the alternative given the current state of my legs. The booth is deep and red-cushioned and someone puts water on the table and I look at it with the resigned acceptance of someone who knew this was coming.

Knox has not personally apologised to me. I notice this. I file it. It is slightly petty of me to care, but I do care, and I am holding this for future reference.

"You're at my birthday party," I say to him across the table. "You owe me a present."

He looks at me for a moment. Then he reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket and what he produces and tosses across the table with zero ceremony is not what I am expecting.

A single piece of strawberry bubblegum, individually wrapped.

I look at it. For a long moment. Then something happens to my face that I do not plan, and I reach for it with both hands, and my heart is fuller than it has any right to be over one piece of bubblegum, because strawberry is the best flavour and this is the most unexpectedly perfect gift and I am not going to examine why simple things sometimes hit harder than expensive ones.

Caspian arrives with a full glass of water and sets it in front of me. Then he picks up the bubblegum.

"Drink the full glass," he says, holding it just out of my reach with the satisfaction of someone who knows exactly what leverage they are holding. "All of it. Then you get this."

"Caspian."

"Every drop, Serafina."

"My name," I say, with all the dignity I have remaining, which is not a generous quantity, "is Sera."

I begin drinking at the deliberate pace of someone who has accepted their situation but wants it noted for the record that they are not happy about it. Leander, apparently deciding this is too slow, reaches across and tips the bottom of the glass upward, and I pull back and water goes down my chin and across the front of my dress.

My black Prada dress.

The silence that follows belongs to me alone because everyone else at the table is making sounds indicating they find this funny, which they are categorically not permitted to find.

"This is Prada," I say, staring down at the wet fabric spreading across my lap. "Leander. This is my Prada dress."

"You always said you wanted a water park for your birthday," he says, deeply pleased with himself.

"That is not." I stare at him. "That is not funny. At all."

"It's a little funny," Caspian says quietly, from my left.

I turn the stare on Caspian. He does not look sorry. Amara is pressing her lips together. I accept this as a draw.

"My name," I say, to the table, to the universe at large, "is Sera. Not Serafina, not Seraphina, not Serpentina, not Seraphew. Sera. I have said this approximately one hundred times today and I will continue saying it for as long as necessary."

I take my bubblegum back from Caspian. I settle into the booth and listen to the others catch up while the music plays on without me. My dress is damp. My heels are off under the table. The weight of tomorrow is pressing closer than I managed to keep it all night, and I am too wasted and too tired to hold it at arm's length anymore.

I let it be there. Then I unwrap the bubblegum and put it in my mouth and the strawberry flavour is so bright and simple and good that I close my eyes for a moment and just taste it.