A party with speakers that blasted loud music—rhythms reverberated throughout the floorboards, until they’d reach Ryan’s heart. If Ryan listened hard enough, he could still hear it sometimes.

He did not know the names of any of those songs, of course. They were from someone else’s playlist. But they made a lasting impression. Just like Ariel had, when she’d bumped his shoulder against hers, as they sat like old fools drinking on the balcony, which belonged to the party’s host.

It was too colourful inside that house. There were multi-coloured dots being thrown around once-bare walls by a projector that spun almost as quickly as the students, who’d just graduated, danced. Sweated tinged the air. It was still early. Barely midnight.

For some reason, Ryan felt like crying.

“Don’t make that face.” Ariel sighed. She took a sip of her drink. “We’ll all be hungover and sick by the time morning comes.” She laughed. “Enjoy it while you can.”

In that moment—when the wind had pushed Ariel’s dark hair away from her face, and the moonlight’s reflection gave her pupils a pure, white shine—Ryan was struck with the urge to kiss Ariel. She was staring at him, too, in the way that lovers often do, with smiles stuck to their lips like bubble-gum.

But he didn’t do it.

It didn’t feel right.

*

Ryan was never able to say why he hadn’t kissed her that night.

The next morning he wondered, if he would figure it out, later in his life.