Pre looked from Brissa to Angeli and back again.

Oh, she thought.

"Bibi!" Angeli cheered. "There you are! I've been looking everywhere for you!"

"Yeah, I can tell," Brissa said with a raised eyebrow, eyes flitting between Angeli and Pre. She seemed to decide something and her gaze settled on Pre. "Pre, I guess you’ve met my ranked partner, Angeli Obaya?"

"Ah- yeah! Yes. We've met." Pre fumbled for words, unsure of her footing in this conversation. "I… didn't know she was your promised though."

For Angeli's part, she seemed increasingly unfazed by the whole conversation. Whatever she took was kicking in. Her eyes were drifting from side to side, following some imaginary wonder.

"Funny," Brissa said, "how nobody ever seems to know that."

This caught Angeli's attention again. Her giant pupils focused on Pre, then Brissa, as if only just now noticing that they were both standing there.

"Wait…" she mumbled, pointing at one and then the other. "Wait… how do you two know each other?"

"I think the real question is how do you know Pre? I know for a fact that you don’t speak to anyone under Silver, and Pre isn’t even ranked!”

That felt like a trap, but not one for Pre. Brissa was staring hard at Angeli. Her aura felt sharp and cold, but brittle. Like a frosted pane of glass, ready to shatter at any moment.

With childlike speed, Angeli’s mood went from ethereal to petulant. She flung her arms out in exasperation. "I don't know, Bibi! I know lots of people. Pre is… is…" she gestured vaguely, trying to find an explanation that wasn't there.

But she didn’t need to explain. "Yeah. I know what Pre is,” Brissa said.

It felt wrong to stand there and say nothing. Pre wanted to step in, to defend her newfound friend, shield her from hurt like Brissa had done for her all night. But Pre was frozen, sadistically entranced by this exchange. She watched, dumbfounded, as Brissa unclasped the gold band from around her wrist.

"Enough is enough,” Brissa said. “If you can't keep your promise, then there's no point in me being promised to you."

"No, Bibi- Brissa, no- don't, please! Please, Brissa, we can work it out. Don't do this!"

Her panicked pleas had no effect on Brissa. Her face was etched with determination as she put her thumb on the fingerprint identifier inside the band. She held it up to her lips and said clearly, "I, Brissa Payton, hereby remove Angeli Obaya as my ranked partner."

The gold faded from the band, reverting it back to a dull piece of plastic. The band on Angeli's wrist did the same.

Angeli crumpled to the ground. "Briss- Brissa," she gasped out, clutching at Brissa's bellbottom jeans. "Why- no. How could you? HOW COULD YOU?" 

But Brissa wasn't listening. She stepped out of Angeli's grasp. "Goodbye Angeli. Hope your next ranking is better for you." Then she strode away, leaving Angeli in a puddle of golden silk on the floor.

She passed by Pre and asked, "you coming?"

They made their way to one of several bathrooms on the main floor. Instead of stalls, there were tiny rooms, each with their own toilet, sink, and mirror on the back of the door. They squeezed into one and Brissa locked the door.

“I’m such a tick!” she yelled, hitting the closed door with both hands.

“Hey, Brissa, no…”

“Yes! Yes I am!” She sat on the closed toilet and pulled a vape out of her purse. “I can’t fucking believe her,” she said around a cloud of cotton candy-scented vapor. “I’m sorry you were there for that. You probably think I’m so tacky, breaking a ranking in the middle of a party.”

“No, Briss, I’m the one that’s sorry! I didn’t know Angeli was promised to anyone. She didn't say anything about it when we, uh…”

“Tested?” Brissa snorted. “Well why would she? I was the one who wanted to promise. She said she did but it never felt like she meant it. And then… things got harder when I started shifting…”

Oh, Pre thought again, another realization sliding into place. Shifting was a fairly standard procedure nowadays, totally funded by Connext at Bronze tier and higher. It was a lengthy process, and certainly not easy to go through physically or mentally, but it wasn’t a huge scandal like in the Prequel times.

“Is Angeli… not ok with it?”

“Of course she’s ok with it. She's not some neanderthal Prequel.” She exhaled a long, angry plume of vapor, fogging up the mirror.

“It’s just that we’ve only been ranked partners for a year. I mean, I was a goner the moment I met her. She was so… vibrant. I didn't even need testing to tell me that we had something special." It sounded well-rehearsed, the classic meetcute story. But it was warped now, a story about something past rather than something present. 

"We got Gold," Brissa continued, "and that was it for me. I never needed an elite rank. All I wanted was to share my life with her, maybe raise some kids since our ranking was good enough. I didn't care about the rest." She paused, looking down at her now-empty wrist. "I thought she felt the same way. Maybe she did, for a while."

Neither of them said anything for a while. Pre waited while Brissa filled the tiny area with too-sweet vapor.

“She was so supportive when I started shifting," Brissa said eventually. "She said she wanted to meet me for real, when I was fully me- mind, soul, and body . But when I started to shift, and she started to see me as my true self, I think that's when she realized that she wasn't living her truth."

Pre was nodding, already recognizing what Angeli's nature must be. “She’s a climber.”

Because of Connext, there were all kinds of different relationship structures in Toran. There were ranked and unranked relationships. Some people wanted to promise monogamy to their partners while others preferred to keep things loose. Relationships ranged from polycules to platonic-based ranked relationships.

But a lot of people were climbers- people who continued dating and testing outside of their ranked relationship in the hopes of getting a better ranking. They never promised, never committed to anything past the baseline needs of a ranked relationship. It wasn't as common when Connext first launched, closer to the Prequel days. But over the past decade, climbers had become more and more prevalent.

Sighing loudly, Brissa tucked her vape back into her purse and leaned back against the wall. "Yup. A successful one, too. You know she was a Bronze before we met? Was even living with her ranked partner. They were both climbers though so it wasn't a big deal when she promised me and left him." 

Then, finally, a sob escaped from Brissa as the shock and nicotine wore off, and the reality settled in. Pre dropped into a crouch beside her, feeling helpless as she wept.

"Brissa," she said, holding out a hand, "I'm probably the absolute worst person to be here comforting you right now. I've never had a ranking, let alone a ranked partner. And I'm drunk. And me and Angeli-" she stopped, realizing that probably didn't need to be mentioned now, "ah… you know. But," she forged ahead, full-force, "that's not the point. The point is that you're amazing. Like, really, truly amazing. I'm so sorry that this happened to you, because you deserve so much better. And now you get to go on and be fabulously gorgeous, and Angeli will forever be sorry."

Without a word, Brissa flung her arms around Pre's neck and cried into her shoulder. "Oh, hex, Pre! I know all that. I just fucking miss her!"

The anguish in her voice brought tears to Pre's eyes. What must it be like to love someone so much? Even after they lied, cheated, and hurt you? She didn’t know, maybe she never would. But she still held onto Brissa for a long time, crying with her for everything they lost but never had.