"I can't believe I had to come with you just so you can drink in peace," Clara remarked as she opened the door.

She had said it with a smile, and Giselle beamed. "What? I needed an excuse to get you out of the house," she said. "You never go to the good parties anymore!"

"What can I say? I'm an old lady now." Grinning, Clara made her way through the dorm building, following the distant beat of the music. "Spending the night at home with my laptop and my headphones is fun too."

"Uh huh."

"Plus, I don't have time for hangovers." A few people from Giselle's school greeted them, and Clara greeted them back even though she had never seen them in her life. "They've made me turn into a boring adult before I even turned twenty-one."

Giselle let out a gasp. "You're giving up on parties before you can legally drink?"

"What? Illegal drinking was more fun anyway."

Giselle stared at her, then she groaned, and Clara smiled like a self-satisfied cat. She knew exactly which stories Giselle was remembering right now: all the parties they had gone to in their teenage years despite not being technically allowed, with someone's adult friend-of-a-friend smuggling in alcohol, not once getting caught. Not even the time they'd made their way into a club with fake IDs Clara herself had made mostly to prove that she could, only to stumble back out at three in the morning resolving to never try that again.

"I still can't believe you helped us get away with all of that," Giselle muttered, accepting a plastic cup from a girl she seemed to know.

Clara's smile widened. "What?" she replied. "No one ever suspects this face."

"Just so you know, you're looking like a real gremlin right now."

"A gremlin who'll be hogging the snack table all night," Clara remarked, helping herself to a paper plate and piling on as many chicken wings as she could get away with. "So if you want a ride back, you know where to find me."

Giselle sighed, but she nicked a wing off Clara's plate and pressed a quick kiss to her cheek before stepping away. "Try to live a little," she said. "I know you have to stay sober, but still."

Smiling back at her, Clara tried to shove a whole wing into her mouth before realizing just why that was a bad idea. "I am living," she said.

"Yeah, yeah. Try to talk to some people," said Giselle, winking. "Maybe you can even meet a cute guy? Or a cute girl," she added after a moment's thought. "Or a cute non-binary person. Whatever works for you."

"Who knows," Clara answered, but deep down she had already made up her mind to spend this party being as lazy as possible. New people? No, thank you. The past couple weeks had more than proven that she really didn't have time for that right now.

~ ~ ~

"I hate it here," Freddie muttered under his breath.

He had no idea what had possessed him to agree to follow the others to this party, but he was regretting it already. Not that he minded crowds, or loud music, or all the drinks and chaos that normally came with parties. No, he loved all of that. But he loved it with people he already knew, people who liked him, who wouldn't judge him if he got too loud and annoying or did something stupid. Parties with dozens and dozens of complete strangers who probably wouldn't like him, on the other hand, were his own personal hell.

From a nearby portable speaker a song was blaring, too loud in Freddie's anxious ears and too overwhelming. He didn't know the lyrics. All around him people he only knew from sight were gathered in groups, talking, joking, facing only each other and ignoring the world around them. No one approached him. He didn't dare try to push his way into any of the circles either. Where the hell was Theo? Theo knew his way around these types of events, but he had lost him in the crowd, and now he had no idea how to find him again.

Great. Just great. He didn't want to be here.

From one of the circles, a girl briefly glanced in his direction, then turned back to her friends to chatter and giggle. Freddie resisted the urge to shrink away. They're not laughing at you, he reminded himself. Even if they'd have a reason to. He was well aware of how stupid he looked, standing there all alone like the socially awkward loser he was, the DIY band shirt Theo had made for him sticking out like a sore thumb among their cool, quirky outfits. Of course they'd laugh; people like them always laughed at people like him. He didn't belong here. And they knew that as well as he did.

Should he get a drink? Probably for the best. Where were the drinks? He should ask someone with a plastic cup where they'd gotten it from, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Should he get food too? No, he wasn't calm enough to eat. Just a drink. Or many drinks, enough to stop panicking over what people thought of him and humiliate himself in peace.

If he found them in the first place, anyway.

"Still sober?" said a voice behind him, and Freddie's panic collapsed in on itself like a house of cards. Dylan. Thank goodness.

"Too sober," he replied, unable to keep his face from lighting up with relief as he turned. "Where did you go? I already thought I'd have to survive this party on my own!"

Laughing, Dylan shoved a plastic cup into his hands and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, yanking him down into a stumbling side hug. "I can't believe you still need a babysitter, bro," he said. "Where'd you leave Nakamura? I thought he was doing the job."

"Theo? I don't know," Freddie replied. "He was there one moment and gone the next!"

Dylan cackled. "That asshole," he said. "His loss, though. Wanna show him how much fun we can have without him?"

Untangling himself from him, Freddie drained the whole cup at once and beamed. Suddenly this building full of strangers was a lot less intimidating.

"I'm ready now," he said, raising his empty cup towards the ceiling. "Let's go!"

~ ~ ~

As far as Clara was concerned, this party was going just fine.

Not that she was doing much. On the contrary; she had pretty much set up camp on the floor near the snack table, helping herself to food whenever she liked and chatting with anyone who happened to come by. Every so often Giselle would check back in, looking more and more displeased with her still sitting there as the evening went on. Personally, Clara was comfortable. She understood why Giselle was worried about her holding herself back too much, but there was really nothing to worry about; for the moment, she was quite content just sitting here and soaking up the atmosphere.

The evening went on. Clara's paper plate sat forgotten on the floor beside her, her eyes drifting around the room. People still kept coming by, increasingly drunk now, their chatter mingling with the muffled beat of the music into a hazy background noise. It felt like sitting in a crowded square on a summer evening, watching people and traffic pass her by while she stayed in the same place, taking in her surroundings without truly registering anything.

But through the dreamy haze of the voices and music, something finally caught her attention.

At first it was just a sound, blurry and distant, too faint for her to make out what it was. Then, little by little, her brain started zoning in on it. A voice. And…it was singing. Not singing along to the generic pop songs blasting from the speakers. It was singing something else.

Before she knew what she was doing, Clara rose to her feet and followed the noise.

Her body moved on its own. Listening intently, she made her way out of the room, into the hallway, towards the staircase that led down into the basement. The song was growing steadily louder, clearer. And by the time she reached the bottom of the stairs, she realized she knew it.

What was it called again? It took her a moment to remember, but she knew the words at once. Bring Me To Life. A childhood memory, half buried, roaring back with a vengeance like it had never been gone.

And whoever was singing it was really, really good.

Holding her breath, she pushed open a door and found herself on the doorstep of a gaming room. Someone had hooked up a karaoke game to the old game console, about half a dozen strangers gathered around it. And in the middle, two guys around her age, belting out a rendition of the song that was almost too good for karaoke.

They had split up the vocals between them, Clara noticed after a moment, taking turns on the song like they had done this a million times before. Her eyes lingered on the pair of vocalists. The shorter one was a professional, she could tell that at a glance. It was obvious from the way he could switch from the powerful rap parts to the high notes of the melody, the way he carried himself with the cheap plastic microphone in his hand. But somehow it was the taller one her gaze was drawn to, the one who mostly seemed to do the chorus. His voice was less professional than that of his companion, less polished; but there was something theatrical about it, something oddly reminiscent of a string instrument. And his movements were so big, so vibrant and energetic, that you couldn't help but look at him anyway, watching his long limbs grasp the space around him like he could barely contain himself.

And then the song ended, and the two singers instantly turned to each other to exchange fist bumps and high fives. Some of the bystanders cheered; others rolled their eyes. Clara smiled.

"That was amazing," she said.

The two singers turned. The shorter one laughed, raising his microphone to her. The taller one, meanwhile, only looked at her. For a moment he had looked like he'd been about to say something, but in the end he just lowered his mic, his eyes slowly growing wider but not leaving her face.

He looked familiar, a voice whispered in the back of Clara's mind. She had seen this guy before, that much she knew, but she couldn't tell when or where. He really was tall up close. Another full head taller than Giselle, consisting entirely of long limbs and sharp angles, a restless face with pronounced cheekbones and wide blue eyes framed by messy light brown hair. He was dressed in all black, his skinny jeans ripped at the knees, his shirt spotting a band logo she had never seen before. A musician—

And then it hit her.

Oh, hell.

She had seen this guy before, all right. She had even talked to him.

And here she had really thought she'd never see the guy from the candy aisle again.

~ ~ ~

"That was amazing."

Catching his breath, Freddie brushed his hair out of his face, turning towards the voice. He'd been so immersed in the song he hadn't even noticed anyone opening the door or felt anyone's eyes on him from that direction. Probably for the best, he mused. Even if the low, casual female voice from the door sounded far from unfriendly.

Looking back at him was a girl around Terrence's age. She was neither short nor tall, with sturdy legs and strong shoulders, wavy dirty blond hair falling down her back and chest. Her intelligent face had something fox-like about it, and she was dressed in colorful clothes of varying styles that really shouldn't go together, but somehow she made it work. Something about her felt instantly familiar. Reminiscent of his friends, maybe, in a way he couldn't yet explain or understand.

Or maybe he had simply seen this girl before.

Freddie racked his brain, but his memories were hazy. No, he had definitely seen her before. Not in any of his classes, he would've remembered that. Definitely not at any shows. But these clothes…these colors. He knew he had seen that cropped hot pink hoodie before, layered over a button shirt, he—

Oh.

From one second to another, everything made sense.

Standing right in front of him, casually complimenting his singing, was the very girl who had accidentally roasted him in the candy aisle.