- II -

* * * * *

         There's a party going on tonight. So she hears. So she heard. Actually she's known about it for a week, since she was invited to it and everything. Though she remembers the old days, when she was younger, all of four years ago, such a long time when she would just grab some friends and stroll down the street, down the college roads. On nights like those the air was bursting with energy, every house they passed was bustling and rippling, bright as day itself sometimes, people hanging out windows, shouting abrupt invitations to them as they went past, some of them polite, not all of them related to matters of a partying sort. You could just step into any house and the night would just melt and fade away and it'd be morning somehow and like you had all just woken up for the first time you would stumble out into the bright dusky air, heads spinning, bodies not seeming to work right, leaving ten pounds of sweat behind for various reasons, supporting each other and laughing at the sheer sideways insanity of it all.
         The old days. Sure. Like things were really all that much better then. She remembers a few nights staggering around trying to escape the acrid taste of burning bile that kept invading her mouth and throat, finally ejecting everything in a series of sustained heaving dances that always left her weak and battered, head pounding, breath coming in forced deep gasps. Dangerous nights, sometimes. Not that she'd trade them for anything, they were still memories, whether you liked them or not. You were stuck with them, there was no real escape, in the end. So she figures. So she figured.
         Still, the parties these days are more fun, really, when you sit down and consider everything. We're all more mature now, she thinks. Not too old to be our parents yet, but old enough to know better, to still be able to have fun and not take stupid risks. A controlled splattering of chaos against the four walls of a room, instead of just random explosions of spontaneous reactions. And the element of randomness is still there, really, it's just that it's contained now within the party itself. You might know all the people attending, but that doesn't mean you know what they're going to do. Though sometimes that's the problem.
         It's getting dark out now. Soon. There's a funny mood settling over her today for some reason and she's not sure why. She's not one to think this abstractly normally, thinking in these strange straight lines, staring out her window and watching the night draw the blankets over itself. Moods like these she could sit and watch the unfolding of night for hours, just sitting her on her bed, curled up a bit, leaning against the window, feeling the slight chill of the outside air seeping in through the glass. She brushes reddish hair from her face, catching a glimpse of herself refracted palely in the glass, giving herself a mock intent stare right in the eyes before smiling and turning away.
         It's the noise of someone coming in that makes her turn away actually. A smallish girl is stepping in, rubbing a towel vigorously over her dark hair, shaking the rest of the wetness of the strands finally and casting the towel to the floor.
         The girl grins upon seeing that her coming was noticed. "Geez, Lena, and here I am thinking you were going to sit there all night."
         Lena laughs at that, casting a mischievous glance over her friend. "Well, hell, I figured I was going to if you were going to stay in that shower all night." She swings her legs down and onto the floor, standing up. She's all ready, she's been since the night began. But for some reason she feels almost nervous, edgy, like something inside her is trying to get out and get it all over with. Impatient. Something inside her is looking forward to this. "At least you bothered to get dressed."
         Her friend gives her a disapproving glance. Lena crossed over to the mirror and runs a brush through her hair, more to just do something with her hands than anything else. The feeling reminds her she hasn't had a cigarette for over an hour. That could be contributing to the way she feels. Maybe. Pent up energy. It'll leak out anyway.
         "And what's that supposed to mean?" comes the question.
         "It means that you're slow at both showering and getting dressed," Lena retorts with a grin, running the brush through hair swiftly. "Now that I've waited for one I don't have to wait for the other."
         "Well, excuse me if some of us try to look our best," is the response, only said half seriously. And Jina does look good, Lena has to admit, wearing a decently modest blue dress that seems to highlight her eyes and the hinted paleness of her skin. Lena is only wearing a deep red shirt that someone got her for her birthday one time and she never got a chance to wear, and a pair of black pants. Her party attire.
         "Oh, come off it," Lena tells her friend, laughing a little. "After a few hours, no one can tell the difference anyway in the dark and after a few beers."
         Jina sniffs, doing a small twirl on the floor, angling past Lena to get a look at herself in the mirror. "Still, first impressions are everything now, aren't they?"
         "Sure, sure," Lena responds, rolling her eyes. Jina lives for these sorts of things, it's not that she's a shallow person, it's just that she likes the approving stares of other folks, the low whistles. Not that she doesn't like that, but she's at the party to enjoy herself, not be stared at. Perhaps that attitude will change in time. Probably not though, she's getting to be an old biddy, set in her ways. At such a young age too. Such a pity.
         Lena slips past her friend, heading for the door to make one more bathroom stop before the party. Generally in her experience she's found that once the beer starts flowing, the bathroom is a place that she wants to be nowhere near.
         "Oh," Jina says suddenly, "you'll never guess what I heard."
         Lena stops. There's something in Jina's voice that makes her stop. Commanding. Glancing back, she sees that Jina is still regarding herself in the mirror, but probably keeping one eye on her friend's reaction. She likes stuff like that, surprising people with unexpected information.
         "What is it?" she asks.
         Jina gives a slight, shy smile, not looking directly at her still. "I heard that they got Tristian to come."
         Lena blinks, her face completely unreadable for a few seconds. There's no telling what's going on inside her mind, except if you can read the eyes. There's something in her eyes that could repeat back all the answers, if you only know the code. "Who told you that?" she asks, her voice suspicious. She heads into the bathroom, turning the water on and rinsing off her face. Her voice seems to be kept carefully neutral, taut and walking the tightrope, suddenly afraid of saying the wrong thing. Strange.
         "Straight from the host himself," Jina replies, raising her voice slightly to be heard over the trickling drone of the running water. An unassumed play on words.
         The water is cold and running down her face, slipping through the cracks between her fingers. "And you believed him? Will says that everytime he throws a damn party and Tristian still never shows up. I don't even know why he bothers to invite him."
         "Oh, he's not a bad guy, he just needs to loosen up more . . ." there's something unspoken between the two of them, something shaky and thin and shimmering that neither of them want to talk about. "But besides, Will has sworn to me on his mother's grave that Tristian will be there tonight."
         "His mother's very much alive."
         "Regardless, somehow he managed to convince Tristian to come." Jina grins suddenly and there's something jabbing and teasing in that smile. "Hey, maybe he-"
         "Don't say it!" Lena shouts, nearly swallowing two handfuls of water. She closes her eyes to avoid the sting of frigid water and shakes her head, reaching blindly for a towel and drying her face off.
         "Oh, but you never know-"
         "No," Lena says, stepping back into the room. "Don't you even dare say it." She's joking of course but only in her tone. She really doesn't want to hear it.
         Jina stares at her for a second, still smiling and then shrugs, layering on mystery into her meaning. Turning away, she searches for her shoes on the floor, finally picking out a pair and tugging them on. As she does so, she comments, "Still, it'll probably make for an interesting night if he's there."
         "If he shows up."
         "He'll show up. You're always the cynic, you know that?" Jina laughs, standing up. "How can we fix that?"
         "I don't know, I'm a hopeless lost cause," Lena replies, stepping back and away. Pausing for a second, she asks, "Are you finally ready?"
         "What's this finally, I've been ready," Jina says, stepping past her and into the doorway. "The question is, are you ready?"
         "Oh, shut the hell up and let's go, before the guys are wondering what the hell happened to us," Lena says, her laugh diluting any implied venom in the statement. Together they step down the stairs, still talking, their voices blending, rising and then fading all together from the ear.