- IV -

* * * * *
         He's looking good. Fine. Swell. He checks himself in the mirror again, turning to the side so he can see his profile, running a hand down his leg to smooth a crease in his pants. Hair perfect, teeth white, there's nothing he can't do tonight. Nothing that he won't be able to accomplish once he sets his mind to it. That's the right attitude. That's the right way to go about these things. He's practiced this way of thinking for a long, long time.
         He can hear the first stirring rumblings of the party next door. Like some great giant beast waking up after a long sleep. Everyone's got some sort of party slumbering inside of them, he figures, you just have to wake it up, prod it a little until it starts to move about. He'll see that tonight he knows. Throw enough people together, raise the temperature, grease the wheels with some beer, get the hormones and the adrenaline flowing and you'll see what people can be like. What the party can be like.
         He's heard things about these parties. Something else, he hears, though the few that he's been at haven't been anything special, run of the mill affairs, dancing people, crowded rooms, folks making out in the dark corners, thinking that no one sees them in their spontaneous passion, thinking that nobody cares.
         Tonight feels different though. The air is charged, not with electricity but with some different, something akin but far more primal. He knows that everyone else can feel it too, he'll look into their eyes and see the same feelings. He does a half step back and runs his hand through his hair, watching the brown strands slip and slide around the curves of his hand. It's good. It's all good.
         It's all about energy. In the end that what it has to be all about. A party can only be as good as the people who attend it, and what they want out of it. He wants to grab and strangle whatever he can from this party and if people think that's a violent thought, that his imagery is brutal, then the hell with them because that's how he feels. Ready to do anything. Why people do drugs, he can't understand, because you don't need them to feel like this, to feel on top of everything. Looking down at it all, just waiting to pick and choose what path to take.
         He chooses the door, stepping down and into the hallway. His echoes follow him, as he crosses down and outside, stepping into the clear air of the night and taking it in, stopping a moment to let the air fill his lungs. Take it in, breath it out. It's life, it's the night, it's the throbbing energy of the party. Almost mystical significance, but didn't the priests of old try to harness the implicate energy that was in every crowd of people, that hummed and crackled if you knew just how to listen? He wishes he could do that, but really he doesn't need to.
         It's all there for him. Whistling to himself, he walks a ways down to the next apartment over, hands in his pockets, each step almost a skip. He's in a good mood, already everything seems to be going well, it just feels like one of those nights where the world just sits down and sits back and falls right into place for you. Just one of those nights. He can feel it, sense it. Almost touch it. If it wasn't such a real feeling, he'd almost think he was going crazy. Not at all. Not at all.
         He reaches the door now, his hand darting and pausing barely an inch before the doorbell, pondering. He can always still back out, even though he was invited no one will miss him if he doesn't attend. Before he always came with a friend, he was always being dragged along by someone else, but this time he was told by the host himself to come. Doesn't matter though, he can still go somewhere else, can still enjoy his night. There's a book of phone numbers back at his room, and any of them can promise him something. Any one of them.
         But not tonight. Tonight he's going to have the best goddamn time of his life because it's there and he can and there's nothing in this world that's going to stop him.
         His finger jabs into the doorbell button. Somewhere a buzzer sounds.
         Seconds later, there are drumming footsteps and a shape appears in the narrow door window. The heavy door is pulled open and a grinning face greets him.
         "Hey, Carl! Glad you could make it!"
         Carl gives a sly and slight smile, taking the door and holding it farther open so he can get in. "You kidding?" he says, humor evident in all the edges of his voice. "I don't think there's a thing that exists that could keep me away tonight."
         "Yeah, it's going to be great. You'll see."
         "Hey, you don't have to tell me. I'm already sold."
         "Heh, you and apparently everyone-"
         The heavy door click shuts, cutting off all other sound.

* * * * *
         "What I can't understand," Jina is saying, her arms crossed across her chest, a slightly peevish expression dawning over her face, "is why the hell we always have to pick them up. Don't they have cars?"
         Lena keeps her focus on the road in front of her. She's never particularly liked driving at night, even with the headlights to impose a sort of false mocking daylight on everything, it's still not the same. You can drive down the road and think you see a flicker of a truck or someone crossing the road and feel adrenaline singing through your system as you frantically try to brake but then find that there's nothing there. Just a trick. Trick of the light. She's a careful driver, maybe even a fairly good driver but night driving still makes her nervous.
         "You know damn well why," she says to her friend, knowing that they went through this at every part. She thinks that Jina just likes the thrill of the argument, not so much to rile people or even irritate them but to draw someone into a debate. Her friend was always strange like that. Not that she didn't have any quirks herself but she didn't think they were that noticeable. In her opinion. "They're going to drink and probably get drunk off their asses and someone's going to have to drive them home."
         "Why don't they just sleep there?" Jina asks, but there's a wry tone to her voice. She already knows the answer, she just likes the needling texture of the discussion, finding the holes in each sentence and exploiting them. Lena normally has the patience for it, but the mild anxiety of driving coupled with a sudden and mysterious anxiety about the party is wearing it very thin very quickly.
         "Male pride, I don't know," Lena replies, almost frustrated. The night disintegrates all distance, everything fades into a black inky fabric, streetlights and houses popping up out of the background from seemingly nowhere. The world is just a hop step away, any point accessible from any location. The night separates you all and then makes you feel completely enclosed. Penned in. She's really not liking any of this.
         "Besides," she continues, "if someone doesn't drive them they'll probably drive themselves to the party, get drunk like I said and then proceed to drive home and kill themselves in the attempt."
         "See? A cynic, like I said." Jina laughs a little and the sound is mildly comforting. Lena brakes a little when she thinks she sees the headlights strike something. A squirrel gives her a bright eyed stare for a second before dashing off stage left. "Oh, I'm just teasing, Lena." There's something sly in her face, Lena thinks but then she's staring out of the corner of her eye, which tends to make everything distorted and twisted. The funhouse mirrors of the eye. "And anyway, I'm really not complaining, mind you." Her voice is light, amused. She's ready for the party, has been ready since she woke up in the morning. She's got the night mapped out, the paths all marked according to preference, everything weighed by equal amounts risk and fun. Mostly fun, but there's always risk. You can't get away from that.
         "I'm turning soon, right?" Lena asks suddenly, starting to vaguely recognize the surroundings, even though it's like they've been covered in gauze, rendered as something else entirely. You can drive down a street that you've been down a hundred times and still not realize where you are in the dark. Lena can't get those thoughts out of her head, she keeps coming back to the same ideas, riding teasing tense circles. It's the night driving. She hates it. She'll be so goddamned happy when they get to the party and she can actually walk and not have to worry about steering a two ton metal deathtrap.
         "Yeah, make a right at the next street," Jina directs, pointing ambiguously with a hand. She leans to the windows and watches the shadowed houses, briefly illuminated and lit figures stalking the streets. Lena used to see pictures of neighborhoods at night and think they were so peaceful looking, the hazy ghostlike lights shining down on everything, hovering mysteries at the edges of their revealing radii. It was all so romantic, she thought, walking with someone down those empty streets, warm summertime air, full laughing voices echoing through the spaces between the houses, feeling securely alone and as close to someone you can be. Her hands involuntarily tighten on the steering wheel, a memory dislodging and falling freely, twisting, shapeless and glinting, a drop of water already splattered before it hits bottom.
         "You sure that you don't want me sitting in the back," Jina asks almost dreamily, still staring out the window. Lena has no idea what the hell she might be seeing, if anything. "Because I'll make that sacrifice if you want, my dear friend."
         "The hell you will," Lena responds, adding a mock growl to her voice. "You want time with Brian, you work on that at the party."
         "You sure?" Jina almost purrs across to her. She's enjoying this too, but Lena can enjoy this as well. "Because I'm sure Jack will be more than happy to take my place. It's a win-win situation for him."
         Lena makes a face. "I'll bet. Well, he's not getting anywhere near me unless I'm very drunk and I don't think there's enough in the world to get me that smashed." She laughs at the thought, feeling herself relax. It's annoying but it's something she can deal with, something real that she can reach out and grasp. Something she can poke fun at. "I think he really thinks I want him."
         "You don't?" Jina asks in mock surprise. "I'm so shocked, it seemed so obvious to me too."
         "You and everyone else," Lena replies, laughing again. She spies the turn and makes it, trying to drudge up the memory of where the house was. Third on the right? Second on the left?
         "Last house on the left," Jina reminds her almost automatically. Oh. Better luck next time.
         She considers turning the car around so that she's directly in front of the house but decides to just park across the street. They'll be looking for her car anyway, they know what it looks like. She pulls the car over smoothly and grinds it into park. Her hand hovers over the horn, and something wicked gleams in her eyes.
         "Shall I?" she asks impulsively.
         Jina grins back. "Be my guest."
         Not hesitating any longer, her hand descends on the horn, heavily. The shattering blast is an escalating roar in the otherwise quiet neighborhood, an animal charging down the street, the street itself erupting.
         By the time it's ended, they're both laughing, looking like asylum inmates straining and strapped into chairs to hold them for their own good.
         "Oh . . ." Jina manages to gasp out, "think they heard it?" They pause for a second, faces scrunched into something resembling mock seriousness before the facade falls apart and they collapse into hilarity again.
         "Probably not," Lena notes, staring at the house across the street. Lights have started flickering in some of the windows, though not from where the boys are, as well in the windows of the neighboring houses. "But they'll sure hear it from everyone else when they get home."
         "Or as they leave," Jina giggles, and they both fade back into laughter again. A minute later, energy nearly wasted, they're leaning back against the seats, attempting to catch their breath, failing for a moment and not caring. Lena closes her eyes and lets herself fall into the moment, feeling herself sit back into a time when they could do reckless things like that, when it was expected. Not that waking an entire neighborhood just to annoy some friends was all that reckless, not compared to stealing a car or burning a house down, but it was all relative. It reminded her of a time when everything they did was based on harmless fun, when you could walk down the street and a million options presented themselves before you, and any of them could have taken you right into something new, something different. Now they drive down the street and the only options are left and right. Or straight. And you know where they all go.
         "Maybe they'll know not to make us wait fifteen minutes like last time," Lena says, glancing at the still, silent house. The patterns of lit windows gives her the impression of an impassive, mildly disapproving face. Mentally, she sticks her tongue out at it. Take that.
         "Oh, I'm sure we got their attention." Jina sighs and leans her head back in the seat, smiling and glancing at the ceiling. "God, that was fun. We have to do stuff like that more often."
         "What and prove how easily amused we are?" Lena asks playfully. "Nah. Once in a while is enough for me."
         "Keeping it spontaneous?"
         "Yeah."
         A minute or so ticks by. Lena isn't glancing at the clock for the reason that she doesn't want to know how much time is passing. She knows that they are going to wait anyway, the guys have this strange habit of not getting ready until you're basically at their doorstep, even if you've given them plenty of notice when you're going to be there. Even if you're a few minutes late, they generally still don't get ready. So she's not looking at the clock because if she has to wait, she doesn't want to know how long.
         Lena does roll the window down a bit, letting some of the night air seep in. It's such a beautiful night, really, mild for the winter, but possessing a crisp, angular beauty, everything is cut into contrasts. The night is black as can be, and the stars and the lights are pure white. It's a night that she wouldn't mind taking a walk around in, just taking it all in. Perhaps she can slip away from the party for a bit and get some fresh air.
         Snow would make it perfect, she decides, just covering the ground in whiteness, hiding everything else. There was a time when she didn't like snow at all, but then . . .
         She blinks suddenly, feeling her chest constrict a little, vague images of laughing and falling through something cold grabbing at her, a feeling of being content. She's got such a good memory, everyone tells her. Too goddamn good sometimes, if you ask her. Just too goddamn good.
         "I wonder how Tristian's been doing," Jina asks, snapping Lena out of whatever selfpitying reverie she might have sunk into. Her friend can seem to sense her moods like that sometimes, draw her out of it. Her eyes are closed, making her face seem still and pale in the halflight.
         "You've really got Tristian on the brain, don't you?" Lena asks, not really wanting to talk about Tristian again but going along with it for lack of something better.
         "No, it's just . . ." she pauses, smiles a little. "I just can't believe they got him to go to the party."
         "Geez, he's not a hermit. He just likes to keep to himself, I know people like that. Hell, we all get like that once in a while."
         "He's always been like that," Jina says, her eyes still closed. "He's the most goddamn consistent person I ever met, you've only known him for a year or so but . . . I've known him since high school and God . . ." she shakes her head. "He hasn't changed. Not one bit. We didn't think he'd ever change." She smiles again, memories flickering behind her eyelids. A monotone montage. Her voice softer, she continues, "You remember how I told you I was dating this guy Rich for the longest time? Told him I loved him, thought one day we might get married, figured that this guy was the one, right?"
         "I remember," Lena replies equally softly. Then, in a firmer tone of voice, "Isn't he the one who treated you like garbage?"
         "In a nutshell, yeah," Jina says, her smile still there but more sardonic, directed at something, against something. "Not all the time, mind you, just most of the time. Nothing I ever did was right, or good enough, or anything." She gives a half shuddering sigh, trying to hold something off. Lena glances at the house. Nothing is moving there. The air is cold against the side of her face.
         "But Rich had this knack, he just . . . randomly, just when I needed it, he would do something, say something, that would make me feel as special as I've ever felt and I'd fall in love with him all over again." Her smile fades a little, leaving a lingering trail of a ghost. "But one day it was bad, he didn't like what I was wearing and he kept criticizing me and I got so damn nervous that I spilled a drink in his car and he laced into me and left me sitting on a bench in the parking lot by myself, crying hysterically."
         "Bastard."
         "Yeah. Not what I thought though. I was so busy blaming myself that I didn't even hear Tristian coming up to me. He sat down next to me and asked what was wrong." She laughs a little. "He has this way of speaking, that . . . that he's just as sad as you are just by watching you getting upset. But anyway, I practically threw myself on his shoulder and somehow managed to get the story out, which wasn't anything new, unfortunately.
         "And Tristian sat there and he listened and when I finished, saying how I didn't know what I was going to do and how I didn't like feeling this way and he gave me a tissue and we both sat there for a while, just not saying anything." A laugh tickles at the edges of her lips. "This is my favorite part of the story. Finally he leans over to look at me and he says, in a completely innocent voice: `Why don't you just break up with him.'"
         "Are you serious? He actually said that to you? I didn't think he would have had the nerve."
         "It wasn't even about nerve, it was just . . . that was the way the situation looked to him. He was always so rational about everything and that wasn't what I needed. I think I screamed at him for like five minutes, about how I loved Rich and that Tristian didn't understand and that everything would be all right. Bull really, now that I think about it, but I really did believe it back then."
         "It's scary what love can do, isn't it?"
         "Only sometimes," Jina replies somewhat wistfully. "But Tristian didn't even blink during my little speech, he just stared at me and said that if Rich really loved me he'd never do stuff like that to me and certainly not on a regular basis. And he said it in this, like, slow confused sort of voice like his argument makes sense to him and he's trying to see it your way but he just can't no matter how hard he tries."
         "I know what you mean, I've heard him talk like that. It's annoying as hell sometimes." Half formed glimpses of the alleged Tristian flitter through her consciousness, vague memories of a man who seemed little more than a presence in his own life. She remembers how he talked though, she remembers that much about him, the stumbling, hesitant speech, the old conviction that blazed right through him. Before and after.
         "Yeah, trust me, I was finding it annoying that day. I told him that he didn't understand, which was a silly stupid thing to say, but Tristian didn't even bother arguing with me, he just said that maybe he didn't understand but he keeps seeing me upset because of Rich and it shouldn't be that way and he hated seeing me that way. And then, before I can even really respond, he drops this bombshell on me and says that I'd probably be better off by myself or with someone else."
         "Geez, he picked a strange time to hit on you."
         Jina shakes her head in an almost unnoticeable motion. "That's the thing with Tristian, he can say stuff like that and there's no ulterior motive, he means what he says. Not that I was really paying attention, being that he was telling me a lot of things I really didn't want to hear."
         A car slips past, the headlights throwing them into shadow for a second. Lena glances at the clock against her best intentions and finds that they've been waiting for five minutes. Figures. Jina has her eyes still closed, remembering, running the longago conversation in her head again and again.
         "Did you believe him?"
         "Like I said," she continues in an amusingly arch fashion, "I didn't want to hear it. I really didn't want to. And I told him that. And he just shrugged and said in that rational voice of his that he really thought I should think it over before I let the relationship continue. That's all he says. And then he offered to walk me home, and while I was walking I was thinking . . . I was thinking about how I had been treated over the last few months and how Rich was never bothered by how he treated me, or that he never really seemed sorry." She takes a deep breath, almost stretching the seatbelt. "And when we got back to my house, sure enough there were flowers from Rich there, with a nice sappy note." A snorting sort of laugh. "And I nearly fell for it, I was standing there starting to say how everything would be okay now and I looked at Tristian and he just shook his head and stared at me and said that if really loved me he would have gone back to the parking lot to get me and not left me there by myself."
         "Strong words. Good for him, though."
         "I looked at Tristian though and there was something in his eyes, something sad. For me. And I looked at the flowers and they just seemed to be so much paper all of a sudden. Just empty and I knew I just wanted out, I just wanted to get away. I had to. And Tristian told me that I knew what to do and I said that I didn't think I was strong enough. He said it wasn't about strength, it was just what needed to be done." She licks dry lips, the memory still a fresh hole, something not at all in place with this location, with this night, this time. Something foreign. "And I called Rich over right then and told him that I didn't want to see him ever again. And I gave him his ring back and told him to get the hell out of my life." Brief sad smile, bereft of regret. "I never saw him again."
         "Wait, where did Tristian go during all this. Did he leave?"
         "No, he was in the next room, he stayed in there the entire time, and said nothing, even when Rich started to get nasty with me and tell me that nobody would ever want to date a slut like me. But I think . . . I think if Rich had said anything else, had gotten rough, Tristian would have been right there. And knowing that, it made it a hell of a lot easier."
         "You never told me any of this before." Lena is surprised to be hearing this at all, she didn't think that tonight would be a night for confessing, for baring the soul to dear friends. She has nothing similar to share, her life is less than epic, fraught with small victories and small defeats, a pint of laughter here, a small taste of sadness over there. Nothing major. Nothing worth a story. She remembers them all, but sometimes she's not sure why she bothers.
         "No, I never . . . it was always a secret between Tristian and me, really. He didn't want me to tell anyone how he was involved. He told me that, right before he left my house. He smiled and said that I had done the right thing and I had done it by myself, without any help. That he was just there to watch. And he stood there looking happy for me, Lena, and I just wanted to hug him right then, I felt like he was my best friend in the entire world, but . . ." her eyebrows furrow, creasing her face, confused, "I got this feeling that he didn't want to be touched, I don't know why. And that he didn't even really think he had helped. Like he was just some observer that happened to stumble upon the scene." She gives a laugh now. "He really believed that. Probably still does."
         "Hm," Lena muses, running her fingers along the top of the open window, seeing the moonlight reflect against her nails, the chill prickling at her fingertips. "You know, having met him, if anyone other than you had told me that story, I would never have believed it. He always struck me as someone who doesn't want to get involved, who really isn't interested."
         Jina's eyes snap open and she stares out ahead, at the empty street, down the darkening night. "He's not like that at all, that's just what he wants everyone to think. I don't know why, I'll never understand that for as long as I live." Lena can feel eyes on her now and she turns to stare at Jina, who is staring back at her. Her eyes are large in the darkness. "He's a great guy, Lena," her friend tells her, conviction tinged with sadness. For some reason. Like she's trying to convince someone. Lena isn't sure why and yet she knows. It's touched them all.
         "He deserved better," Jina finishes quietly, her voice a soft recollection of an attempt at longing, of trying to grasp something that just wasn't there. It's an invective against someone, but Lena can't be sure who. Sighing, she settles back again. She's quiet for a long time and Lena can't think of anything to say, anything that might be appropriate.
         Lena's just staring out into space now, hearing nothing but the thin whisper of her own breathing, the cold hollow sound of the wind shuddering through the open window, mournful and musical. She doesn't even need to look at the clock anymore, there's no need, no point, it wouldn't tell her anything true. There's no time here, it's gone away, and they're lost in between the moments. It's almost magical, she has to admit, everything feels calm and lost and collected, holding its breath for no other reason than because it can. Timeless and touching it all. For some reason, sitting here with her friend, silent, she feels that it's something she'll remember for the rest of her life. Funny how you never remember the big events, but always the small bits that happen in between, the odd quiet moments that fill the space between conversations and seem to last forever.
         But they never do. Next to her, in a parody of slow motion, she sees Jina shift her weight and sit up straight, looking at her, looking past her.
         "Finally!" her friend breaths. "About goddamn time."
         Lena, reluctantly, turns her body, falling out of the moment with regret. But not too much because it's the leaving that makes those times more valuable, if they lasted forever they would be nothing to compare them to. She hopes that this might be comforting, but she's not sure. Everything is always so confusing some days.
         The guys are almost up to the car actually, they must have left the house when nobody was looking. Figures. There's two of them, both tall, seemingly athletic, not for the first time Lena has to admit that both of them are fairly easy on the eyes. The admission really doesn't cost her anything.
         One is walking in front and he's moving at a fast but loping gait, waving almost comically. Near her, she can sense Jina waving back. Girl probably has a grin you can shove a watermelon into sideways, Lena thinks with some amusement. Ah, whatever makes her happy. And Brian's not that bad a guy, though maybe a bit too enthusiastic about some things to her. They get along.
         Jack on the other hand is following slowly, but not hesitantly, more confident than not. He never takes his eyes off the car and Lena tries to pretend that he's staring at someone other than her, at something else. Of course not though. With her luck they've probably already have had a few drinks and are feeling horny. Just her goddamn luck.
         She rolls the window up just as the two back doors open on each side and let more cold air in. Even under her coat, she shivers. No meat on her bones to keep the cold out, her mother used to tell her. Can't help being thin, it's not like she's going to eat until she weighs five hundred pounds. One day she'll move someplace warmer. Florida. Something like that. Someday.
         "Hey gals!" Brian says, his voice full of cheer. And why not, they're going to a party, it's a nice night, and for Brian at least there's quite the chance that he might really be enjoying himself. He bends his head over the seat and Jina gives him a little kiss, quick and almost unnoticeable. "You two look good tonight."
         A gentle hand on her shoulder, squeezing faintly, makes her freeze and nearly tense up. "Hey, Lena," a voice says almost in her ear. She gives a weak smile, not sure what else to do, not removing her hands from the steering wheel.
         "Hey," she says somewhat awkwardly, seeing just a portion of his face in the mirror, not wanting to turn around and look him in the eye. That's all she can see, the eye. "How's it going?"
         The hand is removed from her shoulder and she makes a mental note to hold the sigh of relief in until later, when nobody is paying attention. "Going? Oh, good, I guess. The usual, can't really complain." Jack often tends to speak in a cultured and level tone of voice, probably deliberately. She's heard how he talks when nobody else is really around, it's pitched weird, accenting the wrong words at the strangest times, like someone learning English for the first time and getting the intonations wrong. Why he does this she has no idea, nor is she really interested in learning.
         "It should be good tonight," Brian says, talking like he's n in the middle of a crowd and not in a fairly small car. Both girls glance at each other and wince, Jina rolls her eyes and shakes her head but she's not really criticizing. Probably finds it cute, Lena figures. Brian has leaned back and laced his hands behind his head, like he's being chauffeured. "Though you sure you girls just don't want to skip the party?" The tone of his voice is kidding, but there's a small part of him that wants the expressed thought to come through.
         "No chance," Jina replies, turning around slightly to face him down sideways. "We waited this long to get you, now you're going whether you like it or not."
         "Hey," Brian responds, holding out the palms of his hands toward her in a warding off gesture, "don't blame me, talk to chuckles over here," and he points his thumb at Jack, who merely shrugs.
         "What do you want, I take a while to get ready," Jack points out calmly and evenly. "One has to look one's best, you know."
         "Yeah yeah yeah," Brian sighs, shaking his head. "I've heard that before. One day you'll just admit that you're simply slow as all hell and we'll all be better for it. We should just leave without you one day and see what happens."
         "Oh you'd never want that," Jack tells him, smiling thinly. If you didn't know him, you'd think it was menacing. "Who'd be your audience then at this little parties? Will's got better things to do than to clap every time you do something good."
         "Ooh, the man is harsh tonight," Brian remarks, grinning and wincing back as if shot. "Remind me to get you to bed early next time, my friend. You're cranky when you don't get enough sleep."
         Jack only smiles again. "Just don't fall asleep first tonight."
         The girls look at each other again. Lena figures that there won't ever be a lull in the conversation and decides that she's going to just pull the car out and drive. Which she does, only barely remembering to turn the headlights back on before they get very far. Little details that she keeps forgetting. The streets recede behind them and they're on the way, she thinks she can remember how to get there from here but it shouldn't be that hard. She used to know this street fairly well but it wasn't something she likes to dwell on, in the end. Behind her she can still hear the guys talking, though she has that prickly numb feeling you get when you're absolutely sure that someone is staring at the back of your head. There's a texture to it, a cloth waiting to be dropped onto your head, floating lazily above you like in a dream. The night can do that to you, in the repetitiveness of its metaphor, it can lull and make you think that everything is unchanging, that it'll never end. That nothing during the night ever ends. She knows better now, though, she really does. It takes her breath away to think about it, so she stops.
         Jina is still talking, mostly because it gives her a reason to talk to Brian, mostly to distract Jack from talking to Lena. Or something. "Hey guys," Jina exclaims suddenly, "did you hear the news? Will got Tristian to come somehow."
         Lena can see both guys exchange glances, left and right reversed in the mirror but amounting to the same thing.
         "Oh, lovely," Brian says, speaking first. He glances at Jack, snickering a little. There's a trembling sarcasm in his voice, a wall built against something. "Guess we won't have to worry about how we're getting home." And he snaps his fingers, like that's supposed to mean something. It does. It's just that no one wants to admit what it means. Typical.
         Jack's got undercurrents in everything he does, every action. Most of them mean nothing but he'd like them very much to mean something. "Damn," he whispers, something about his voice quite awed for all the wrong reasons. "He's really coming?"
         "At least someone's excited about the prospect," Lena whispers mostly to herself. If Jina hears, she gives no sign.
         "Far as I know," Jina replies.
         "Damn," Brian says. "God damn." He sounds like he's trying out new words, trying to find ones that will express what he's thinking more clearly. And failing. "And here I figured this was just going to be a run of the mill party." He smiles, maybe a bit nervously, a bit uneasily. "Could be one hell of a night after all."
         "I think that's up to us and everyone else," Jack comments softly, a tad darkly. "One man isn't going to make any difference at all. Not a bit of difference."
         That's right, Lena thinks. It's all up to them. They've got control. That's the whole point, to go to a party and enjoy yourself and prove that you can control yourself. That's it. That's all you've got to worry about.
         And yet she keeps hearing Jack's siblant greeting in her head, played over a loop of a voice that sounds very much like Tristian's but not quite
         something just doesn't feel right
         that wasn't Tristian
         and yet
         and yet.
         She sucks in another breath, trying not to let it rattle into her lungs, shaking her head to clear it, wanting a cigarette more than anything else for no other reason than to distract her. But with no other recourse available, Lena continues to drive into the night. To the party.
         "Yup," Brian laughs again, "could be one hell of a night."