- VIII -

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         About the last thing Lena expects when she goes to put her hand on the door is have Tristian nearly hit her in the face with it. She doesn't even know why she went to try and open it, every other time she's been here it's been locked and chances are it was this time too. There's always that one time though. Maybe it's just for the sheer shock value of things, of stepping inside the party and everyone being like Hey how'd you get in here and she could pretend that she was some sort of master thief. Or something. It was a silly little dream, an unguarded fantasy moment, a wish for something that she'll never have. But that's the point of dreams, right? The more unlikely they are, the more we want them to come true. The more intriguing they become. No one ever has fantasies about working in a small office cubicle for eight hours a day for fifty years and then having a heart attack and dying at sixty. Just stupid. It's just so stupid.
         And yet here's Tristian and the combined surprise of having the door open up on her like that and catching a brief glimpse of him, of that face, both cause her to leap back. A squeal of stunned stabbing horror splashes the back of her throat but with a drowning man's strength she forces it back down. Lena's not one to squeal, not for anyone. It's just seeing . . . seeing that face again. Talking to that face and then only later realizing that it wasn't who you thought it was. Feeling lost in a tugging endless grey night for a second and coming out of it and wondering if that was what death felt like. Just nothing. Forever. It scares the hell out of her.
         "Sorry about that," a voice calls out to her. The world blinks back into the present and she realizes that it's Tristian's voice. It's so unfamiliar to her, a toned down baritone, she keeps associating that other voice with his face. But it's not his. It never was his. But he knows it.
         He takes a step toward her, his stance hesitant, as usual, like he's afraid she's going to start screaming and run away any second now. It's tempting. "Are you all right?" he asks her, his eyes looking at her while not looking at her, staring obliquely into the mirror trying to figure out where people are. As if he could stare without staring. "I didn't mean to scare you."
         "I'm fine," she says quickly, too bluntly, cursing herself immediately for feeling this way, for getting this nervous around him. Just some guy. He's just some guy. Distantly, as if receiving signals from a broken channel, she senses that her hand is shaking and she tightly clenches it into a fist. Nails digging into skin, sharp pains creasing her. She'll pay for that later, she's sure. A few deep breaths, calm down. This isn't how you want the night to go. Take a breath and take your bearings.
         Maybe if she wasn't up here alone. Jina and the others are coming up behind, but they're a distance off. She complained that she was cold and took off for the apartments as fast as she could, but that wasn't it at all. She's hardly feeling the chill now, she could be encased in ice for all she knows. Jack was getting a bit friendly with her, and it was making her uncomfortable but instead of saying something, she just took off. Typical. Confusion all around, with plenty to spare.
         "Oh. Okay." Tristian sounds confused, as if he can tell that she's nervous and can't figure out why she just won't admit it. He's taller than she remembers, which is saying something. Placing a steadying hand on the railing, feeling biting cold seeping into her palm, she takes another look at him. He's all in muted colors, probably blue but it's getting too dark to tell now. Simple and austere as if he couldn't be bothered to pick anything out, just threw on the first thing he found. She can understand that, she's felt like that on plenty of days but she wants to take time to choose her appearance, she wants to look good and she wants to work at looking good. Like some sort of nebulous reward awaits those who try really hard at it. Anything but. The mirror's an impassive critic.
         "Yeah, you just startled me, that's all," she tells him, laughing a little. "Didn't expect to see you there." She glances behind her. Jina is talking to both the guys, they're reached the near parking lot now, coming closer by the second. All three are walking close together, she's probably flirting with both of them. Girl like that can just take her pick of the night. Lena loves her friend dearly but wishes she'd be a bit more discerning. Not that she doesn't get results but . . . oh, she doesn't know. Something.
         "Actually," she continues, glancing back over at Tristian, "I really didn't expect to see you here at all tonight."
         "Hm, yeah . . ." Tristian seems to be a bit on the speechless side, a striking aphasia, especially for a man normally so articulate. He's staring out past her, at the darkness cloaking the parking lot, perhaps at Jina, as if he's trying to count the steps it'll take them to reach here. To reach this place. "Will was fairly convincing. This time." He gives a shrug that could mean a lot of things, but really means nothing. He's just trying to make up for a lack of things to say. "I, ah, I figure that why shouldn't I get out once in a while. Right?"
         "Nothing wrong with that," she replies, a bit blandly, but it's not like they have that much to talk about. Killing time while the party reels overhead. At least the conversation is normal, for the most part. Though she's never sure what to expect when talking to Tristian, it's not like he's going to start spouting off about aliens and stars and stuff whenever someone starts talking to him. That'd be absurd. That crap got him into enough trouble in the first place, if he could make everyone forget, he'd probably do it.
         "It's good seeing you again, Lena, I mean-"
         "Tristian!" a voice cries out behind her and a blur nearly shoves her out of the way. People are getting rather rude tonight. She steps back and crosses her arms, rubbing them to keep warm. It is rather cold out here though, now that she's not concerned with getting freaked out. Now she can notice other things, take those blinders off. Though she's still staring at Tristian. Watching his reactions. As if they mean something to her. As if she could perhaps understand him better. Hm.
         Jina's wrapped her arms around him and is hugging him tightly, as if afraid he might fade out and drift away at any given moment. Lena can see his face and he looks like he wants to leave. No. It's not that. He's looking down at Jina, his arms awkwardly returning the hug, but there's a mildly bemused, highly confused expression on his face. Like he can't understand why in the world this person would have any need or desire to hug him, to even touch him. Right at that moment, to Lena, at least, he looks like a man afraid of his own skin, crammed into a body too tight, afraid to burst out for fear of discovering that it was better being boxed in.
         "Hey . . ." he says quietly, his voice crunched by tightness. He's glancing at Lena, giving her a look and a tiny smile that seems to suggest he's not sure what to make of any of this. Like he just discovered it was his birthday and everyone knew it but him. In his eyes there's something openly honest, something perhaps reaching out to her. But it's just a figment, a reflection of some emotion in herself, bouncing off the nearest blank surface and returning to her unchanged. Radar for the soul, sending pings out, hoping that someone will answer, someone will respond. Are you out there? Can you hear me? But she's sending them to the wrong places, to the twisted zones, to the places where there's nothing to receive. It all went away. She glances sharply away from Tristian, not wanting to see anymore, already knowing what she'd see. This night is boiling her inside out already. Goddamn it's cold.
         He's hugging Jina back now, though not really touching her, just hinting at pressure so that she won't be offended. Tristian seems to be gently pushing off her of him, like peeling dead skin. Handling it gingerly.
         "Guy doesn't change a bit," Brian says near her, his voice soft enough that she doesn't think it was meant for her to hear, but loud enough that she can't be sure. "Not a damn bit." Lena isn't sure what she can say to that, if anything.
         "How are you doing?" Jina is asking him, standing back from him so that she can get the full effect. Her eyes are bright, it's like she expected him to be dead, or insane or something and yet here he is, gloriously alive. Lena once had a discussion with someone once about how that you'd know the day you were officially old was when a friend called you and you were honestly surprised to find out that they were still alive. There aren't any voices from beyond the grave, just convoluted and tortuous sermons. Don't ever die. Life's so much better aboveground.
         Geez. She's getting awful morbid. This has got to stop before she's trapped in some cycle of downward depression, seeing shadows and endless silences in every corner. Not that she'd ever get depressed, it'd be impossible to get depressed on a night like this, she can sense the energy from the party seething out of the cracks in the buildings, like it can barely be contained, like any moment the window are going to slice open with light and it'll just be dancing in the streets.
         "All right, I guess," Tristian tells Jina, neutrally, his voice bland, expressing nothing. No one comments on that further, there's a general unheard sigh of relief that he didn't elaborate. "Can't complain." He gives a lopsided smile and Jina smiles back at him, patting him on the arm.
         "With you, I think that's a good thing," Jina says, and her voice is sincerely humorous. As if on cue, the other two guys walk forward and for the next few seconds the air is tumbling with greetings and inquiries. How's school? How's the job? Life going well? That's good to hear. Good to hear. Darts piercing the air, cutting through any tension, caught in this company, it's easy to believe that everything's okay, everything's fine. And why wouldn't it be?
         Lena's still cold as hell, though. Her arms have become prickly numb things, ice cubes to the touch. With an audible sigh, she winds her way past everyone, heading for the still open door. These people want to stand around and chat all day, let them. She's going inside.
         A hand on her arm, a brief touch, light like a magnet. "Where are you going?" Jack's voice. Freaky bastard. Even if he didn't like her, she probably still find him weird. His eyes are staring at her, through her, pulsing, a cobra snapping at her face. She hates metaphors, they're never quite accurate.
         "Inside," she responds, tautly and tensely. Her arm is jerked away from that cringing touch, and she takes a step back, feeling the solid footing of a stair under her foot. Freedom's just a few steps away, but is it really freedom or is it just hiding from it all for a few hours, casting it all aside and faking existence, plunging into an amnesiac morass and hoping that your ghosts decide to play fair and not bother you. Just for one night. "I'm getting cold out here."
         There are other voices in the background, people talking of things that don't concern her. She can't bring herself to listen. Not too closely at least. It might suck her in, make her forget, forestall the immediate future.
         ". . . been so long, some days I think you dropped off the face of the goddamn planet . . ."
         ". . . some days you'd be surprised . . ."
         "You might as well go in with the rest of us," Jack says to her and she can't believe that he'd even have the gall to say that to her. There's a stubbornly peevish cast to his face, it's all over him, oil splashed from a passing car, soaking into him and oozing over him.
         "Except I'm cold," she tells him.
         ". . . try my best, it's not like I have much else to do these days . . ."
         A ghoulish glint to those eyes, sideways colors slashing at her, grinning intent. There aren't words to describe some things, like the feeling of protection you get when someone who cares about you has their arms around you and you know they're doing it because they know it makes you feel safe. There's not a word to state exactly how it feels when you're laughing so hard that you can't even catch your breath, it's just air wheezing into lungs that aren't accepting anything and someone says something even funnier and you swear you're just going to die laughing but you figure at least you'll go happy, at least you go doing something you love.
         The words she has for Jack in that second are contradictory, profane and not near to expressing what she really wants to say.
         ". . . I think I can be honest, I think I can say that I hated your guts for a long as hell time, for what you did to us . . . but you know . . ."
         "It's more polite to go in with the group you rode in with," is what Jack says to her. She wants to tell him to just go screw himself and then she can turn around and stalk away, confident that she put him in his place. Not to worry. He's got a crooked, cranky grin and she's feeling trapped in amber, caught in one position, timeless, strung away from the very group she's supposed to be with.
         "I'm going in now, Jack," she says, quite clearly, through quite clenched teeth. Why the hell . . . why the hell won't her hands stop shaking?
         ". . . remember that time, when the three of us . . ."
         ". . . hold on one second . . ."
         "I think we should take this conversation inside," Tristian suddenly says, almost out of nowhere. He's crossed the space between, the endless space between them, in a second. Jack takes an unsubtle and unwanted step back just then, as if Tristian's aura might do something irreparable to him. Like it might change him forevermore.
         "I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I'd rather talk about this inside, where it's warm . . ." he says, shivering just a bit. Lena gets the impression that it's all for show, but she's not sure why. He's got a heavy jacket on, unzippered down the front, it drapes over him like somebody's old blanket. He doesn't so much wear it as fills it, inflates it with himself. "I could never stand the cold." For some reason he's not looking directly at Lena.
         It's all the cue she needs though and she steps all the way through the door, feeling the warmth press down on her like something feral, attacking the cold on her skin, shredding it to pieces and asking nothing in return. There's someone behind her and she notes that it's Tristian, who has somehow managed to get himself in between her and Jack. He's walking up the stairs nearly backward, still talking, seemingly more animated now, as if the attentions of people have awoke something inside him, triggered a switch that had rusted over and fallen away. Walking backwards, he's facing Jack mostly, who has slowed down his steps to move in time with Tristian, like some bizarre dance.
         "My problem is that I'm not talkative enough," Tristian's saying, "and when I do get around to saying something," his hand shifts, moves to his pocket, "I reveal too much."
         Jack's not looking at Tristian though. And he's not looking at Lena either. She twists her body a little, all that she really dares and sees that Tristian's hands have been in his pockets, about as casual as she's ever seen the man. And Jack's not staring at Tristian's face. He's staring at Tristian's waist, which is a strange place to stare but for the life of her she can't figure out why. Then, Tristian seems to glance down at Jack.
         "Wouldn't you agree, Jack? I mean, really, should I talk more or less?" There's a blatantly amused smile plastered all over Tristian's face but he's not really acting like he's enjoying it. Just going through the motions, staggering and stumbling toward the inevitable, crawling up the hill to reach the top only to find that it's straight down again. All the goddamn way down.
         Lena can hear Jack licking very dry lips and muttering something about how some things don't need to be said. Injections of forced cheer. Slashing cuts of conversation. Bubbling around and behind her, she can hear the party up ahead now, she's caught between two worlds, two different ways of seeing something, the mob and the individual. Abandon all thought ye who enter here. Like you step in and become brainwashed and just bounce around for a few hours and come out and wonder where the hell the time went. Right now, she needs that, she really needs to check her brain at the door and just slide down into enjoying herself. As if it were that simple. As if she would want it to be that simple. She'd rather work for her enjoyment, feel like she earned it.
         "Did you come here by yourself, Tristian?" That would have to be Jina, defusing any sort of situation with random questions. Not that it would get to anything resembling a "situation" for all his bluster, Jack is much too meek to even consider fighting and even a tentative estimate would lean toward Tristian taking him apart with little problem at all. With him standing behind her, it's a vaguely comforting fact.
         Jina might actually be curious though, the way she's been talking about Tristian all night. Lena can't be sure but there's a definite bouncy sincerity to Jina's voice when she talks to him. As if she really cares. Before tonight, Lena would have had to admit that she never would have understood it, but now perhaps she's starting to.
         "Me? Oh no," he's turned back around now and Lena can feel his eyes on her back, a gaze falling into a grey area, apparently deliberate. If she turned around, she knows that there'd be no reading his expression. "I came with an old friend, hell you probably remember him, Joe Brown."
         "Are you serious?" Jina asks and even Brian makes a mildly surprised noise at that. Lena moves up the steps a bit faster, distancing herself from a past she was never really part of. There's so many damned steps, she's tempted to count to see if there are more than the last time. The night is trapped in this slow motion lassitude, and she hasn't even had a drink yet. After a couple shots, it'll probably slow to a standstill. She doesn't know if she can take that, though she does want to make the night last as long as possible. There's a moment during a party where you look out the window and it's pitch black and you know it's early in the morning but it feels like you've been there for days and eternity is just sifting right through your fingers. Falling into a pile on the floor. Building around your ankles until you're locked in place, staring at a sunrise that finally comes up when you feel about ninety. Then you step outside and you're the right age and you've lived a lifetime in those few hours.
         The voices descend into scrambled babble for her. The door is just a few steps away now, and she can feel the numbing roar of the music under her feet, like it's shaking the house, the earth's screaming set to a soundtrack and trapped in a record. Will always plays his music too loud, but he claims people like it better that way. Right now Lena would rather think about that then listen to the conversation behind her. Times like this, like right now, it's a time when she feels completely out of place. Brian, Jina, Tristian, probably even Jack, they all went to school together and they've got a whole slew of memories to discuss and recollect and ruminate over together. She didn't meet Jina until college and she barely sees her other friends these days. You swear never to grow apart and it always happens anyway, it's just standing on different pieces of the iceberg when it splits. You shout and wave and eventually they're just this distant, pleading dot on your horizon. Then you turn away and forget and don't wonder again until years later.
         Her hand is clutching the railing with immediate fury, and Lena has to nearly drag herself up the stairs. Why the hell does she keep feeling this way tonight, why can't she think of anything normal, why is everything being colored with these obscure, obtuse metaphors, why does she keep twisting and torquing her thoughts into these strange pentagons? It's the wall, she thinks, the wall between her and them. The wall reminding her that she can't ever be part of their past, she's locked out, the experience is a foreign, far thing for her. Tapping against glass won't do anything but make noise, in the end.
         Lena feels an ample loneliness settle on her. She takes a deep breath, inwardly cursing herself for letting herself get like this. She can't feel anyone near her, she's all alone, walking down a long corridor by herself.
         But she's at the door now and any thoughts that might be covering her head are gone now. The music is making the doorknob tremble, like the door itself wants to get off its ass and dance, which is a really strange thought but a rather fun one. It makes her smile at least, the mental image rather striking.
         And then the door is open, and she barely remembers doing it and the music is hitting her right in the face, right where she lives, soaring on a hundred different levels, reaching her as one wall of unstoppable sound, almost physical.
         ". . . a teenage dream's, so hard to beat, every time I walk down the street . . ."
         She takes a step in, not even conscious of the rest of them behind her anymore and it's like crossing the threshold into another world. Heat swamps over her and she's glad that she left her coat behind. There's no time and there's all the time in the world. The lights are dim and piercing, cutting vertically into shadows, tracing out people into negative. People are sitting in various places, some are up dancing a bit, some are hanging by the bar attempting to get some fuel, something to keep them going, kindling for the fire. There are voices and laughter and screaming, so much that if you try and take it all in you'll be screaming yourself, trying to process it all. The world is crammed right into the room, all the components and possibilities, jammed in sideways if necessary, no air no room no space for anything and yet they're sticking in one more piece. It's all near bursting.
         These are just first impressions, a hail of images and sounds. Almost immediately she can feel a smile on her face, swiftly changing into a grin. This is more like it. Much more like it.
         She moves forward, attempting the bar but ready for any diversions along the way. The crowd's not too bad yet, though experience has taught her that eventually it'll be so tight that movement itself might even be impossible. As she goes she turns back to her friends, sees Jina and Brian and Jack following behind, the group falling apart and splintering as they all greet individual friends, travel their own paths. Just the way it goes. Life in a box.
         Then she spies Tristian, just for one second. He's standing at the edge of the crowd, near the door, his hands in his pockets. Tristian seems to be watching the crowd, like a diver charting unstable waters, waiting for the right second to dive in, and not sure if he even wants to do it.
         Their eyes meet for a second, and he gives her what looks like a sheepish grin and a mild shrug that might mean something and might not.
         The crowd slides and interlocks and he's lost from view and even though she looks for a second longer, she has this feeling that when the crowd parts again, he won't be there. Intuition. Still, something about the glance lingers with her.
         But Lena's not here for thought and shifting her brain out of gear she heads for the bar. The night's just beginning, as far as she's concerned. And it's about goddamned time.