Chapter 10: The Party

Hallie had been to exactly two parties in her entire high school career.

The first was freshman year, when she'd naively accepted an invitation from a girl in her English class who'd turned out to be using her as a decoy to sneak out with a boy. Hallie had spent two hours sitting on someone's basement couch, nursing a single can of soda, before walking home alone in the dark.

The second was sophomore year, when Jasmine had begged her to come as moral support after a fight with her boyfriend. They'd lasted forty-five minutes before Jasmine started crying and Hallie drove her home, stopping for ice cream on the way.

So when Jasmine appeared at her door on a Saturday night with glitter on her cheekbones and determination in her eyes, Hallie should have known resistance was futile.

"You're coming," Jasmine announced, pushing past her into the bedroom. "No arguments, no excuses, no 'I have to sketch' or 'I have homework' or 'I'd rather die.' You're coming."

Hallie looked down at her current outfit—sweatpants and an oversized sweater that had seen better decades. "I'm not dressed for a party."

"Good thing I brought options." Jasmine held up a bag Hallie hadn't noticed, stuffed with fabric that looked alarmingly colorful. "Get changed. We leave in twenty."

"Jas—"

"Nope." Jasmine held up a hand, cutting her off. "You've been weirdly happy lately, which is great, but also you've been hiding weirdly happy lately, which is not great. You spend all your time at the library or the coffee shop or wherever it is you go with your football player—"

"He's not my football player."

"—and you never come out with me anymore. So tonight, you're coming out. With me. To a party. Where there will be music and dancing and possibly cute boys who aren't Seth Sanders, although honestly, the way you two look at each other, I'm not sure why you'd want anyone else."

Hallie felt her face heat. "We don't look at each other any particular way."

"Hallie. Babe. Love of my life." Jasmine's expression softened into something almost gentle. "I've known you since freshman year. I've never seen you smile the way you smile when he walks into a room. So, either you come to this party and admit to yourself that something's happening, or you stay here and pretend it's not, but either way, you're not fooling anyone."

The silence stretched between them, full of things Hallie wasn't ready to say.

"Twenty minutes," she said finally.

Jasmine's face split into a triumphant grin. "I knew it."

________________________________________

The party was at some senior's house—Hallie didn't catch the name, and Jasmine's explanation had been lost somewhere between the fifth outfit change and the emergency concealer application. The house was large and vaguely modern, with too many windows and a lawn that looked like it cost more to maintain than Hallie's entire apartment building.

Music thumped from inside, vibrating through the front porch where clusters of people stood holding red cups and laughing at things that probably weren't that funny. Hallie hovered at the edge of the lawn, already regretting every decision that had led her here.

"You're doing the thing," Jasmine said.

"What thing?"

"The thing where you stand very still and try to become invisible. Stop it." She grabbed Hallie's arm and pulled her toward the door. "We're going inside. We're going to find drinks. We're going to have fun."

"Define fun."

"Fun: the opposite of whatever you're doing right now."

The inside of the house was worse than the outside—darker, louder, more crowded. Bodies pressed together in every direction, moving to music Hallie couldn't quite follow. The air smelled like cheap perfume and something sharper underneath, the particular scent of teenage rebellion mixed with anxiety.

Hallie let Jasmine pull her through the crowd, keeping her head down and her shoulders tight. She caught fragments of conversations as they passed—someone complaining about a teacher, someone else laughing about something that happened at practice, a group of girls comparing outfits and whispering about who was here and who wasn't.

"We need drinks," Jasmine announced, steering them toward the kitchen. "Alcohol makes everything better."

"I'm not drinking."

"Then you're holding a cup so no one asks why you're not drinking. It's called social navigation. You'd know about it if you ever left your room."

Hallie accepted the red cup Jasmine pressed into her hands—filled with something that looked like soda and probably wasn't—and found a spot against the kitchen wall where she could observe without being observed. Jasmine disappeared into the crowd, promising to return with someone for Hallie to talk to, which sounded like a threat rather than a promise.

The minutes crawled past.

People looked at her, glanced away, looked back with the particular curiosity reserved for someone who clearly didn't belong. Hallie felt their gazes like small weights, pressing her further into the wall, making her want to disappear the way she'd spent four years perfecting.

This was a mistake. This was such a mistake. She should have stayed home, should have kept sketching, should have—

"Grey?"

The voice came from her left, warm and familiar and utterly unexpected. Hallie turned to find Seth pushing through the crowd toward her, his expression shifting from surprise to something that looked almost like relief.

"Didn't think this was your scene," he said when he reached her.

"It's not." She held up her cup. "I'm holding soda and hiding in the corner. This is as party as I get."

Seth laughed, the sound cutting through the noise around them. "Yeah, that tracks." He looked at her for a moment, something softening in his brown eyes. "You okay? You look like you're about to bolt."

"I'm considering it."

"Don't." He stepped closer, creating a small pocket of space around them in the crowded kitchen. "Stay. I'll keep you company."

"You don't have to do that."

"I know." He grinned—that easy, devastating grin. "I want to."

Before Hallie could respond, a girl appeared at Seth's elbow, all long hair and bright smile and the kind of confidence that came from never having been invisible a day in her life.

"Seth! There you are. We were looking for you." She glanced at Hallie with polite disinterest. "Come on, people are doing shots in the living room."

"Not tonight." Seth didn't move. "I'm good here."

The girl's smile flickered. "But—"

"I'm good," he repeated, more firmly this time. "Go ahead. I'll catch up later."

The girl looked at Hallie—really looked this time, assessment flickering behind her eyes—and something in her expression shifted. Understanding, maybe. Or dismissal. Hard to tell.

"Okay. Later, then." She disappeared back into the crowd.

Seth turned back to Hallie. "Sorry about that."

"You didn't have to stay."

"I know." He leaned against the wall beside her, close enough that she could feel the warmth of his arm near hers. "But I've been to approximately eight million of these parties. They're all the same after a while. Same conversations, same people, same everything." He glanced at her sideways. "You're not the same."

Hallie didn't know what to say to that, so she said nothing. But she didn't move away.

________________________________________

They stayed in the kitchen for a while, talking about nothing—Seth's last game, Hallie's latest sketches, the ridiculousness of their English teacher's grading system. People kept approaching, trying to pull Seth away, and he kept refusing with that easy smile, always turning back to her like she was the only person in the room who mattered.

Eventually, the kitchen got too crowded, and they migrated to a quieter corner of the living room, settling on a couch that had been pushed against the wall. Seth stretched his arm along the back, not quite touching her shoulders, close enough that Hallie could feel the heat of him.

"You know," he said, "I've been to a lot of parties. I don't think I've ever just... sat and talked before."

"That's sad."

"It's not sad. It's just how it works. You go, you talk to people, you move around, you never really talk to anyone." He shrugged. "I didn't realize what I was missing."

Hallie looked at him—at the golden boy who somehow kept choosing her, again and again, even when easier options surrounded him. "Why do you keep doing this?"

"Doing what?"

"Staying. With me. When you could be anywhere else, with anyone else."

Seth was quiet for a moment, his brown eyes searching her face. "Because you're real," he said finally. "Everyone here—" He gestured vaguely at the party around them. "They all want something. To be seen, to be liked, to be part of something. And I get it, I do, because I've been that person. But you're not like that. You don't want anything from me except... me. Just sitting here, talking. And I don't know how to explain it, but that means more than all the other stuff combined."

Hallie felt something crack open in her chest—that same crack that had been widening for weeks, letting light in where there had only been shadow.

"You're ridiculous," she said, but her voice was soft.

"So you've mentioned."

"I mean it as a compliment."

"I know." He smiled—that genuine smile, the one she'd come to recognize as just for her. "I take all your compliments, even the ones disguised as insults."

A guy appeared in front of them, swaying slightly, his eyes slightly unfocused. "Sanders! There you are. Dude, we need you for beer pong. The freshmen are talking trash and we cannot let that stand."

Seth glanced at Hallie, a question in his eyes.

"Go," she said. "Defend the honor of your class."

"You'll be okay here?"

"I've survived seventeen years. I think I can manage fifteen minutes."

He hesitated, then nodded. "Fifteen minutes. Don't disappear."

"I won't."

He disappeared into the crowd, and Hallie watched him go, feeling the absence of his warmth like a physical thing. She settled back into the couch, content to observe, to wait, to exist in this strange space between worlds.

True to his word, Seth was back in less than fifteen minutes, slightly flushed and grinning.

"We won," he announced, dropping onto the couch beside her. "Obviously. I'm undefeated at beer pong."

"That's a specific skill to be proud of."

"Everyone needs a niche." He settled closer, his arm returning to its place along the back of the couch. "Okay, your turn. Tell me something I don't know about you."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Anything. Your deepest fear. Your favorite color. The first thing you notice about someone when you meet them."

Hallie considered this. "My favorite color is grey."

"Obviously."

"The first thing I notice about someone is their hands."

Seth looked down at his own hands, turning them over like he'd never seen them before. "Hands?"

"Everyone looks at faces. Eyes, smiles, whatever. But hands tell you more. How someone moves, whether they're nervous or confident, whether they're paying attention or just pretending." She shrugged. "It's an observer thing."

"And my hands? What do they tell you?"

Hallie looked. Really looked. At the shape of his fingers, the way he held them relaxed on his knee, the small scars and calluses from years of football.

"They tell me you work hard," she said. "That you're more careful than you pretend to be. That you..." She trailed off, heat creeping up her neck.

"That I what?"

That you'd be gentle with something you cared about.

"Nothing. It's stupid."

Seth's eyes held hers, warm and steady. "It's not stupid. Nothing you say is stupid."

Hallie looked away, but she was smiling. "You're going to give me a big head."

"Good. You deserve it."

They sat in comfortable silence for a while, watching the party swirl around them. People came and went, conversations ebbed and flowed, and through it all, Seth stayed beside her, a constant presence in the chaos.

At some point, his hand found hers on the couch between them—not grabbing, not possessive, just... there. His fingers laced through hers, warm and solid, and Hallie felt her heart stop and restart in a completely different rhythm.

She looked at him.

He was already looking at her.

"This okay?" he asked quietly.

Hallie nodded, not trusting her voice.

Seth smiled—soft, real, devastating—and squeezed her hand once. Then they went back to watching the party, hands intertwined, neither of them saying a word.

________________________________________

Later, when Jasmine found her to announce it was time to go, Hallie had to physically extract herself from Seth's grip.

"Same time next Saturday?" he asked, standing on the porch, his hands in his pockets like he didn't know what to do with them now that she was leaving.

"At the coffee shop?"

"At the coffee shop." He grinned. "Our usual."

"Our usual," she agreed.

Jasmine grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the car, but Hallie looked back once—just once—to find Seth still standing on the porch, watching her go.

He raised a hand in farewell.

She raised hers back.

In the car, Jasmine was uncharacteristically quiet for approximately thirty seconds before exploding: "OH MY GOD. His hand. Your hand. The HOLDING of the HANDS. I saw it, Hallie. I saw everything."

"There's nothing to see."

"There's EVERYTHING to see. He looked at you like you invented the sun. You looked at him like you'd finally figured out why people bother with romance at all. It was SWEET and BEAUTIFUL and I need details immediately."

Hallie leaned her head against the window, watching the streetlights blur past, and smiled.

"There are no details," she said. "We just talked."

"For three hours?"

"Was it three hours?"

Jasmine stared at her. "You didn't even notice, did you? The passage of time. The party around you. Any of it."

Hallie thought about it. Thought about Seth's hand in hers, his eyes on her face, the way the world had narrowed until it was just the two of them on that couch.

"No," she admitted. "I didn't notice."

Jasmine was quiet for a long moment. Then, softly: "Oh, Hallie. You've got it bad."

Hallie didn't argue.

Because she did. She really, really did.