An hour later we were in a large house just off campus, sitting on a couch that smelled like sweat and beer as at least fifty other people moved around us, laughing and chatting while hip-hop music played from a speaker nearby.
As much as I wanted to relax, to have fun at my first college party, I couldn’t help feeling a bit on edge. My eyes kept darting to the nearest exits, and the panicky part of my mind, that little voice that the anxiety meds never quite silenced, wondered how easy it would be to escape a space this crowded. If any of these people pulled out a weapon, how many of us would be lost?
If Eden was feeling similarly anxious, she didn’t show it. She was sitting between Jenny and me, already on her second cup of vodka and Sprite. She’d offered to get me a drink, but I’d said no. The idea of having my reflexes slowed in an unfamiliar place, especially one so loud and crowded and with so few easily accessed escape routes—that is literally the stuff of nightmares for me.
I tried to distract myself by looking over at Jenny, who I noticed hadn’t gotten a drink, either. “So is your dad working on anything new?” I asked her.
“Huh? Oh. I actually don’t know. He’s pretty private about his writing. I didn’t know about his last play until he had a cast and a director.”
“Are you like that, too?” I asked. “I know you write the scripts forCalliope, right?”
Jenny’s face lit up. “You read our webcomic?”
“Of course I do,” I said. “All of Eden’s friends back home do. Well, except Denny. He can’t see the illustrations. But I think Eden sends him the scripts, right?”
Eden nodded and took another sip of her drink.
“Wow,” she said. “I hope you like it. I’m not nearly the writer my dad is but—”
“Are so,” Eden said. “You’re great.”
“And you’re biased.” Jenny kissed her on the cheek, then looked back at me. “But, to answer your question, no. I’m the total opposite. I make about a million people read my scripts forCalliopebefore it’s final. Including my dad, actually.”
“I bet he gives great feedback.”
She laughed. “Not really. He mostly just tells me it’s great and how proud he is. My mom is the critical one.”
Eden let out a breath. “No kidding.” She turned to me. “Two months ago, her mom sent us a two-thousand-word email breaking down all of the world-building problems in our series.”
“Apparently we are very inconsistent in how magic is used.” Jenny laughed. “I had no idea my mom was such a nerd, but it turns out she grew up playing Dungeons and Dragons and is a bit of a snob about fantasy.”
“I’ve always wanted to play D and D,” Eden admitted. “I’ve just … been too shy to find people I could play with, I guess.”
“Aw,” Jenny said. “Well, when you come visit me, I’ll make Mom teach us. I’m sure you’d play a very sexy half-elf druid.”
Eden snorted. “I was thinking more like a gnome. A girl gnome with a sword.”
“Hey, that could be sexy, too.”
They smiled at each other in that way that couples do, and I had to look away. Suddenly I was overwhelmed with this feeling of missing Miles. I’d seen him just a few hours ago, on our ride home from school, but the way Eden and Jenny looked at each other, the way they talked to each other, made me wish he was here.
I forced that feeling away as hard as I could. Miles and I were not a couple, and we weren’t going to be.
After a minute, Eden and Jenny seemed to remember that I was there with them. I heard Eden clear her throat, and then Jenny said, “You’d like Dungeons and Dragons, Lee. It … involves acting. Sort of.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But it also involves math, right? With dice and stuff? That’s not really my thing.”
“Also any kind of acting in D and D would be improvised,” Eden pointed out. “Which Lee hates.”
“I don’t hate improv,” I said. “I’m just not good at it. I’m the kind of person who likes a script.”
“I’m sure you’ll get better at it when you start taking acting classes,” Jenny said. She turned to Eden. “And since both Lee and I are going to be in LA come this fall, you had better come visit.”
“I know, I know,” Eden said.
“So you guys are going to do the long-distance thing?” I asked.
“We’re … going to try,” Eden said, taking a swig from her cup.
