Chestnut brown with faint warm undertones. Eyes that look like someone took early autumn leaves and blended them into a color that comes out to roughly 25.5% green, 74.5% brown.
Yeah. I looked that much. For God’s sake, this is bad.
“Second round?”
“Not a chance. I feel like you’re about to crack a rib, and I need to be functional.”
I hear him laughing as I step out of the ring, and I have to admit, even though I mostly show up here out of habit, to keep our weekly tradition alive, I needed that hour.
Usually I walk out of these sessions feeling a significant level of release. Usually. But evidently today I don’t get that luxury.
She’s just a student, Silas. Just a student.
Ibarely close my laptop on the last page of reading before my sister’s voice fills the room we share.
“You want to come to Diana’s party tonight?” she asks, her eyes already lit up with excitement.
Lupe loves parties, music, and people. Ipretendto love parties and people. Music I’m genuinely okay with.
I want to say no, but one look at how she’s practically glowing and I cave.
“Fine, but we’re only staying two hours, Lupe. I have my first test tomorrow and I need to actually sleep.”
“You’d get a hundred even if you didn’t show up, Ame,” she calls back over her shoulder with a laugh, and she has no idea how much that lands.
Because regardless of how it looks from the outside, I work for my grades. There are entire hours I’ve spent ruining my eyes over books and laptop screens, going over the same material until I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read the same words. There are full days of grinding through the same exercises and algorithms over and over until they finally start to make sense. I have never once gotten a grade because I was cute or charming; if anything, it’s always felt like I had to work twice as hard just to prove I’d earned my spot and my results. That it’s notjust luck.
It takes us an hour to get ready. Lupe wears a red sequined dress that shows off everything she’s working with, while I go with a pair of high-waisted jeans splattered with neon colors and a white floral crop top.
We are clearly from different movies, my twin ready to break a few hearts in those heels, while my white sneakers with the hand-painted chameleon on the side make it obvious I’m dressed to run if I have to.
The music from the club rattles the pavement out front, and I remind myself I’m here for Lupe. I know she wants me to get out of the house more, but I would take a quiet evening with slow music, an animated movie, and a bowl of popcorn over this noise a thousand times over. It genuinely feels like it’s dissolving my gray matter one bass drop at a time.
After we find Diana and wish her happy birthday, Lupe drags me onto the dance floor just asBye Bye Byeby NSYNC starts up, and even though I’m not exactly comfortable dancing in public, my body picks up the rhythm on its own and within seconds I’m in my own world.
I still have two left feet, but at least tonight they’ve worked out some kind of Morse code between them, because I’m not tripping over anyone. I’d even go so far as to say I’m owning this dance floor right now.
Lupe spins me twice, and across the room I spot Gabriel in a corner with some friends, watching me. I’d forgotten that Diana is also studying at our university, so they probably know each other from campus.
When he catches me looking, he pushes through the crowd until he reaches me.
“What kind of thoughts are we having tonight?” he asks, and I smile before I can stop myself, my hand drifting up to tuck in a few strands that never stay in the bun.
“The most normal ones. Super normal. Nothing abnormal whatsoever.” I’m already stumbling over my own words.
Perfect, Amalia. Really showing him you’ve never flirted with anyone in your entire life.
I watch him catch his lower lip between his teeth as his hands settle on my waist, drawing me gently toward him.
Sabesby Reik starts playing in the background, and for the love ofGauss, I love that song.
Maybe it’s a sign. I look at his disheveled hair, and without meaning to, the image of another set of tousled strands pushes its way in, only the eyes don’t match. Where Gabriel’s eyes are full of energy and something like a promise, those other eyes were a black hole that could have swallowed me whole.
For a second I watch his gaze drop to my mouth, and just as he leans in, two things happen at the exact same time.
“My name is Amalia,” I tell him with way too much conviction as I press a hand lightly against his chest, and suddenly the fire alarm goes off across the entire club and the sprinklers kick on.
“What the—” he says, and I’m not sure if he’s reacting to me or to the water that is absolutely drenching us both from head to toe.
