The bathroom mirror is a liar.
The girl in it has her hair in a tight brown bun and a cranberry stain blooming across a dress that cost more than my monthly grocery budget. Alex's dress. Borrowed fifteen minutes ago, and I'm already destroying it.
I press a damp paper towel to the fabric. The stain spreads. Of course it does.
I should be home. Should be at the kitchen table with the Stanford packet spread out, the number burning behind my eyes: thirty-four thousand short. Every year, four years. Mom slid it under the sugar bowl this morning like a grocery receipt she didn't want to deal with yet. Didn't say a word. Rolled silverware for the breakfast shift and went to bed.
Instead I'm here, in some football player's house, playing wingwoman for a plan I already told Alex would end in tears.
This was a mistake.
The lock is a broken hunk of brass that doesn't engage. I clocked it on the way in and told myself ninety seconds, tops. That was eighty seconds ago.
The door swings open.
My hand freezes against my chest. The guy from the patio, the one who spilled his drink on me, all beer and sweat, stumbles through, bigger than I remembered. He fills the frame and the room shrinks.
"Well, hello again." His words blur at the edges. "Didn't get to properly apologize."
"It's fine." Too high, too tight. "I was just leaving."
I try to step around him. He doesn't move. His hand shoots out and closes around my upper arm, fingers digging in. That's going to bruise. The squeeze is the worst part: it's casual. He's done this enough times to know the exact pressure that makes a girl stop before she registers she's stopped.
"Don't rush off." His breath hits my face, stale alcohol, cigarette ghost. "Party's just getting started."
"Please let go."
His grip tightens. His other hand reaches for my waist, and my back hits the sink edge, and I'm about to scream the loudest sound I can make…
Then I clock the urinal on the wall by his hip.
Of course. Of course I picked the men's room.
The drunk disappears.
One second he's bruising my arm. The next he's slammed against the wall, a body between us, fists flying. Flesh on flesh, wet and rhythmic and terrible, each punch landing with a grunt from the drunk and silence from the one delivering it.
I know the dark curls first. Then the shoulders. The controlled violence in every movement.
Julian Blaze.
He doesn't curse, doesn't taunt. Just hits. Left, right, left, the drunk's head snapping against the tile, blood smearing white. And his face is the worst part. No anger. No rage. Something quieter that looks almost like satisfaction.
The thought that drops into me is not thank god he was here. The thought is who taught him to do that, and I can't make it leave.
"Stop!" The word tears out of me. "You'll kill him!"
He doesn't stop. His knuckles are already split, blood on his hand, on the wall, on the drunk's face. I grab his arm mid-swing. The muscle is iron under my fingers, and for a second I feel how easily he could shake me off. He stops. His chest heaves twice. He steps back.
The drunk scrambles past us, clutching his face, and is gone.
Julian turns to me. Green eyes wild, pupils blown, a fleck of blood on his cheekbone. He looks at me like he's seeing me for the first time, recognition flickering in, slow and reluctant. The whole thing had the wrong feel. Too easy. Too economical.
"What the hell are you doing in the men's bathroom?"
The question is so absurd I almost laugh. "The lock's broken. I was trying to clean this." I gesture at the stain. "I didn't realize…"
"Didn't realize." He shakes out his bleeding hand. Blood drips from the middle knuckle onto white tile. "Next time check the sign before you hide out."
"You're bleeding."
He glances at his hand like he forgot it was attached. "It'll stop."
I don't know why I reach for him. Maybe I can't stand to watch blood drip and do nothing. Maybe I need to touch something solid to prove I'm still here. My fingers wrap around his wrist and I pull his hand toward me. He lets me. The cut is split open against the bone, still welling. I grab the last clean paper towel and press it to the wound.
He hisses through his teeth. Doesn't pull away.
"You're getting blood on you."
There's a smear of red across my forearm, above where the drunk grabbed me. His blood, or the drunk's, or both.
"It's already ruined." A shrug at the dress. "The whole night."
A sound that isn't quite a laugh. "You're handling this better than most."
"I'm not handling it. I'm in shock. There's a difference."
His eyes meet mine. He's too close. Soap and sweat and something darker under the copper of blood, like a signature he's left in the air on purpose. I let go of his hand. The towel stays pressed to the knuckle.
"You okay?"
"Why do you care?"
"I don't." He steps back, finally. "But you looked like you were about to scream, and I'd rather not deal with a police report tonight."
"Very noble."
"That's not what people call me."
Yeah. I bet they don't. I believe him.
He turns for the door, and I think he'll leave without another word. But he stops with one hand on the jamb, his back to me.
"Pick a different party next Friday."
"What?"
"The one you're going to. Pick somewhere else." A glance over his shoulder. "And when you do, tell Alex that Noah Parker's not interested. Save her the embarrassment."
My stomach drops. "How do you know Alex?"
"Pay attention sometime, West. People tell you things you didn't ask for."
He's gone into the hallway before I can answer.
I stand there another thirty seconds, staring at a pale, scared girl in a borrowed dress with someone else's blood on her arm. Under the smear, the four-finger print of the drunk's hand is already lifting purple, the way a bruise advertises itself a day early.
I didn't even thank him right. Then, hard on its heels: I should not have thanked him at all.
The back patio is colder than it was twenty minutes ago. Two girls share a vape in the corner. An underclassman is face-down in a lounge chair. A half-eaten plate of nachos congeals on the railing.
I press my palms to the cold metal and breathe. In, out, again.
"You probably need this more than me."
I turn. The guy is tall, dark hair over his forehead, kind eyes that don't match the sharp angles of his jaw. He's holding out a napkin and a paper cup of water, and he isn't looking at the stain; he's looking at the railing, the way you hand somebody a tissue when they're crying and pretending they aren't.
I take them. "Thanks."
"No problem." He waits while I drink. "I heard about the bathroom."
My throat closes. "Word travels fast."
"Somebody saw the guy run out with a bloody nose. And you come out with blood on your arm." His gaze flicks to the smear. "You okay?"
"Everyone keeps asking me that tonight."
"Because it keeps needing to be asked."
I study him. Never seen him before. "Do I know you?"
"You don't. Owen." He holds out his hand. "Owen Hudson."
I shake it. His grip is warm, steady. "Harper."
"I know. Alex talks about you. A lot." A small smile, a beat longer than necessary, and then he's back through the sliding door, and I find I can swallow again.
I rinse the last of the blood off my forearm. It comes off easy. I think about the envelope under the sugar bowl, the number that's been living in my head since Tuesday. A hundred and thirty-six thousand dollars I don't have and can't earn and will never be offered as a handout. Mom didn't bring it up at dinner. She just put the packet down like if she didn't look at it, it wouldn't be real.
It's real.
I shove my phone back in the clutch Alex made me bring and push inside.
The kitchen is packed. Bodies on bodies, laughter too loud, the air thick with spilled beer. I'm weaving toward Alex's honey-brown hair when I see her instead.
Madison Cooper. Strappy gold top, liner sharp enough to cut. A red cup in one hand, and behind her, half the senior class arranged in a loose circle on the den floor. The truth-or-dare game I've heard about from every corner of the school.
Her eyes find me like she was waiting.
"Harper West." Her voice carries. "There you are."
My stomach tightens. I've never spoken to Madison Cooper. I'm the invisible scholarship girl; she's the queen of everything.
"I'm looking for Alex."
"She's in the den. Waiting for the game to start." A sip. The smile arrives slowly, on purpose. "Julian said you'd want in."
I freeze.
Julian. Of course this is connected to him: the rescue, the warning, the casual way he dropped Alex's name. He was setting this up before I walked into that bathroom.
I scan the crowd. There, at the far end of the den, split knuckle to his mouth, Julian Blaze is watching me. His eyes were on me before I turned around. He knew I'd come inside. He knew I'd end up here.
Pick a different party. He said it like a warning. He knew I wouldn't listen.
"I'm not interested."
"Nobody said you had to be. You just have to show up. One round." She steps aside, clearing the doorway. "Come on, Harper. Live a little."
Behind her, the den goes quiet. The weight of the attention lands on me, the skinny brown-haired girl in the stained dress who doesn't belong here. Alex has her hand on Noah Parker's wrist and her eyes already saying don't. Julian is still watching.
I should walk away. Drag Alex out and forget this night happened.
But I can still feel the drunk's hand on my arm. Still see Julian's fist connecting. Still feel the cold railing and the weight of Owen's kindness and the Stanford packet under the sugar bowl at home.
I'm tired of being the girl who says no.
"Lead the way."
The words come out like they belong to someone braver. Someone who wants to find out what happens when she stops hiding.
Madison's smile widens.
"Good girl."
She turns, and I follow her into the den.
