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“Remind me again why I agreed to be part of this?”
“Because you're my best friend and would never leave me to fend for myself at a college party with random strangers?”
Staring from the opposite sidewalk, Ben and Yaz are able to hear the song — mixed to an indistinguishable chatter — loud and clear. The changing lights, in a cadence scratched to a bit more than ten seconds, shine in primary colors, escaping the opened windows and painting the walls of the neighbors’ houses.
“Why did you agree to be a part of this?” Yaz tries again, unconvinced and crossing her arms. “I thought you didn't like this type of… gathering. ”
“I don't, but I wanted to try something different.” He diverges his eyes, fidgeting with the edge of his shirt, suddenly missing his beloved waist pack.
She quirks a brow. “Correction, you wanted to try something different for Kenji .”
He ‘ Pff’s’ at her, waving his hand dismissively. “Those details don't matter. Let's go. It will be fun”
The boy starts to cross the street, but Yasmina doesn't move an inch. Her eyes are glued on the different lights — from blue to red to green and then yellow. Her ears are trying to filter the absurd amount of sounds she could hear even from here — the sounds she's pretty sure she has been hearing since they entered the block. Her skin still senses the presence of the earplugs she's hidden in the back pocket of her jeans when she was getting ready — convincing herself it was for comfort and not because she couldn't handle something as simple as a party; everyone her age loved these… messy reunions, why couldn't she, right?
“Yaz?” Ben calls out for her, looking back. “Are you coming?”
Everyone their age loved these, right? (To spill their confusion onto the room and other people; to drink whatever's on the table and spin with the walls and the floor when the punch hits hard; to dance out of rhythm and sing out of tune; to use the night and be more free than they could ever dream of being during the day, in front of real people.) Why wouldn't she?
“Yeah.” She mutters, walking up to him and gritting her teeth when she starts to feel the current song's beat vibrating her eardrums excessively. Without permission, it penetrates her skull, rooting her to the ground and taking much more energy from each step than it normally would.
Everyone loves this. They do, she thinks. I can like this too .
It's much louder on the inside. And all those colors are even more disorienting with so many people moving at the same time in an uncoordinated manner.
Yasmina stands by the kitchen's back door, back leaning onto the thick, wooden frame and a cup of… whatever people added to that big plastic bowl to make the liquid greenish blue.
She hasn't taken even a sip of it.
Neither has she moved in the last 20 minutes. She watches, instead, other people's behavior — how careless everyone seemed — comparing it to her own: their loose limbs and her cemented muscles; their chest-y laughter and her jaw clench; their lack of concerns about PDA and her hyper-aware skin (actively sensing and avoiding touch with so many strangers).
Ben, beside her, doesn't notice how wildly her mind is working at the moment. His eyes are too focused on Kon's heir to even worry about what in heaven he's drinking from that red plastic cup. Or about the deep flush on his cheeks when Kenji sees him from the crowded living room. Waves at him. Says something to a guy — possibly a friend of his —before finding his way through that sea of people. Getting to them — to Ben . Smiling at Pincus and almost giving him an aneurysm.
“Hey… Ben. I'm glad you really came.” The tall boy rubs his neck, and Yaz looks away.
She doesn't want to intrude in their moment — and she most definitely does not wish to be part of it in any way. (But deep, deep down, she's glad she's here to “witness” this type of change in her best friend’s demeanor — all red cheeks and stuttering between sentences . Being silly and dumb about someone. To have someone acting equally silly and stupid because of him.)
Their conversation is tuned out by her, her eyes starting to eye the backyard.
Temptation .
If this was any other night, she'd be studying in her dorm. Or trying to draw something in the quietness of her couch. Or maybe using the college running track to clear her mind. Even rounding the campus until her calves gave out on her, just to empty her body of every thought and sensation she has ever experienced.
That only happens when things are too much.
Sometimes too many things are too much too frequently.
The girl sighs. Ben's still too entranced by Kenji to notice her there. The nights are still changing, the people are still singing and dancing and being noisy. The cup in her hands is still untouched, and everything on the outside seems to be moving her insides. The music is ricocheting inside her skull and the movement is making her skin crawl. All those strangers being able to see her, but never with an actual purpose — she feels much more exposed than at any track competition she has ever been a part of; how does that make any sense?
Yaz has put up with this for the last 25 minutes. And that's too much.
Everyone likes this — and now parties are definitely on the top 10 of her divergences when compared to other people. And she doesn't like this, not in the least.
So she walks out.
Stepping on the back porch and gasping for air like she has been underwater. Taking a few tentative steps forward — looking backwards just to make sure no one's staring at her — and then being braver. Taking a dozen steps. And then a few more. Circling the house and walking to the curb. On the opposite side of the street.
Still gasping for air.
Wishing she could run out of there. Run the night away. Counting steps on the pavement and breaths caught in her throat. Being bothered because she's wearing denim, and it rubs uncomfortably on her waist. Letting the outside noise fade and focusing on the heartbeat in her ears — on the red, yellow and green lights that followed a well-known pattern: stop, attention, go!
Still gasping for air, she sits down right there. She takes the earplugs from her back pocket — that blessed pair of pastel purple foam expanding inside her ears and calming her in only a few minutes. She hugs her knees and lays her head there, eyes on the front door in case Ben comes out looking for her; eyes on the front door for any indication she's allowed to go .
The night deepens above her and the breeze gets colder. The stars don't shine strongly enough to overcome the brightness of the big city, and the moon is nothing but a lovely half of its entirety, hiding behind heavy cotton clouds.
Yaz can't find enough entertainment on her phone — despite her two downloaded games ( ‘Magic Touch’ and ‘Killer Sudoku’) being her absolute favorites, tonight that is not enough. Neither are her nails. Or her feet. Or the small cracks in the asphalt that extended from one side to the other in irregular variations and that ruined the lane division.
None of it is enough.
The only option she has left is listening to herself. Lungs and muscles and pumping arteries. Neurons and heart and diaphragm. The air coming in and out, taking the blue off her blood and making it burning red. Warming up her body and feeding her brain. The energy moving between muscular fiber, outlining her bones and going back to the rib cage, the spine, the blood marrow. Sympathetic and parasympathetic division of the nervous system. The nodes in the heart that open and close valves — the rhythm that keeps her alive and working.
It's not nearly as loud as the speakers inside the house.
It's ideally quiet enough to keep her away from anything else.
And it works. For a time, she doesn't bother to determine, it works.
She calms down, getting so immersed into her own head that she doesn't notice the sound of a bike stopping next to her. Or the girl standing there in the uniform of that café near campus ‘ Cookie Craft’ . Or the first few “ hello’s” .
Honestly, Yasmina only notices the additional presence when the girl crouches down in front of her. “Hi,” she tries again, offering a gentle smile at her.
That makes her raise her head. Curiously looking at the girl in front of her, but not removing her earplugs. (Attached by a name tag to her shirt, she sees the name ‘Samantha’ . She has heard — or seen? — this scene before.) “Hi,” her voice sounds weird. Scratched and strangled. She doesn't like it
“Are you here for the party? Why aren't you inside?” Samantha sounds awfully cheerful. Energetic. Something one wouldn't expect from someone who apparently has been working up to this hour.
“No,” Yaz says, shaking her head and keeping her tone even and low. “I did come to the party, but it's not my thing, so I didn’t come for it. I never intended to stay inside with other people.”
The other girl giggles. “You’re funny.”
She frowns. I'm really not. “I came for a friend. He's inside.” She feels the necessity to fill in after a few moments. To not look and sound even more stupid.
Samantha hums, brightness still on her face. “I’m not a party person, either. Not most of the time, anyway.” She shrugs, looking above her shoulder before sitting down on the bare pavement. Legs crossed. “My roommates, however, love this type of stuff.”
Yaz’ eyes go from her to the house. She feels like she should ask something, or at least fill the blank, since the other girl seems so eager to talk. She should know what to do here, but talking has never been her strong suit. Or people. Or anything to do with socializing and ‘creating new bonds’.
So she just sinks into herself. Humming, and leaving room for Samantha to talk all she wants — she's still close enough for her voice to be perceptible even through the earplugs.
“I’m more of an ‘arcade and cinema’ type of gal. Or maybe an amusement park. I love amusement parks, they're so cool.” Her eyes shine with the words. The other shudders — to even imagine that place would be too much. “Not that I have time for it anyway. Between work and college, I'm lucky if I get 4 hours of sleep at night or a break at weekends.”
‘Tracking leaves me like that too. But I like it. Running is good, and I'm happy with college. Keeps me occupied. It's good to be occupied. ’ She wants to answer — engage . At this point (after having lived more than 15 years of considerable awareness in this world) Yasmina knows the polite thing to do when someone's talking to you is to contribute with something . Either a full sentence or a hum, or just body language. She knows people like feedback, and most of them need it to keep going — for the conversation to not end up with them pointing out her alleged rudeness and her antipathy, and her trying to explain that's not at all what's happening.
She opens her mouth (she might think of something right to say when the air comes up from her lungs) but Samantha beats her to it. Thank God.
“You're not really a talker, are you?”
Shaking her head, Yaz tries to straighten her posture. It goes unnoticed.
“I've seen you around Cookie Craft. You're always on the corner with your books, your headphones and your black coffee. Quiet and on your own.” She points out, apparently unbothered by Yasmina’s lack of verbal response. “You always ask for the same cookie, too. Pistachio perfection , right?”
She nods, somewhat impressed the girl has retained this information when she had hundreds of clients in a day. “It has the right crunch.”
A beam overtakes Samantha's features. Yaz doesn't understand why she got so smiley suddenly.
“Pistachio is not my favorite, but the peanut butter one… it's always the one I pick at the end of my shift.”
You can do that? The girl hugging her knees fails to notice her thoughts actually had sound this time.
“Well, yeah. I can take 5 cookies, max, if there's any left when we close.”
“That's cool.” She says, simply. And, once again, she allows the other to do most of the talking. Even though she stops paying full attention to the words at some point, Yasmina decides that, for that moment, focusing on this stranger's voice — a stranger she knows the name of, and probably should have some residual memory of — is much better than whatever music is still blasting from the house before her.
This counts as tunneled attention, right?
One info– One person at a time.
The conversation goes nowhere, but they're both still there. The night is now darker, and it's probably past midnight. The colorful lights are replaced by usual yellow ones, and the sea of people dissolves into only a few. Cups are left on the front lawn, and Samantha's bike hasn't moved an inch. The moon has moved to a different cloud, and Yaz let go of her knees at some point. Ben, inside the house, eagerly volunteers to help with the cleanup. Kenji, right beside him, doesn't want to say yes — because the boy barely moved around the house during the party — but he can't bring himself to say no — and it turns into an internal debacle of ‘how to ask him to stay a bit more without asking him to stay a bit more ’ and ‘is he going to notice this is what I think I want?’ .
The kitchen clock strikes 1:25AM, and there's still a lot to do.
Samantha walks in through the kitchen's backdoor at some point. Yaz comes right after her.
“Hey! I thought you left me here and went home.” Ben says as he sees her. There's a tint of relief in his voice.
“I was outside. You were…,” she eyes the tall boy in the background, putting empty plastic plates on a garbage bag, “occupied. And I needed to take a breath.”
Pincus walks closer to his friend. Samantha slides out of the picture, going to the living room to help Kenji to pick the cups, too.
“Are you okay?” She nods, but his eyes are already roaming over her for any sign of obvious damage. The look in his eyes tells her he’s not convinced by her words. The tightness on his mouth show a bit of guilt. “Are you sure? This was not– This is not a good place for you. I know you don't like this.”
“You asked me to come. And I did.” She says matter-of-factly, but it doesn't seem to help him . “I’m okay, Ben. Brought earplugs, remember?”
He presses his lips together. “I'm sorry. I just wanted to–”
“I know. It's fine.” She tries to smile. Smiling at cue like this never works with her, dammit. It makes it look like she's being conveniently dismissive to calm his worries. (Which she's not doing, and they both know it.) If Yaz wasn't happy with it, she would have said so. She would've left hours ago. “Going outside helped.”
Ben's eyes trace her face for any sign of deception. Finds none. The boy sighs loudly and then looks around. “Do you want to go home? It's late, and I know you have a routine in the morning.”
A crease appears between her brows. “Are you not coming?”
“I said I'd help to clean this mess. And there's still a lot to do.”
She nods, shortly. Then springs into action. Collecting cups on the counter and dropping the lasting contents in the sink. Her best friend's gaze is burning on her back, and she can almost swear she feels his growing grin on her as well.
They've known each other for long enough. She has learned a lot about his manners and edges. He has learned a lot about her edges and manners. They're a good duo. And for her luck, they could understand each other without much speaking, most of the time.
She's not at all surprised when he splits her task in halves, tossing the cups she just emptied on his own garbage bag.
They’re a great duo . They know what to do.
With four pairs of hands to help, collecting most of the trash is finished by 2AM.
Garbage bags are piled up on the front porch — Ben and Kenji are about to take it outside — and a few actual dishes and silverware are dropped at the bottom of the sink. The couches are back into place, and the stained rug — because, of course , someone spilled their drinks there — is in the laundry room. The windows are closed, the speakers are off. The downstairs bathroom has been ruled out as a problem for tomorrow, and the whole upstairs space is, hopefully, untouched and intact. (No bedrooms’ doors violated and no passed-out dude in the middle of the hallway, thank God .)
Everything seems right into place and reasonably clean.
They can finally get a few hours of sleep.
“Hey.” Yaz is about to step out the porch when she hears Samantha calling for her. From where she stands, she can see Ben standing on the driveway. Kenji hovering above him, smiling. (Both looking disgustingly smitten.) “Thanks for helping us with the mess. You didn't even enjoy the party and still helped.”
She shrugs, hiding her hands in her back pockets. “Yeah… Ben wanted to help anyway. Figured more hands would end the job quicker.”
Samantha chuckles, eyes flickering. She still looks very energetic, but the small drop of her shoulders could be a sign of exhaustion. “It did. We'd still be picking things up if it wasn't for you two. Now we'll get a chance to nap before sunrise.”
Yasmina tries to smile, but she's too tired to actually put effort on her facial muscles. And it's late. And, of course, the night breeze is borderline freezing. A cold bite on the back of her neck makes her shrink into herself.
“Are you cold?” She goes to step forward, to touch Yaz' arm, but she thinks twice. Better . “Do you want a hoodie? A cardigan? A sweater? You can borrow one of mine.”
“Oh no, it's fine. I'm not–”
Samantha shrugs her off immediately, going to the closet beside the front door to grab something. Hangers bumping into each other, clicking, followed by utters of ‘where is this thing' and ‘I swore I put it here'.
“You really don't have to bother, Samantha. I live just–”
“Got it!”
The protests are indeed useless. When Yaz blinks, in the next second, she sees the other girl stretching her arm towards her, a thick green cardigan in her hand.
“I promise it's well cleaned, and it feels nice and warm when you put it on!”
For a second, she doesn't know what to do. What do say — not that she ever does. Now it's just slightly more inconvenient that she apparently missed several classes at the ‘appropriate social interaction’ module.
“C'mon, you're cold. You can give it back to me later. You know where I live and where I work.”
It's not as convincing as she makes it sound, but Yaz takes it anyway. “Thanks.” She mumbles, studying the piece of clothing for a moment before bringing it close to her body. “It does feel nice.”
Samantha nods, smiling. “Aren't you putting it on? I think it feels nicer if you actually wear it, y'know.”
She nods slowly, more to herself than to the other girl. “Are you sure it's okay?” Because she could think of a thousand reasons why this wouldn't be alright with her. Borrowing a fine cardigan that feels great to a complete stranger she met by change? What would even guarantee her she'd get it back?
“I'm sure it's okay.” She repeats, looking serious for a second, before lighting up again when she sees Yasmina is finally putting it on. “It looks good on you.”
What? “It's really warm.”
“It is.”
Samantha looks at her for a dead minute without any obvious purpose.
Yaz does her best to not worry about visual contact, looking above the other's shoulder. Not moving away.
One of them — or maybe both — is about to try to voice something else when Ben's voice is heard on the sidewalk.
“Thanks for the cardigan. I'll return it to you by the end of the week. And I'll wash it too, of course.”
“Don't worry about it.”
Oh, but she will.
The walk home is silent and unrushed. Yaz counts their steps and how many traffic lights they go through. Ben is more worried about headlights of cars and the avenue signs. They’re side by side and there aren’t many people outside at this hour — it’s quiet, quiet, quiet. None of them brings up the other's additional piece of clothing — Ben doesn't point out how Yaz has hidden her hands inside the long sleeves of the cardigan, and Yaz doesn't say a word about the audible sniffs Pincus gives the collar of the hoodie.
They get to their place at 2:29AM, and they sink into bed almost immediately.
He has almost five hours of sleep before his study time. She has two hours and a half before her morning run.
The night doesn't feel like a total loss at the moment— no big lights, loud houses or heavy thoughts; the only real wondering that matters for this instant is where Samantha got that perfect cardigan , and where can I get one that feels as nice as hers.