Chapter Text
The air in the Allston house was a suffocating mix of cheap incense and the damp, hopeful chill of a Boston spring. It was the kind of party where the hardwood floors felt permanently tacky, and the lightbulbs in the hallway were dimmed by layers of red scarves. 2001 had felt heavy, but 2002 felt restless; everyone was vibrating with the need to be somewhere else, or someone else.
In the kitchen, the linoleum was peeling at the corners, and the hum of the refrigerator was almost as loud as the music thumping from the basement. Sara Afton stood in the corner of the room, her back against a pantry door that didn’t quite shut. She felt like a bright, glaring mistake in the dim light. She’d tried to be bold, choosing her favorite orange overalls and matching Converse, but now she just felt like a target.
“You’re doing the thing again,” Julian said, appearing from the crowd with two plastic cups. He looked effortlessly at home, his dark hair messy in a way that took effort, his light button-down uncreased despite the crush of people.
“I’m just... observing,” Sara murmured, reaching up to adjust her hair so it shielded the right side of her face. The burn mark felt like it was glowing under the harsh fluorescent kitchen light.
“You’re hiding,” Julian countered, bumping his shoulder against hers. “I bet you ten dollars that at least three people in this room are currently wondering how you pulled off that much orange so well. It’s brave, Sara.”
Sara looked down at her shoes, the bright canvas scuffed from the walk over. “I don’t feel brave. I feel like I have a gastronomy lab report due in thirty-six hours that I haven’t started.”
“The sourdough fermentation project can wait,” Julian laughed. “The world is happening right now. Look, Burek just got the DJ to play something with a synthesizer. Let’s go find him before he tries to start a mosh pit.”
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On the other side of the house, Christine Xu was a whirlwind of color and nervous excitement. She was a freshman at Boston College, but she spent most of her weekends trying to find the “real” Boston, the one with more art and less mahogany.
“Mikey, stop checking the light meter, the lighting is objectively terrible,” Christine teased, nudging Mikey’s shoulder.
Mikey was hunched over his camera, his long black hair falling forward as he adjusted the lens. He looked comfortable in his baggy hoodie and corduroys, his leather satchel slung across his chest like a security blanket. “I’m capturing the ‘grit,’ Chris. This is the aesthetic of 2002. Disposable and grainy.”
“Well, capture it faster! I want to see the rest of the house,” Christine chirped.
She looked like she had walked straight out of a sketchbook. She was wearing an oversized, cream-colored cardigan thick with knit patchwork hearts in every color: red, purple, teal, and yellow. Beneath it, she wore a simple black mini skirt paired with sheer black tights covered in a constellation of tiny velvet stars.
“I’m so ready to be at BU,” she said, her heart earrings jingling as she turned. “I feel like I’m in a waiting room at BC.”
“It’s only a few more months,” Mikey reminded her. “Besides, Ody is already here somewhere. He’s with Annie. I think they’re arguing about the cultural significance of the Hawaiian shirt in the living room.”
“I’ll find them!” Christine said, giving him a quick wave.
She pushed through the crowded hallway, the heat of a hundred bodies making her cheeks flush. She was looking for a face she knew, but as she rounded the corner into the kitchen, she stopped dead. The noise of the party seemed to drop an octave.
Standing by the counter was a girl who looked like she had been painted into existence using only the warmest colors on the palette. The girl’s ginger hair glowed under the kitchen light, and her orange overalls were the most beautiful thing Christine had ever seen. She looked quiet, a little nervous, and utterly captivating.
She looks like a sunset, Christine thought, her heart giving a sudden, erratic thud.
The girl was looking at her shoes, her hand nervously playing with a lock of ginger hair. She looked fragile and bold all at once. Christine felt a pull in her chest that had nothing to do with art and everything to do with the way the light hit that specific shade of orange. She took a step forward, her mouth opening to say something, anything, to make the girl look up.
“Christine! There you are!”
A hand grabbed her elbow. It was a girl from her BC art history seminar. “The taxi is outside! We’re all going to the diner before the rush hits. You have to come, you’re our only ride back to Chestnut Hill!”
“Wait, just a second,” Christine looked back, her eyes searching for the sunset girl.
At that exact moment, Sara looked up. She saw the girl in the colorful heart sweater and star-covered tights staring at her. To Sara, Christine looked like the peak of effortless confidence. Sara immediately felt a pang of shame, assuming the “cool girl” was judging her loud outfit. She quickly ducked her head, letting her hair fall like a curtain over her face.
“Christine, come on! The meter is running!”
“I’m coming,” Christine whispered, one last look lingering on the girl in the orange overalls.
As the taxi sped away from the Allston house, Christine pulled a charcoal pencil from her crossbody bag and made a small, orange smudge on the back of a receipt. She didn’t know the girl was a sophomore. She didn’t know they were both about to take Principles of Biology in the fall.
She only knew that for three seconds, the world had been the exact color of a sunset.
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It was a sweltering Tuesday in September 2002, and the heavy humidity of the Boston summer was still clinging stubbornly to the brick walls of Commonwealth Avenue.
Christine had spent her summer packing and repacking her life at BC into cardboard boxes, her sketchbook filling up with color studies of sunsets that never felt quite right. Now, she was officially a BU student, her room in South Campus finally smelling like her own oil paints and lavender laundry detergent. At the same time, Sara had spent her summer tucked away in a kitchen, perfecting her techniques, yet the memory of that girl in the heart-patterned sweater had stayed with her like a persistent melody she couldn’t quite name.
The Life Science and Engineering building smelled of floor wax and old formaldehyde. It was the first week of the fall semester, and the air conditioning was struggling against the late-summer heatwave.
Christine hurried into the “Principles of Biology” lab, her platform boots clattering on the linoleum. She was wearing a pink plaid skirt, white socks, and a white crop top.
“Alright, everyone, find your assigned stations!” the TA shouted over the din of shuffling backpacks. “Names are on the lab benches.”
Christine moved toward the middle of the room, her heart earrings jingling as she squinted at the taped labels. Station 4: Xu/Afton.
She pulled out the high stool, dropping her bag. A moment later, she heard the sound of squeaky rubber soles. She looked up.
Her breath caught.
The girl from the party was standing right there. She wasn’t wearing orange today. She was in a simple sleeveless tee and jeans, but that ginger hair was unmistakable. Up close, the girl was even more striking; Christine’s eyes immediately traced the faint burn mark on the right side of the face she hadn’t been able to see clearly in the dark of April. It wasn’t a flaw; to Christine’s artist brain, it was a detail that made her look like a piece of storied marble.
Sara froze, her hand gripping the strap of her bag so hard her knuckles were white. She recognized her instantly. It was the girl in the colorful sweater. The girl who had stared at her.
“Oh,” Sara whispered, her voice barely audible. She immediately turned her head, letting her hair fall forward to hide her scar. “Hi. I’m... I’m Sara.”
Christine felt a surge of adrenaline, the kind she usually only got when she found the perfect light for a painting. The “Sunset Girl” wasn’t just a smudge of orange pastel in a sketchbook anymore. She had a name. She had a voice. She was real.
“I’m Christine,” she said, her voice bright and energetic, a wide, authentic smile breaking across her face. “I think we’re going to be partners.”
Sara looked up cautiously, meeting Christine’s sparkling eyes. For the first time, she didn’t see judgment. She saw something that looked a lot like wonder.
“Yeah,” Sara said, a tiny, tentative smile finally touching her lips. “Partners.”
The “Sunset Girl” finally had a name, and as the TA began to drone on about safety goggles and petri dishes, Christine realized she hadn’t looked at her textbook once. She was too busy realizing that the real thing was much better than the sketch.