“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he says, then lifts his chin at Sara. “Morticia, you’re a vision.”
She offers a hand, and he kisses it with exaggerated gallantry.
For the next hour, the party becomes its own chemical reaction—bonding, splitting, recombining. Groups form and dissolve with no pattern except whatever Hunter happens to be hyping at that moment. Sara orchestrates an impromptu charades tournament. Aaron circulates like a benevolent ghost, checking on everyone, refilling cups, and occasionally stealing a slice of pizza from the box I’d meant to hide under the counter. I lose track of time, of anxiety, of whether I’m supposed to be in charge or just along for the ride.
At some point, I realize there are more people here than I invited—friends of friends, plus a handful of strangers who must have followed the noise up the stairs. I expect to feel exposed, invaded, but the energy is too good, the crowd too distracted by Hunter’s latest dare.
Sara slides up next to me, her hand cool on my forearm. “Hey. Are you okay? You look… I don’t know, hyper-ventilatory.”
I shake my head. “I’m good. It’s just—this is insane, right?”
She grins. “It’s perfect.”
The playlist shifts to something softer, almost nostalgic. I catch Aaron leaning against the kitchen counter, arms folded, watching me with a half-smile. He tips his head, an invitation. I slip past the crowd and join him.
He raises an eyebrow, voice pitched low. “Surviving?”
I nod. “Not even close to dying.”
He laughs, then rests a hand on my waist, thumb brushing the side of the overalls. His eyes are a little glazed, but focused. “You’re amazing,” he says, so matter-of-fact I almost believe it.
“Is that the vodka talking?”
He shrugs, smiling wider. “Doesn’t matter. It’s true either way.”
I glance down at the dress, the wig, the way his arm curves perfectly into the small of my back.
The last twelve months flash by: the closet, the first real date, the study sessions, the all-night paper-writing, the spring break road trip to Chicago when we got stuck in the snow and ended up marathoning every Marvel movie in a single caffeine-soaked weekend. I remember the fights, too—the shouting match over the dumbest group project in existence, the silent week after I tanked a test and refused to admit I was scared about it. All of it compressed into this one moment, Aaron’s hand warm on my ribs, his voice steady in the middle of chaos.
“Happy anniversary,” he says.
I grin, and he leans in for a kiss—nothing big, just a quick brush of lips, but the shock of it travels all the way down to my toes.
Behind us, Sara and Hunter run crowd control, herding people away from the balcony where someone is trying to light a sparkler indoors. The laughter is so loud it shakes the cheap glassware in the cabinets. I catch my own reflection in the ovendoor: white ears tilted at a rakish angle, nose slightly smudged, eyes wide but steady. I look less like a cartoon and more like someone who belongs.
The party swells around us, a soundwave of voices and music and clattering glass, and for the first time all night, I feel it: the sense that this is exactly where I’m supposed to be.
—ΠΩ—
The trick with parties is knowing when the tone will shift. You can almost see it, a chemical change at the surface: one guest arrives late enough to tilt the whole mixture, or someone introduces a new element and the reaction goes exothermic. At 11:10, right as the group in the kitchen is mid-way through a heated debate about whether Gene Wilder or Johnny Depp is the real Willy Wonka, there’s a knock at the door—a soft, uncertain tap, almost lost in the music.
I open it to find Natalie standing there, wrapped in a dalmatian-spotted coat that would have been pure evil if she didn’t look so impossibly nervous beneath it. Her dress is a simple black number with a high collar and white piping, and she’s paired it with long red gloves and a plastic cigarette holder that droops, almost apologetic, from her fingers. She’s done something with her hair, too—streaked it with temporary white so it fans around her head in perfect Cruella symmetry.
“Is this the legendary bash?” she says, voice half a decibel above a whisper.
I nod, trying not to gawk. “You look amazing.”
She lets out a little laugh. “You should see the shoes. Five-inch platforms. I almost ate shit on the stairs.”
She steps in, casting a wary glance over the crowd. There’s a moment of calculation—a flash of anxiety, a mental audit ofthe room. I recognize the move. She’s scanning for anyone who might close the distance before she’s ready.
The answer comes faster than she expects. Aaron, still dazzling in his Jessica Rabbit best, spots her from across the room and raises his glass in a silent toast. The effect is immediate—half the guests pivot to watch, a minor chord of tension tightening and then resolving as Natalie lifts her own drink, a plastic cup of seltzer, and gives a regal nod.
For a moment, it’s a standoff: her by the door, him at the makeshift bar, the two of them orbiting each other with carefully measured nonchalance. I see the way his smile is a little too careful, the way her left hand worries at the buttons on her coat.
Hunter, ever the chaos conductor, is first to break the spell. He materializes behind me and booms, “Is that CRUELLA DE VIL gracing this humble home?” He bows low, then sweeps an arm toward the center of the room. “Please, come in and show these heathens how a real villain enters a party.”
Natalie smiles, the first real one since she arrived, and peels off her coat. Underneath, the dress is more understated than I expected—modest, almost nun-like, except for the slash of red at her lips and the way she carries herself with deliberate grace. She steps in, perches on the edge of the couch, and sets the cigarette holder on the armrest with surgical precision. Within two minutes, Sara has materialized at her side, introducing herself and at once launching into a conversation about costume adhesives.
