It starts with a laugh.

Their laugh.

Low, careless, unbothered—that sound cuts straight through the drunken haze of the party like a live wire under Lena’s skin. She hears it over the thrum of bass and the clinking of bottles, somewhere near the kitchen, and her stomach clenches before she can tell it not to.

She doesn’t look. Not right away. That would be giving too much.

Instead, she tightens her grip on the neck of a warm beer she hasn’t sipped in half an hour and leans a little heavier into Alex—big, dumb Alex from the second line who’s been trying to flirt with her since the beginning of the season. His voice is in her ear again, something cocky and slurred, and she lets her lips twitch like she might laugh.

But she doesn’t hear a word he’s saying. All she hears is them.

Laughing. Talking. Not at her. Not with her.

Not tonight.

They haven’t even looked at her—not really. A glance, maybe. The kind that burns fast and pretends it didn’t happen. They’re good at that. Both of them are. Pretending nothing’s still there, even while everything between them hums like static.

Lena’s good at pretending, too.

She tips her chin, lets her eyes drift lazily toward the living room, doesn’t search for them directly—but it’s instinct, magnetic, inevitable. There they are. Talking to someone she doesn’t recognize. Smiling like they haven’t spent the last two weeks ignoring every one of her texts. Like they weren’t in her bed last Friday, saying things she never asked for but still hears in her head when she’s trying to sleep. And here Lena was—staring like and idiot like she hadn't done those things right back.

She swallows it down. That feeling. The one that creeps up her throat like jealousy and desperation and rage braided together. She hates that they can still do this to her. Hates it even more that she still wants them to.

She peels herself away from Alex without a word, weaving through the crowd with her shoulders squared like armor. She doesn’t push anyone, but people move anyway. There’s something about Lena when she’s in this mood—something in her jaw, her stare, the way her boots hit the floor. Like a storm dressed in fishnets and eyeliner.

She hits the back door hard enough to make the hinges protest and slips out into the night.

Cold air slaps her cheeks, sharp and welcome. She sucks it in like a drug. Her hand’s already in her pocket for a cigarette before the door clicks shut behind her. A lighter follows, scuffed and half-empty. The flame sputters, catches. She lights up.

The first inhale burns. Good. She needs to feel something real.

The brick wall behind her is rough and cold, digging into the blades of her shoulders through her thin hoodie. She leans into it, lets her head fall back, and exhales toward the stars. The smoke curls into the dark like a sigh, fading fast.

Inside, the party roars on without her. Music, shouting, laughter—all muffled now. Distant.

But still, she hears them. Not clearly. Just the shape of their voice. The pitch. The rhythm.

Too close.

She closes her eyes, jaw tight. Tries to summon that familiar wall of apathy. But it cracks the moment her mind drifts back to the way they looked tonight. That stupid half-smile. That shirt she always liked on them. The little twitch of their mouth when they’re holding back something sharp.

She tells herself she doesn’t care. She tells herself this is better. Cleaner.

But then the door opens again. She doesn’t have to look. She knows it’s them. She feels it.

The way her body reacts—every nerve snapping to attention, every instinct flaring like she's back on the ice in the middle of a fight. Their footsteps crunch on the gravel, hesitant, too slow to be confident, too purposeful to be random. She lets the silence stretch.

One beat. Two.

Another drag. Her fingers are steady now.

“You fuckin' lost?” she asks without turning, voice flat and cold as steel.