Sky and I were halfway across the campus courtyard when he asked.
"Did you invite her?"
"Bella? I mentioned it."
He stopped walking.
I made it three more steps before I realised and turned around. He was standing in the middle of the path with the expression of a man who had just heard something that required him to be stationary.
"You just said Bella," he said.
"That's her name."
"Her name is Isabella." He caught up, falling back into step but slower now, processing. "Isabella Lopez. Two years at this school. Lab rankings. The eye contact thing. That Isabella. And you just said Bella like it was nothing."
"It is nothing."
"Marx." He stopped again, briefly. "I have tried, on three separate occasions, to use her first name in passing, and each time she looked at me like I'd made a grammatical error. I now exclusively call her Lopez in my head so I don't accidentally say it out loud." He gestured. "You call her Bella."
"She told me to."
Sky opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
My phone rang.
Kenzie.
I held up a finger. "One second." I answered. "Hey."
"Just checking — we're still on for tomorrow, right?" Her voice was bright, already carrying the energy of someone who had a plan and was pleased with it. "I've got the whole day sorted. Wear something you don't mind ruining a little. Trust me on that."
"Still on," I said. "What are we doing?"
"You'll see. It's better if you don't know in advance."
"That's not reassuring."
"It's not supposed to be reassuring, it's supposed to be exciting. There's a difference." A pause, warm and easy. "I'll see you tomorrow."
"See you tomorrow."
I hung up.
Sky was looking at me with the layered expression of a man who had too many questions and couldn't decide which one to lead with.
"Bella," he said finally. "And now this."
"It's a lot," I agreed.
"Who is she?"Sky asked
"Friend."
"The kind of friend you smile at your phone for?"
I pocketed it. "Let's go."
___________________________________
The party started at eight.
By seven-fifty Sky was at my door in a jacket he'd clearly ironed, holding two cans of something and radiating the energy of a person who had been looking forward to this since Tuesday.
"You're ready," he observed.
"I'm wearing what I wore today."
"That's ready enough." He looked past me into the apartment. "Lets get moving then,"
The rooftop was everything Sky had promised.
Strings of warm lights ran between the water towers. Music from a speaker setup that someone had clearly put genuine thought into — not too loud, present enough to fill the space. The city stretched out in every direction, Annex City in its full evening arrangement, lit and moving and entirely indifferent to the party happening above it.
There were maybe sixty people up there. The easy, mixed energy of a Friday — people who knew each other well, people who were using this as an occasion to know each other better, people standing near the edges looking at the view because the view was genuinely worth looking at.
Sky was in his element within approximately forty seconds. He had found people, inserted himself into their conversation, and was already generating laughter from a group I didn't recognise.
I got a drink and stood near the south edge.
Two girls found us not long after. Sky's doing, probably — he had a gravitational quality in social situations, pulling things toward him without appearing to try. They were from the fourth year, easy and confident in the way of people who'd been at the school long enough to be comfortable in it. They talked. I answered when addressed. The city moved below.
At some point I realised I'd been watching the conversation more than participating in it, the way you watch something through glass — present, visible, but separated by a layer you couldn't quite identify.
This wasn't my crowd.
Not because they were unfriendly. They weren't. Not because the night was bad. It wasn't. Just the particular feeling of being in a room — or a rooftop — where everyone else had found their frequency and you were still searching for yours.
Sky caught my eye across the group. Raised an eyebrow.
I tilted my head toward the stairs.
He gave a small nod that said go, I'll cover, with the fluency of someone who had learned to read exits.
I set my cup down and left.
________________________________________
My floor was quiet.
I changed out of the jacket, made tea without particularly deciding to, and stepped onto the balcony.
Bella was there.
She had pulled one of the chairs to her side of the partition and angled it toward the city, legs folded underneath her, a book open in her lap. A mug on the railing. Her hair was loose. She was wearing the grey shirt again.
She looked up when I appeared.
"You're back early," she said.
"It wasn't really my thing."
She considered this. "The party or parties in general?"
"Both, probably." I leaned on the railing. "You knew that before you said no."
"I said no because I was already doing something I preferred." She turned a page. "You went anyway."
"Sky needed a wingman."
"Sky doesn't need a wingman. Sky is his own entire operation." She looked up. "You went because you thought you should want to go."
I didn't have a particularly good answer for that because it was accurate.
Below us the city moved in its Friday night arrangement — busier than weekdays, warmer, the particular energy of a place that had decided the week was over and was acting accordingly. Somewhere above, sixty people were on the rooftop with their string lights and their music, having a night that was genuinely good.
It just wasn't mine.
"Who texted you earlier?" Bella asked.
"Kenzie."
She turned another page. "The girl from before you got here."
It wasn't a question exactly. She'd filed it somewhere, the way she filed most things, and was now retrieving it with the matter-of-fact ease of someone checking a reference.
"Yes," I said. "We're doing something tomorrow."
"What kind of something?"
"She wouldn't say. Told me to wear clothes I don't mind ruining."
Bella's expression moved slightly. "That could mean several things."
"All of them are probably accurate."
She made a sound that was the closest she came to a laugh when she was trying not to. "She plans things properly."
"She does." I looked out at the city. "She's like that. When she decides something matters she gives it her full attention."
Bella was quiet for a moment, reading.
"That's a good quality," she said eventually.
"Yeah."
The night settled around us. The music from the rooftop drifted down faintly — something slow, the tail end of the party beginning its wind-down. The city offered its usual sounds in return.
"Chapter?" I asked, nodding at the book.
"Twelve."
"Good?"
"Complicated." She held it up briefly so I could see the cover — something with a dark spine and a title I didn't recognise. "The main character keeps making decisions that are correct individually and wrong collectively."
"That sounds familiar."
"It's a common problem." She set it back in her lap. "He can see each step clearly but not where the steps are taking him."
I looked at the city.
The rooftop music had stopped now. Above us, the party was becoming the end of a party — quieter, smaller, people drifting toward the stairs. Friday folding itself into the hour before Saturday.
"Kenzie," Bella said. Not a question. Not a statement. Just the name, placed in the air between us.
"Yeah."
"And tomorrow."
"And tomorrow." I looked at her. "And Thursday happened. And the party wasn't mine. And the week is done."
She turned a page.
"Get some sleep," she said. "Tomorrow's a different kind of day."
She said it without weight, without implication, just with the practical certainty of someone who understood that different days required different preparation.
I finished my tea.
The city breathed below.
"Goodnight, Bella."
"Goodnight."
I went inside.
___________________________________
Bella found it hard to continue reading as her mind was now distracted. She closed her book and looked up in the sky as she downed her cup.
"Kenzie" she thought as she entered her room.