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step off

imperative. the command that tells the band to begin marching forward.

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THE SUNDAY BEFORE CLASSES START, I once again open the doors of casa Vierra to the musical public of Halston University, plus ones welcome.

Three out of four of my housemates are already floating around the festivities, their suitcases not even unpacked but their rooms already party-proofed. They're a special precious breed that don't mind living with a drummer who practices often and ardently. Quentin, bless his soul, would be a great housemate if not for the fact that he's a raging night owl, and hates loud noises after sundown. He's brought two people from his badminton team, Noah and Fraser, who I've met twice before and never sober. They bring two twelve-packs of beer between the three of them and I've never been more proud.

I'm not entirely sure how my house became the designated band party house. They are a ritual to end band camp, to celebrate football games both won and lost, to farewell marching season. I definitely learned from Toby Minhas. In freshman year, sober Toby already possessed the energy of a shaken soda can. Drunk Toby needed a chaperone with a fire extinguisher handy. I was essentially the only one who could keep up with his drinking, which earned me a reputation, which probably translated three years down the line into being the resident life of the party.

Around nine, some of the new drumline arrive together, by which point I'm already six drinks deep and double-sighted. The room spins, but I manage to meet them in the living room, clasping hands and hugging and grinning.

"Did Bay come with you guys?" I slur.

One of the freshman girls, one of Bay's favorites, shrugs, shaking her head. "I don't know if she's coming tonight."

Bay only works Tuesdays and Fridays at the Foxhole. There is no homework yet. Why isn't she here? Unless she's the studious type to stay in on Sundays preparing the next week's readings—

"Vierra!" I hear, shrill as hell, from the kitchen.

I crane my head above the mingling heads of sixty people to catch Shane Nichols' eye. She's at the long lacquered table that my housemates and I set up for beer pong, her tattooed arm raised in the air. In her hand, she daintily clutches a ping pong ball.

"Your turn," she yells.

I break out into a smile. "Coming!"

It's not strip beer pong tonight, it's Section vs. Section. I step up to the table just as the trash-talk starts getting pointed (just a precursory joke. I think).

"Fucking trumpeters. You're going down. All hot air and no dynamic control," Shane spits.

"Ah, Callum—aren't you tired of overcompensating?" Shane and my rival sneers, pinching his forefinger and thumb just an inch from touching. "How big's your drumstick again?"

"Hey," I pout, feigning insult. (I don't have to overcompensate.) "That hurts."

Shane bursts into laughter and slings an arm around my neck. "How could you, boys? Look at this face," she coos, poking her finger into my cheek. "You've made the golden retriever cry!" she accuses, her voice carrying loud and strong across the table. "Therefore you must perish."

And before the trumpet boys can muster an answer, Shane sinks the first ball of the round in their cup. It lands cleanly in their front-most cup, their mouths fall open, and I explode with triumph, raising both hands to high-five Shane.

"Percussionists for the win!"

She jumps up and down on the spot, platinum blonde hair swinging all around her face. "For the fucking win!"

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We are undefeated.

Trumpets, gone. Saxophones, gone. Flutes, gone (sorry Quentin, better luck next time). The euphoniums nearly knock us from top place because one of their players is so tall he can pretty much lean over the table and drop the ping pong ball into our cups, but eventually they too suffer crushing defeat under the exacting aim of Shane Nichols and Callum Vierra.

It's the clarinets' turn to be humbled when I feel a shiver ghost down my neck, slick with sweat, and like some omen I turn my head towards the living room and make direct eye contact with Bay. She gives me a cordial head nod, lips pinching in her version of a smile, and disappears into the crowd. I swear the current song skips a beat, landing unnaturally on the downbeat one second too early, but it must just be my brain scrambling for a moment. I am very drunk.

Through the next game, it's like half of me is focused on continuing the percussionists' win streak, and the other is keeping a watchful eye on Bay. I can see two video feeds in my mind; one with red solo cups, warm excited bodies pressing around the beer pong table, liquid trickling down my chin and neck; the other with Bay, wearing white sneakers and a loose but very short black dress, dancing in the living room, conversing with her beloved freshmen, then one of few people at this party I don't already know. A brawny guy in a striped t-shirt leans her against a wall, and I can't tell if Bay enjoys it or not. Her face is like a maze, I always get lost trying to find my way through.

I mean, she's smiling. Smirking. Laughing. Rolling her eyes. Fluttering her eyelashes over the rim of her solo cup—

—and just like that, percussionists lose.

I thought I would feel a thread of disappointment but my brain just takes the opportunity to switch completely over to Feed 2 of the night, the one where Bay is at my party but not antagonizing me for some reason.

"Damn it," Shane curses, pointing a venomous finger at a girl I know for a fact is a good friend of hers. "Watch it."

Bay gives her phone to her temporary beau, their mouths moving inaudibly. Exchanging numbers already, how sweet. When he leans in for a kiss and they start making out against my living room wall, I feel a wave of nausea so potent that I discreetly rest a stabilizing palm on the beer pong table.

"We had a good run," I tell Shane. "Excuse me."

I slip into host mode—sauntering gait, friendly smile, widespread arms—and approach the kissing lovebirds. The dining room is much darker than the kitchen, all the lights switched off in favor of the bright TV screen and all the 2000s music videos running across it.

Bay and the boy have stopped swapping DNA by the time I arrive. Her eyes are bloodshot to hell, and there's a desaturation to her cheeks that I don't like the look of. Is she cross-faded?

A segue into conversation appears like a mirage, ready-formed on the tip of my tongue. It's fake as hell, but it'll work. "Hey, Bay, did you see my water bottle after yesterday's sectional? It's the matte black one with the strap. I lost it sometime between lunchtime and pack-up."

There's a smudge of her rosy brown lipstick in the corner of the guy's mouth, and I feel the same lick of rage from after band camp on Thursday, the impulse to corner her and shut her up, even though now she's already cornered against a wall. "Nope," she says, quick as a whip. "Haven't seen it."

"Bae?" the guy says, instantly guarded.

"No, it's just a nickname," I tell him casually. "Isabella, Baya, Bay." For some reason this makes Bay sigh in extreme frustration and look away from both of us, head lolling against the wallpaper.

"Her name's Jessica," the guy says carefully, like I've made a mistake.

I point in Bay's direction and raise a puzzled eyebrow. Who, her? "She's Isabella." His expression shutters.

"Okay, fuck, Vierra, you've said enough," she snaps, suddenly turning her head to me, the fire she keeps so well-guarded rising to the fore. "Sorry. I lied. You're sweet, though," she says to him, and to me: "Just buy a new water bottle. You've got the money for it."

And then she stumbles off.

I give the guy an awkward, apologetic smile—"Sorry, man,"—and follow Bay, who is lurching through the tightly-packed crowd. I just barely manage to get her arm around my neck before her knees buckle and her weight topples forward.

"Fucking hell," I curse. I walk us over to the staircase and sit Bay down on the bottom-most step. Her bare legs splay out on the tiled floor.

"What is in your system tonight?"

"Would you like a number or a taxonomy of substances?" Bay's head slumps against the wall, her wild mass of hair falling across her face. I hesitantly reach down and sweep her hair back over her shoulder.

"Okay, that in itself is concerning," I mutter. "Can you stand up?"

"Of course," she says, but she scoots a couple inches to her left so she can grip the banister to haul herself up.

"Nuh-uh." I swat her hands back into her lap. "Can you stand up on your own?"

"Oh." A manic chuckle slips out from her throat. "Then, no."

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Bay in my bedroom is fucking weird.

My bedroom connotes safety and peace. Drum kit in the corner, naturally. In front of my desk is a wall of photographs, featuring my family and friends. On the wall above my bed are posters of my favorite musicians and bands. By the door, a growing collection of postcards and brochures from tourist traps like Max's River Cruises and the entry tickets from past Science Faculty Balls gone by.

It's my sanctuary.

What does Bay connote?

Fire crawling up the walls, danger. Death by psychological torture.

After I half-escorted, half-carried her up the stairs in my bedroom, I set her on my desk chair and brought her a granola bar and a glass of water. Then I made her tell me what she's taken tonight, which according to her, "is just pot, booze, and some vitamin E."

"Vitamin E?"

"God, your private school is showing," she groaned. "E. Ecstasy." My cheeks went red at not making the connection outright, but she was right; drugs were policed heavily at my high school, and I steered well away from the circles that would do them. "It was a freebie from my dealer for my loyal patronage."

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

Bay laughed, then hiccuped. "Why would I be kidding?"

Terrifyingly, she had no ounce of concern for her physical wellbeing, which made me concerned enough for the both of us. "I don't know, maybe I just thought no-one could be serious about taking free drugs from a random guy—what were you thinking? Wait, I know the answer."

"First off, my dealer's a girl and she's super chill. Secondly, it was only one pill. Two doses, max. Probably."

When I suggested that she go to the hospital or call the University health helpline, she stiffened right up and revealed: "No, no, no. I'm on financial aid. I can't be recorded having E in my system. I need to be a good girl."

I didn't even know she was on financial aid, but she was so fiercely insistent, like her life depended on this, I let the matter drop. I've brought her another glass of water to replace the one she drained. When the door clicks shut, the music from downstairs drops to a minimum.

Bay's coherent enough to latch onto her usual hatred. "Callum, why do you always interfere with my sex life at parties? First with Cynthia, then with—fuck, whatever his name was. I'm starting to think you actually don't want me to have any fun."

"You can have as much fun as you want," I roll my eyes, "just not blitzed off your face at my house. I'm the host. If something happens to you, or if you do something you regret, I'd feel responsible."

"You're exercising a level of oversight that you don't have any right to." She purses her lips and whispers tauntingly, "Paternalism."

"Why do you want me to be a bad guy so badly?"

She says nothing, shrugging.

"You know, we started off fine. Better than fine, actually," I point out, wandering back to the kiss—and deciding that's a moot argument. Look at how much the guy she kissed tonight meant to her. Nada, not even worth her real name.

She lifts her head from its slump and slides her stare in my direction, where I sit on the bed. Her hair falls in wild rivulets behind her, her profile an impenetrable mask of civility. "No-one is for everyone."

"Is that an adage? Give me a reason, Bay."

"Can't you accept that there is someone in the world that dislikes you no matter how hard you try? It's a fact of life for everyone. It says nothing about yourself if someone dislikes you. It just is."

"It just is," I scoff. I accept some personalities are just meant to clash, and the clash itself says nothing about who is better and who is in the right. That's so not what's going on here, with her.

"You're full of bullshit."

Bay pauses, parting her lips. "A known issue."

Her expression darkens. She isn't glaring at me. In fact, with unfocused eyes finally taking stock of the posters and photographs on my wall, it's like she's retreated inside her mind, methodically ticking through whatever thoughts that gradually made her expression less stormy and more neutral.

Her voice is low and dry and slightly sultry when she next speaks. "You did nothing wrong. Our enmity is completely my doing. Don't worry." She takes a casual sip from the water glass, running her pink tongue over her bottom lip.

"No. I know you love to think that you can control the behavior of everyone else, but I have a hand in this, too."

"Alright," she returns flippantly. She's started spinning slowly on my desk chair, turning herself around and around, torso half sagging to the ground. "Claim whatever sense of agency you need."

"I will. And you're staying here until you sober up." There's no inch for negotiation in my voice. "I don't want to read about your death by overdose tomorrow, so couch, the bed, take whatever. I don't mind."

She snaps back into an upright poster, tipping her chin stubbornly in my direction. "Paternalism."

I rise from my bed, giving her a saccharine smile. "I give zero shits, Bay. Bathroom is to the right and at the end of the hallway. I'll get you another glass of water."

Plunging back into the raucous party downstairs is strange. Looking after Bay is more draining that I thought it would be; when she's intoxicated somehow her thoughts get even more disjointed, her words more piercing. I step back into my bedroom. At the sound of the door opening, Bay sits up and looks over, hands behind her head twisting her hair into a bun. "I'm stealing a shirt for the night, sorry, do you mind?"

She's in my bed, under the covers.

Wearing one of my t-shirts, plucked from the basket of clean laundry at the foot of the bed. Looking at her... the music skips a beat again, muffled as it is.

I approach the nightstand to set the water glass beside her, exhaling amusedly. "You're not sorry."

"That's true, but manners."

I chuckle, swallowing down the unfamiliar sickly ache in my throat when Bay slips under the duvets and releases a quiet sigh, her chest deflating like she's melting. She's removed her makeup, bare skin, flushed cheeks and shiny eyelids, wrapped in my sheets, more angelic than I have ever seen her, because she's no angel.

I flick off the lamp on the nightstand, but before I step away, Bay's hand closes around my wrist in the dark. "I'm being an asshole, I know," her disembodied voice curls around me, coming from all corners of my mind. "But thank you, Callum."

I clear my throat. "Just try to get some sleep."

In the hallway, I shut the door behind myself. There's a few people lining up to use the upstairs bathroom, but overall the number of people in the house is steadily decreasing, each song slower and chiller than the last as people settle down. There'll probably be a few people crashing here tonight.

Finally, the anvil-like pressure lifts from my chest, and I roughly rub my wrist to smother the tingling, burning feeling Bay put into my nerves.

Dangerous, I remind myself, shaking my thoughts clear. Look but don't touch, don't even move, don't even speak or breathe. Death by psychological torture.