“Are you ready?”

“Just about... I guess. Are you sure this is what I'm meant to do?”

“It's what the books said, so yes.”

“I'm starting to doubt if these things are legitimate.”

“Just get out here already.”

I was waiting in the living room for Antoinette to leave her own so we could leave. The final suggestion I gave, though not exactly one I thought would be adequate, was currently (to my dismay) in Li's care.

I had started to zone out when she came in, looking flustered, and for good reason.

She was donning an elegant blue prom dress, similarly coloured night gloves and a rose in her restyled hair — all courtesy of Li.

The moment she stepped into the room, I was left in  stunned silence. She looked radiant, as though she were a princess...

And I quickly found myself frowning.

“So?” she said, grabbing the side of the dress to look at me.

I responded bluntly.

“You look terrible.”

“Ugh, I know.” She let the sides of the dress drop and frowned. “This crap is so uncomfortable, not to mention how pompous it looks. It doesn't feel right — wearing this is weird.”

“I'm starting to doubt the books as well, you know,” I muttered.

Something about seeing Antoinette try so hard to be feminine just felt wrong. It didn't feel like I was looking at her, but a stranger.

I brushed that thought away as much as it provoked in me an uncomfortable, twisting feeling inside, and got up. Unlike her, I was dressed in casual wear consisting of jeans and a green shirt underneath a blue and white striped sweater, as well as a large coat.

“But that should be the last of it. Ready to head out?”

She looked at my clothes with envy and hesitantly nodded.

“Ready as I'll ever be,” she said uncertainly.
Li wished us a happy evening, and then we were off.

To be fair... when I arrived at the party, I had actually been planning on accompanying Antoinette until she found the guy she was looking for, and then stay on the roof watching the stars for the remainder of the night while she had fun, but that took an unexpected turn when I actually made it in.

The site itself was a building with dozens of rooms and hallways and a grand centre room for the main event so to speak, that had appeared from one day to another, and not only had the perfect standardized Christmas feel to it, what with its snow flakes hanging from the roof, the light blue walls, streamers, Christmas lights everywhere, and a calming music which I feared would change drastically once it was late enough.
I wasn't wrong when I said that Antoinette looked stunning. That is, if she were going to a ball gown. But here she looked extremely out of place.

Personally, I blamed the books.

She started hitting me the moment we arrived, and while I had to wait with a bruising arm outside, Antoinette went back to change her outfit into something more suitable for the occasion: a jeans and a jacket combination with a beanie.

We did walk in after that, and we then split up to find the guy Antoinette was trying to find.

Once again I was overwhelmed with the amount of strangers surrounding me, but despite how many of them bumped into me (the scoundrels) I had an objective in mind.

One that terribly failed when I ran into Antoinette again.

She scowled at me — something I'm not surprised at — when I told her I hadn't found him, and that's where we realized why: she had never given me a description of the guy.

I smacked her behind the head and she gave me the details, after which I ran off again.

As I was scouting, I happened to run across a familiar face. Not in any conventional way, mind you, but attempting to climb in through a window. When we recognized each other's faces, I helped him crawl through the window.

“Pen,” I hissed, “What are you doing here?” The question was rhetorical, but he didn't get that, and told me he was, according to him at least, gate-crashing with his friends who were sneaking in through different points.

It sounded like an excuse to me, but it didn't answer another question.

“So what are you doing here, then?” I had asked, looking around in case someone saw.

The next thing he said seriously made me consider throwing him out the window. He said:

“Crashing parties is something more uncultured people do, and I wasn't sure how to go about it so I decided to search for someone who might know and you were the first person I thought of!”

Let me correct myself: I did end up throwing him out the window, but he still managed to climb back in like I expected.

“Please let me use your trench coat for a while, it's big enough to hide me. I'll bring it back in a few days!” he had said, and so I ended up without the one thing that could have kept me warm. I didn't have that much of a choice anyway, I didn't want to waste too much time with this and didn't know how serious he was about all this.

He told me to pick it up in his apartment after New Years as well as telling me which was his, and then left. It was only after he left that I realized I didn't know where that was, and groaned.

Rolling my eyes, I continued past the crowds of people, passing by Anya who seemed to be having the time of her life with her friends, something I was only mildly envious of.

But all of that was during a moment of peace, because I soon found myself running from a horde of people who insist I join the dance floor, with Kristina at the head and Claire most likely waiting to ambush somewhere.

It was just a minor setback to helping Antoinette, but I had to shake off that horde first. It wasn't exactly an easy task, but I was wearing them down, I thought, as they got closer.

As I turned a corner and ran into what would be the main area, my fear was confirmed when I suddenly felt a weight falling onto me from above, sending me to the floor.

“Gotcha!” I heard Claire announce proudly, pinning me down to the floor face down. It was ridiculous, how was she this much stronger than me?! I couldn't even budge!

She shifted around, not giving me any chance to move, and continued: “I got youuuu, now you have to do what I say! And I say you've — you've gotta hit the dance floor with us!”

... so that was their plan all along.

She's never even seen me dancing yet, how would she possibly know this?! I didn't want to stick around to find out.

Either way, I couldn't even ask because the focus wasn't on me anymore, it was on Antoinette, who had just been dragged in by another group. I had a feeling Claire and Kristina were doing this on purpose.

Antoinette saw me on the ground below Claire and looked just as confused as I did. “Sebastian, what the hell did you do?” she hissed at me, like I ever understood anything since the moment I stepped foot in this God forsaken afterlife.

I tried to squirm away, but Claire kept me pinned down to the floor (something which, contrary to what I would believe, was not a fun experience), giggling madly.

“Okay, okay, you gotta dance, I wanna see!” she said, and at this point I heard the tone of a drunk in her voice, making me grimace as she continued saying: “Hey, hey, Sebby... could you do lil' old me a favour?”

“...What?” I snapped back.

“Dance for meee!”

She took hold of my hair and started moving my head around like a ragdoll, slowly at least.

I tried to squirm out again, and failed. She wasn't letting go! “Alright, fine, fine! Just get off me, dammit!”

This surprisingly works.

She got up and let me stand as she returned to the crowd, standing next to Kristina and pulling on her arm and pointing to Antoinette and me, gloating as though we're the best thing in the world.

That image was effectively shattered as Antoinette tried to bite the hand of the kid who's holding her down, but who managed to escape it somehow. What he didn't manage to escape were the creative insults Antoinette threw at him.

“I'll dance,” I said, “But only if I get to dance with Antoinette.”

Almost instantly after that I heard many wolf-whistles from the horde and I see Claire clap several times and squeal, holding onto Kristina's arm and looking too excited for that statement. Even Kristina looks surprised.

Antoinette is freed from the barbarians and she stood up quickly. When I looked over to her, something I hadn't realized before was happening: we were in the main area, which means there's a lot of people in here as well, which means I'm making a fool of myself.

At least I won't dance. Instead, I went to Antoinette and forcibly took her hand, looking at her dead in the eye. She'd been looking away when I did this, but then turned to me with a glare. She tried to pull away but I move her into a ballroom dance position.

“Just trust me a moment...” I whispered, glancing back to see the reactions, mainly Claire who was cheering most of all. She really got the crowd going, just what sort of influence did she have? Though I imagined it couldn't be that hard to rouse a group of party-driven teens.

Antoinette glared sharply at me, red in the face just like I am. We were surrounded by people who had nothing to do with this, of course I was embarrassed!

“Okay,” I whispered, trying to keep my calm. “On the count of three we run. Okay?”

The glare was changed to a surprised look but Antoinette quickly nodded. I pause a moment, look around and then take in a big gulp of air.

“THREE!”

We bolted out, hand in hand to not get separated again and going in the exact opposite direction that the crowd was in, hearing shouts of dissatisfaction.

We didn't care, and pushed our way through the crowd of people for our daring escape.

Antoinette stumbled but we kept going; I held up my arm to push aside anyone that would try to stop us.

Soon enough we arrived to the window in the empty hall where I found Pen. Without wasting time, I helped her climb out the window and drop to the outside, where I followed.

The early moonlight left enough illumination for us to see each other, so I made sure we were well away before stopping.

Even here I kept looking around to make sure we weren't followed, something I'm sure those freaks were capable of doing, but I stopped when I heard Antoinette groan loudly.

I looked back to see her sitting against the wall with her hands over her face.

There was an air of defeat around her.

I sat at her side, but before I could say something like I meant to, she started:

“One night. One night where I wanted things to not go wrong, and they not only show up, but everything goes wrong.”

“Hey, it's not that bad, the night's still not over. We just need to find the guy and we're set.”

“He was there. He saw me.”

“Oh shit.”

I scratched my cheek awkwardly, feeling the implications weigh in.

“It really is like Murphy's law up in here,” I muttered.

“It is.”

Antoinette sounded solemn, a heavy tone of resignation in her words. I looked at her, confused by that change.

When she noticed my glance, she threw her hands up.

“That's just it, isn't it? Everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong. I'm done. I give up.”

Her blatant response caught me off guard.

“What do you mean you give up? That's not like you at all,” I said, frowning deeply.

She scowled at me and said:

“What do you expect me to do, then? And — what would you know about what I'm like? We've known each other for two months.”

“Well, I...” She had me there. “I might not know you as well as others, but I know enough to say that you wouldn't give up on something you want just because the odds are against you.”

Antoinette stared at me with a harsh expression. There was a conflict in her eyes, but it settled as she put her head on her knees.

“Well... congratulations, you know me better than anyone else in this entire place.”

Her voice was venomous, but it carried another, deeper meaning behind. That much I could tell. I watched her carefully as she continued.

“You know, when I say that I really don't have any friends outside of you, it's not because I don't try. But every single time it looks like I'm getting somewhere with other people...” she gestured vaguely inside, “they interfere. Like a pair of helicopter mums. The only solid relationship I have other than you is Monkey for crying out loud, but even that's because they were directly involved.”

“They were?”

“Didn't they tell you?” She looked at me, bewildered.

I shook my head. "Well... sort of, but vaguely."

Antoinette sighed. As she brought her knees up, I saw her eyelids drop.

“When I first arrived, Claire and Kristina knew beforehand I would be here, so they took Monkey and waited for me with Greg. Monkey was the one to recognize me, and when he told them... they basically jumped me.”

She continued:

“A big energetic welcome, and they dropped the truth right away. I was hoping maybe I'd just been reborn, but they didn't leave any space for doubt.” She paused. “...I didn't take it well.”

“You broke Monkey's arm?”

“He was trying to calm me down.”

“I would have done the same.”

She exhaled out of her nose and lowered her voice.

“They've treated me like I'm some sort of damaged child ever since. Always insisting on accompanying me if I go anywhere other than to my shifts, always trying to introduce me to their own friends and not realizing how uncomfortable that makes me... The System is supposed to put you with people you'd get along best, but I've lost faith in that crap.”

A silence lulled between us for a moment as I stared at her distant face, only able to wonder what was going on in her head.

There was no way I could know, I never even knew that she thought about this stuff; the difference between us was great, but when I looked at her I couldn't help but feel we were similar in more ways than I thought.

Because that was the beauty in people, wasn't it? Despite how crappy it could be, there was always a wonder in not knowing what others were like, in being able to find someone that you could connect to amidst all the murky minds so unlike your own.

Because we were all different, with so many differences and similarities, when pieces of your own puzzle were able to fit with other people it was like an entire new world opened up.

Now, for the first time, I felt like I was looking at Antoinette for who she was: a girl that suddenly felt she had no choice but to be condemned to loneliness.

There were people who like to be alone, like me or Antoinette, but even those people have something in common:

No one likes to feel alone.

I realized how lonely she must feel. Until this moment I didn't truly realize just how much this meeting would have meant to her, and with that in my head I reached a decision.

A warm feeling invaded me in the split second it took for me to move.

I got up abruptly, causing Antoinette to look at me strangely.

“I'll find this kid,” I said, “You go the Grand Lake and wait there.”

Before she could answer like I saw she was about to, I added hastily:

“I'm not a liar. When I promised to help you, I meant it. Now get out of here before my common sense kicks in.”

With that said, I marched back inside.