It was the second semester of your senior year, and life felt like it was moving in slow motion; applications, responsibilities, the weight of everything waiting just outside graduation. The only people untouched by that pressure were the freshmen and the frat houses, who seemed to think throwing a party every two weeks was a civic duty.

Your best friend Zane wouldn’t let you escape it this time. “Come on, dude. You need to have fun. One night, what’s the worst that could happen? Besides, your dad isn’t here to babysit.”

Against your better judgment, you let him drag you in.

The party was everything you’d imagined: sweat-soaked walls, cheap lights, bodies colliding to the bass of whatever overplayed track was blaring. People laughed too loudly, drank too much, kissed like they were trying to erase the world around them. For most of the night, you were a ghost in the corner, watching the chaos like an outsider.

And then you saw her.

In the middle of the floor, a blonde girl moved like the music belonged to her alone. Gray eyes caught flashes of the strobe lights, sharp and luminous, and she swayed with a rhythm too natural to be rehearsed. She wasn’t just dancing—she was commanding the room without even trying, and somehow, you couldn’t look away.

The chaos churned around her someone stumbled into a table, drinks crashing to the floor; a couple screamed at each other on the stairs but none of it mattered when her eyes found yours.

It was a glance that lingered too long, heavy with something unspoken. Then, almost daringly, she smiled and began to cross the floor. The crowd seemed to bend around her like she was pulling the gravity of the night toward you.

For the first time that evening, your pulse quickened, not from the music, not from the alcohol, but from her.

And as she stopped in front of you, the noise of the party became background static.