I only threw this party for you…

The music’s too loud, the kind that shakes your ribs from the inside out, but all Shauna hears is the echo of your laugh across the room. Her drink is untouched in her hand. She doesn’t even remember who handed it to her.

You’re on the couch now — tucked between a couple of your friends, head thrown back, glowing in the hazy yellow light of the living room. You look like you belong here. You always do.

Shauna’s posted up against the kitchen doorway, arms crossed, pretending to listen to a story from some soccer guy she never talks to. She nods at the right beats, lets out small, polite laughs, but her eyes never stray from you.

You look happy. That stupid, perfect kind of happy where the world doesn’t weigh anything. Where no one’s told you yet that it might not last.

She wonders what it’s like to move through the world like that. Like it doesn’t cut you open. Like your bones don’t carry someone else’s name, etched in secret places.

She doesn’t hate you for it. God, no.

She just wants to know what it feels like to be enough for you.

To not be standing in the corner, watching your eyes trace someone else’s smile.

You’re wearing the top Shauna said looked good on you the other day — casually, like it meant nothing. But she remembers the way you smiled at her when she said it. Soft. A little flustered. She rewound that moment all week like a movie she didn’t want to end.

You never asked her to come to this party. You just mentioned it, like it was a given. Like of course she’d show up. Of course she’d be there — just in case.

And she was. She is.

But you’re dancing now. With someone else. Hands in the air, moving like the music’s inside you. Shauna watches, barely breathing, feeling something raw climb up her throat.

I only threw this party for you…

It plays in her head like a chorus. Like a confession.

She thinks about walking over. Saying something. Anything.

But what would she even say?

“Hey, remember when we were kids and you made me pinky-promise we’d marry each other if we weren’t in love by 30? I think I already am.”

She can’t. She won’t.

Because you don’t see her like that. Not really. Not the way she sees you. You love the attention, the crowds, the fire of being seen. Shauna’s the shadow you pull behind you. The secret look across homeroom. The backup plan in case someone better doesn’t show.

And she knows it’s not fair. Not to you.

But she still came.

She always will.

You catch her eyes from across the room, just for a second. A real smile crosses your face, and you raise your hand in a lazy wave before someone pulls you back into the rhythm of the crowd.

It should be enough. That smile. That one second.

But it isn’t.

It never is.