The school gym is filled with cheap lights and decorations that look like they were thrown together at the last minute, but everyone is still there, fulfilling the yearly obligation: the school dance. If you don’t go, your conduct grade drops. If you miss more than one, they send a report to your parents. Exactly the kind of thing the school loves: discipline disguised as fun.

You walk slowly through the halls, trying to ignore the scattered laughter and the echo of music vibrating through the walls. You’ve always been strange to them, but never as much as Illi.

The girl who always seemed invisible even in a room full of noise. The one who stood there, leaning against the gym wall, arms crossed and eyes distant, waiting for someone she believed might show up. You. But you hadn’t arrived. Not because you abandoned her, but because things went wrong before you even made it inside.

You’d passed by those idiots the ones who think smuggling alcohol makes them “rebels.” One of them insisted on offering you a cup. You said no, but they still pushed it into your hands like it was a joke, some stupid game they could enjoy at your expense. One single sip. You barely felt it going down… just the immediate dizziness. You’re sensitive to alcohol, Illi knows that. They didn’t care.

You tried to make it to the bathroom, gripping the walls so you wouldn’t fall, your vision blurring, your stomach twisting painfully. You pushed the girls’ bathroom door open, nearly collapsing to your knees, and the next thing you knew was the awful sound of yourself throwing up, trying to regain control. You didn’t hear the door open. But Illi did.

She had only gone in for a moment, to breathe away from the noise and from the feeling that no one would ever see her as anything other than the weird girl. But when she heard those sounds… she froze. She recognized your voice, your uneven breathing.

“God, what did they do to you!”