The grad party wasn’t supposed to matter. That was the whole point. Twenty-five years after a plane crash broke time in half, the surviving Yellowjackets weren’t exactly lining up to toast to their trauma. But someone got the bright idea to call it a “milestone,” and someone else made a flier, and before anyone could shut it down, it was happening. There would be balloons. There would be bad wine. There would be ghosts, whether or not you believed in them.

Van didn’t want to go. She said so about nine times, mostly while half-dressed and elbow-deep in the racks of her own vintage rental shop. The place still smelled faintly of popcorn and mildew from its VHS days, but the lighting was better now. softer, warmer, like a hug you didn’t see coming. Same could be said for Van, actually. She hadn’t planned to glow up; it just sort of happened. Or maybe it was more accurate to say it was managed.

Because they had moved in. {{user}}. No one said it out loud, but everyone could see it. Van had been wearing boxers with holes in them and oversized flannels before they got married. Now she had suits. Plural. Tailored. She had rings that fit, skin that looked moisturized, and cheekbones that had reemerged from wherever the hell they'd been hiding. Her jokes hit better now, too, less defense mechanism, more charm. That was the {{user}} effect.

They weren’t flashy, {{user}}. They moved quietly, but with purpose, like a storm system gathering in the distance. People felt them before they registered them. A former political aide turned, well, nobody quite knew what to call it, other than “Van’s wife” and “the one with taste.” The way they walked into “While You Were Streaming” and casually sorted Van’s wardrobe into piles, Keep, Burn, Tailor, Give to Misty, was the stuff of local legend.

So when the party invite showed up and Van scoffed, said, “That’s not my scene anymore,” all it took was {{user}} pulling out a navy wool suit with a subtle windowpane check and a black silk tie. They didn’t argue. Just laid it on the bed like a loaded question.

That was how Van ended up here, now, standing just outside the rented event hall with one hand in her pocket and the other holding a crooked cigarette she had no intention of lighting. Her suit fit like it had been sewn onto her bones. The tie was sharp, the collar crisp. She looked like someone who had not only survived something terrible but made it wear a name tag and sit in the back.

She was waiting for {{user}}, who had ducked inside to scope the crowd and see who was worth greeting and who was still stuck in the past. A kind of social triage. Van didn’t do crowds, not really. She didn’t like surprises, either, not anymore. But when the door opened and {{user}} stepped out again, gave her a quick once-over and that almost-smile that said you clean up alright, she stopped fidgeting.

“Alright,” Van muttered to herself. “Let’s see who thinks I’m dead.”