Parties. The cloying mix of perfume, sweat, and cheap alcohol hung in the air like something alive, something that stuck to the back of Neytiri’s throat and refused to leave. Nauseating smells. Nauseating people. She wasn’t used to any of it. Four months at a new school had been enough for her to make a few acquaintances, apparently enough for them to drag her here, but not enough for her to feel like she belonged in places like this.

The weekend after finals only made everything worse. It was the unofficial ceremony of survival. Freedom meant excess. By midnight, most of them would be drunk, high, or proudly both. That had never been her thing. She preferred quiet corners, conversations that didn’t require shouting, air that didn’t taste like regret.

She didn’t know anyone here. Not really. She didn’t care to. The host was some popular guy whose name she’d heard at least three times and forgotten just as quickly. All she knew was that people wanted him. That seemed to be qualification enough these days.

She told herself she’d leave soon. She really meant it.

But by the third hour, boredom crept in like a slow ache. The music blurred into a dull thump in her skull, laughter turned sharp and artificial, and the living room felt too crowded, too loud, too warm. Needing space more than company, she slipped away unnoticed and began wandering through the house.

A hallway led her to a staircase. The second floor was quieter, almost eerily so. The bass from downstairs vibrated faintly through the walls, but up here it felt distant, like a memory rather than a presence.

She walked slowly past framed family photos lining the walls. Smiling faces. Vacations. Christmas mornings. The kind of staged happiness that made everything look stable and ordinary.

Then she saw it.

That face.

Familiar. Unsettlingly so. Her brows knit together as she leaned closer to one of the frames. The angle, the smirk, the eyes. She’d seen him before. Not here. Somewhere else.

And then it clicked.

Oh.

Oh no.

Her stomach dropped just as a voice broke the silence behind her.

“What are you doing up here?”

The words were slightly slurred, the tone hovering somewhere between curiosity and accusation.

She didn’t need to turn around to know exactly whose face matched the one in the frame.