Chapter 129: the night before

Chapter 129 — The Night Before

By Thursday afternoon, the main hall had stopped looking like a hall and started looking like a promise. Lanterns hung at staggered heights beneath swags of red and gold fabric, the string lights had been tested three times, and the courtyard canopies stood ready under a sky that had, for once, agreed to behave.

Roxanne walked the length of the room with her checklist, ticking off items. Decorations done. Music equipment confirmed. Layout approved by Mr. Pell, who had measured every exit twice and pronounced them acceptable with the air of a man granting a pardon.

"Roxanne," said a second-year from the food team, hovering at her elbow. "Would you double-check everything before you go? Just to be safe?"

She felt the old pull at once, the urge to walk every inch of the hall and test every cable herself. She had her hand halfway to the nearest lantern before she stopped.

"I’ll check the lanterns and the layout," she said. "Those are mine. The tables belong to Cordelia, and the sound belongs to the sound team. They know what they’re doing."

The girl blinked, then nodded and hurried off. Roxanne checked her own items, found them perfect, and put the pen away.

"You look less stressed than you did on Monday," Mason said, passing with a crate of napkins.

"Delegating is harder than it looks."

"It’s the hardest thing in the world." He shifted the crate. "You’re learning."

"So are you."

"Don’t tell anyone," said Mason, and left her smiling.

Back in the dormitory, Roxanne stood in front of her wardrobe for what felt like a very short time.

"I’m just deciding what to wear," she told Isla, who had come in with a towel around her hair. "I’m not overthinking it."

"You’re holding a hanger in each hand."

"I’m comparing."

Tessa arrived without knocking, as she always did, and took in the scene at once. "She has been looking at those same two outfits for ten minutes. I could see it through the door."

"You cannot see through doors."

"I have excellent instincts." Tessa dropped onto the bed and pointed at the pile. "Not the grey one. It looks like a funeral for someone you didn’t like."

Within minutes the room had become a dressing session. Isla pulled out a long dress in deep plum and held it up. "This is elegant. This says, I am attending an event and I own it."

"It also says, I cannot sit down," Tessa said. "She needs to dance. Something she can move in."

"You can be elegant and move."

"Not in that hem."

Roxanne tried the plum dress and decided Tessa was right about the hem. She tried a stiff blue jacket that made her look like a magistrate. She tried a green skirt that Isla loved and she did not, and there was a short, heated argument about whether the colour was forest or swamp. At some point Tessa put on the discarded jacket and began giving a speech on the importance of punctuality, and Isla laughed so hard that the pins fell out of her hair.

At last Roxanne found it, almost by accident, at the back of the wardrobe. A dark red dress with a soft, swinging skirt and sleeves that stopped just below the elbow, not formal enough to be stiff, not casual enough to be careless. She put it on and turned in front of the mirror, and the skirt turned with her.

"That one," said Isla quietly.

"That one," Tessa agreed, with no joke attached.

Roxanne looked at the girl in the glass. She looked like herself, on a good day, and she liked her.

While Isla fixed her hair at the little desk mirror, Tessa lay back across the bed. "Do you expect anyone to ask you to dance?"

"I’m not waiting for anyone," Roxanne said at once.

"That’s not what I asked."

"It’s what I answered."

Isla met her eyes in the mirror. "Not waiting for something doesn’t mean you can’t want it."

Roxanne opened her mouth to argue and found she had nothing to argue with. She sat down on the edge of the bed and smoothed the skirt over her knees. "I like attention when it’s freely given," she said slowly. "I just don’t like feeling that I owe something back for it."

"A dance is only a dance," Tessa said, "unless both people decide it’s more."

That landed somewhere quiet and true. Roxanne thought, briefly, of how different this felt from the past, when affection had come tangled up with debt and then with betrayal. The thought arrived, and she let it pass without following it anywhere. She did not want to measure tomorrow against what had happened before.

"I want to enjoy it," she said. "Just that. Without keeping score."

"That’s the best plan I’ve heard all week," said Isla.

When the hair was finished and the dress hung on the wardrobe door, Roxanne checked her phone. A message from Kai sat near the top of the screen, sent that morning, which she had read twice and answered not at all. It was short. Save some time at the social for yourself.

She considered replying with a joke. She considered replying with three. In the end she typed, Thank you for the reminder, and sent it before she could improve it.

His answer arrived within a minute. I expect you to follow your own advice.

Roxanne smiled at the screen, then deliberately turned it over on the blanket rather than spend the night parsing eight words.

You are very pleased with a very ordinary message, her wolf observed.

If you comment on every conversation, Roxanne told her, our friendship will not survive the week.

I will try to be silent. I make no promises about my face.

You don’t have a face.

I have opinions, which are worse.

The phone buzzed again just before lights out. This time it was Lucien.

Does the invitation still stand? If I attend as a student, will you save me a dance?

Roxanne sat up a little straighter against the pillows. She typed, I told you to ask properly when the music starts.

I remember.

She bit her lip. Do you always treat a dance like a formal appointment?

There was a pause, longer than the others. The little dots appeared and vanished, and appeared again.

I prefer to be clear about things that matter to me.

Roxanne read the sentence once, and then again, slowly. It was not a confession. It was not a claim. It was only honest, and honesty from Lucien had a weight that other people’s flourishes never did. She did not know what to do with it, and so she did the only sensible thing.

I’ll see you tomorrow, she wrote.

She set the phone down and stared at the ceiling until her pulse had settled.

In the dark, Isla’s voice came softly from the next bed. "I got my confirmation for the campus-job interview. It’s the day after the social."

"That’s wonderful."

"My family still hasn’t decided about next term."

"Take the interview seriously," Roxanne said. "And if you need to talk about any of it, at any hour, wake me up."

"You’ll hate me."

"I’ll hate you cheerfully."

Isla laughed quietly. From the far corner, where she had claimed the armchair, Tessa spoke through a yawn. "Both of you. Tomorrow is supposed to be fun. Not another evening of worrying about everything that could go wrong."

"Agreed," said Roxanne.

"Agreed," said Isla.

Before she turned out the lamp, Roxanne looked once more at the red dress hanging beside the wardrobe, catching the last of the light. A simple, unfamiliar excitement stirred under her ribs. For once, tomorrow was not about getting through something. She was looking forward to it, plainly and without conditions.

She had just closed her eyes when the volunteer group chat lit up on the nightstand. Autumn Social, doors open at 7:00 p.m. Then a second message appeared, from Liam.

Dress code says formal. Please tell me someone is prepared to witness my greatness.

Tessa answered from three feet away, thumbs flying. We are prepared to witness your humiliation.

Roxanne laughed into her pillow, then typed one-handed. I’ll be there for the entertainment.

At the back of her mind, her wolf settled, warm and quietly pleased.

Good. Let us go and have a night worth remembering.

Roxanne smiled in the darkness.

That is the plan.