David Oliver felt mostly lucky that Sarah had come to Garland. His fault, of course, that it had even been on the table at all, but still. Things were better with her here. More fluid, lively. The world expanded.

She’d never been the kind of sister anyone had needed to keep an eye on, not even as a kid, and it made the whole ‘big brother’ thing remarkably easy. Advice? From David? She never needed it, and was much less likely to want it. Money, school, guys, whatever. David Oliver could teach Sarah Oliver nothing. They’d only ever needed to be siblings. 

Easy.

But now, now, Sarah was a freshman. And, like all freshman, she harbored a thumping desire to milk the juice of college dry before she’d ever had the chance to settle in. She wanted parties. She wanted alcohol. She wanted to stumble around at parties with alcohol. She wanted it all, and she wanted it now, and she wanted to rope whoever she could find into going with her.

And that was the type of desire that could lead her to David’s doorstep. 

“Not after the other week,” said David. He was, for now, blocking the door. 

Sarah, hair done, makeup on, and bottle of disturbingly cheap liquor in hand, frowned at him. “That was a one time thing,” she said. “Never to happen again. And it was Cara’s fault!”

“No,” said David.

“Look, they were really cute, and you always scare them,” said Sarah. 

David rolled his eyes. Not even true. Not even the problem. The problem, really, was that David being in the room meant Sarah and her roommate, Cara, were likely to be ignored by whatever guy they’d deemed eligible. He could, or, rather, would, steal their thunder without trying. Two weekends ago? Two frat brothers had come to pregame with the pair in their dorm. Which was fine, really. David wasn’t that kind of brother. Sarah didn’t need it. 

But Sarah did need to tell him that it was happening, because when he’d shown up at the door, as invited, she’d shooed him away. 

Luckily, David had been adopted. Cam and his girlfriend, a girl who turned out to be the same Margot of Sebastian fame, had found him on the way back through the lobby, a not-so-inconspicuous bottle in hand — David wasn’t above taking advantage of the lack of rules for him — and guided him to a friendly dorm. He hadn’t even realized they’d all been Sebastian’s friends until he’d arrived. 

Coincidences and Garland State. It was impossible to go here and not be convinced that the campus was built to manufacture them. 

“I don’t scare them,” said David. “That’s not what that’s like.” 

Sarah took a step forwards, looking to push him out of the way, to get into the apartment. “You’ll love it,” she said. “You need to get out of the apartment.” 

“I’m out of the apartment all the time,” said David, holding his ground. 

“That,” said Sarah, “is not what I mean. I mean, you need to get out of the apartment for something fun.” 

“And I did,” said David. “Just the other weekend.” 

Sarah drew herself to height. “Fun, David. I want you to have fun.” She held there for a moment, as if standing there longer might actually make her eclipse him in height. Same genes, but she only managed six feet. 

David stood back from the doorway, shaking his head. “I’ll have a drink here,” he offered.

Opening so revealed, Sarah bounded in. David swung the door behind her. 

“One drink is so lame,” she said, immediately making herself at home in his kitchen. She was familiar enough with it. David, a junior, could live off campus, and the deal with the school gave him a nice enough setup. Miles better than the dorms, at the very least. It meant Sarah and Cara ended up there whenever they got sufficiently tired of scrounging in the dining hall. “Cara’s going to get you.” 

“What, she doesn’t have a frat brother to hang off of tonight?” asked David. 

“No,” said Sarah. She poured two glasses of whatever she’d bought, straight, and then came over to the couch. “No, that was a one night thing.” 

“Right,” said David, grinning. “Right, so you’re not going to Beta tonight, I take it?” 

Sarah shook her head and shuddered. “Definitely not.” Then, she frowned. “We.” 

“I need to work out in the morning,” said David. “Spring break isn’t a break.” 

“I know that,” said Sarah. “I’m going to have to work out, too.” 

“Maybe you shouldn’t go either, then,” said David. 

“Oh, shut up,” said Sarah, nudging the glass towards him. “You need to have a bit of fun.” 

“I’m perfectly happy to stay in,” said David. “There’s this video game-”

“You know,” said Sarah, loudly, “when I came here, I thought it would be cool to have a famous fucking brother. But, as it turns out, you’re such a loser. What’s the point of being, like, famous and stuff if you’re not going to use it?” 

David laughed. 

“I’m not a loser,” he contended.

“You are,” said Sarah. 

“It’s exhausting,” said David. 

“In twenty years,” said Sarah, “you will be too old and cranky to go to parties.” 

“Okay, being forty doesn’t mean you’re dead,” he said. Sarah shrugged, as if to say, ‘who could possibly say’, and David shook his head. “It’s not worth it.”

“Oh, come on,” said Sarah. “You have to be Star Quarterback anyway. At least, like, use the benefits of being Star Quarterback.” ‘Star Quarterback’. Not a star quarterback, but Star Quarterback. Proper noun. Person. Version of David supplied to the world. Sarah had given him the moniker after, oh, a week of being on campus? David would have probably sworn off interaction with anyone else who used it, but he knew Sarah meant it diminutively. 

David really did like football. It was just everything around football that dug at him. Somewhere between the ages of eight and nine, it had become more of a job, had swallowed more of his life, and the bits it spat back out were all mangled. It had gone from something of joy to this before he could blink. And Sarah, the talented younger sister in a sport that held none of the prestige, had always been left fighting for scraps of attention. 

She’d never held it against him. They’d both just silently agreed to hold it against their parents. 

“And what benefits would those be?” asked David. 

Sarah grinned. “Well, free booze for one,” she said, pushing the cup forward again.

“Be serious,” said David. Free booze. At a party. A perk? No, no everyone got free booze. “I have alcohol here.” 

“Fine, then,” said Sarah. “Maybe if you stop being a hermit, you’ll find a girl. Maybe you’ll meet someone!” She huffed. “Or, for God’s sake, maybe you’ll just have a little fun. And, maybe, in the process, you’ll make your very charming, very cool sister happy.” She pushed the cup towards him again.

“Is my very charming, very cool sister in the room with me right now?” asked David. 

“Cara’s going to get you,” she murmured, narrowing her eyes. “She’s going to get you, and you’re going to come to this party, and you’re going to have fun.” 

“Fun has never sounded more threatening,” said David. 

“I wield it like a sword,” said Sarah. She mimed holding something aloft, then picked up her drink and downed the surely awful concoction without so much as a wince. Freshmen. Freshmen and their intractable fascination with alcohol. “You had fun the other weekend, didn’t you?” 

David rolled his eyes.

Yes. Yes, it had been better than most of them. He’d been a little disappointed that Sebastian had been away the night he’d stumbled into that room, but it had been a good night regardless. They’d had a few drinks, and he’d spent a good chunk of it with them before Cam had found his way deep into his nerves and he’d abandoned them for Leon and his friends. And then? 

And then, the night got kind of fuzzy. 

And then, he’d woken in a pool of sweat that smelled something foul. 

And then, he’d had to go for a run. 

“Cara’s going to have to be especially convincing,” said David. 

“Not. A. Problem.” Sarah downed her drink—disturbing, really, how quickly she’d developed the ability to drink herself through the floor—and stood. “Want another?” 

“No,” said David. 

* * * * *

David had another. David had two more, actually, and by the time Cara had arrived, he’d invited Leon, too, and now? Now, he was going to a party.

His worst quality.

Pushover. Susceptible to convincing. 

But David had been himself long enough to know when to let go and let things be what they were. As a kid, he’d been the type of kid not to do that. He’d been stubborn, and he’d been foolish, and he’d wanted things to be perfectly set. And he’d been unhappy. He’d insisted on perfection, on getting his way, and had never considered that sometimes the world gifted you things. Imperfect things, but better things. Things invisible until the moment he needed them.

Their parents had never been like that. Mom and Dad wanted things, and they wanted those things. There was no grace to accept the bits that weren’t what they’d asked for, even if they were better. They refused to allow themselves to be led down a path that might, might, not be exactly perfect. 

Big house, talented family, empty yard. 

David long decided he’d never make that mistake. It was, without a doubt, the healthiest form of rebellion he’d ever tried. Oh, he wanted things. He had dreams, and he had desires, but he wasn’t willing to be beholden to them. Things stumbled into laps all the time. Sometimes, those things were better than what he’d thought he wanted. 

Life, like football, was about taking things in stride. It was all taking what the defense gave him. 

In this case, the defense gave him three vodkas, neat. The run he had promised himself tomorrow morning seemed significantly further away. 

And then, the four of them had squeezed into an Uber, Leon and Cara already starting to make eyes at one another, which resulted in Sarah forcing David into the far back seat, his legs squeezed tight. 

Leon, less drunk than the three of them on account of arriving at David’s apartment just a few minutes before the car, shook an open hand towards him and grinned.

“Pass some,” he said. 

David scooped up the bottle, mostly empty by this point, and handed it over. “Go easy on it.” Leon, like David, would need to run in the morning. Leon, like David, really ought to be taking it easy. Leon, like David, immediately disregarded that sound advice. He grinned, and he drank.

Of all the people on the football team, David liked Leon best. A year younger and freakishly talented, the guy had immediately captured a spot in the receiving corps, and that role had only swelled this year. And, where all the other receivers on the team seemed to constantly jockey David for some sort of favor, as if he was supposed to carry them to the promised land, Leon had just sort of… fit. 

“I’ll set a double alarm,” said Leon. He took another sip.

“Triple,” said Cara, helpfully. David gave her a look, and she grinned and shrugged. “More alarms is better.” 

“Do you know the guy at the door?” asked Sarah, directing the question at a completely spun around Cara, who’d already started receiving rear-view mirror glares from the driver.

Cara shook her head. “No. No, but we’ll… well, I’m not worried about getting in.” 

“I wasn’t asking that,” said Sarah. “I just meant, like, do you think they’ll be bothered if we bring the rest of the bottle in?” 

“Depends on who’s carrying the bottle,” said Cara. She gave a little look to David. “Some of us might have better luck than others.” 

“I only use my fame for good,” said David. 

Sarah rolled her eyes, pulled the bottle out of Leon’s hand, and stuffed it into David’s. “You know,” she said, “this would be considered good by just about everyone in the world.” 

“Dad would hate it,” countered David. 

“All the more reason,” said Sarah. “And, I’m going to start worrying if you’re citing Dad as a good source of advice.” She shuddered. “God.”

David held up the bottle in acknowledgment, then swallowed a sip. She was right about that. Bad habit to be reflecting on his father’s opinion for anything. Sarah, taking the victory, grinned and flopped back against the seat.

“Do we know anyone else going to this one?” asked Cara. 

“Don’t think so,” said Sarah. 

“There’ll be some guys from the football team there,” said Leon. 

It was hardly shocking information. Guys from the football team? At a frat party? 

The team wasn’t entirely made up of irresponsibility, but it was a hundred halfway celebrities, and it was the offseason. And while David was in no scenario to pass judgment, some of them were worse than others. Some of them were at parties four nights a week. Some of them were hungover for practice. Some of them woke up in the bushes in front of the College of Arts and Sciences main building.

Complete nine yards of debauchery and stupidity. 

David, at the very least, saved being hungover for his morning runs exclusively. And lift sessions, potentially. 

Really, no remembering the morning runs. Not right now. He was in too deep as it was. Save that as a problem for the future. 

“Anyone cute?” asked Sarah. 

Leon rolled his eyes. “On the football team?” he asked, as if the answer was obvious. 

“You’re right,” said Sarah. “That does seem painfully unlikely.” 

* * * * *

Drinks now. More drinks now. It had been easy to get the bottle in, but it’d been just as easy to finish it. And if you were going to come to a frat party, if he was going to be here, he wasn’t exactly planning on doing something halfway. Full speed. Everything at full speed. 

Plus, these things were dreadful if you weren’t drunk. No drinking? Pity, you might as well find a nice bathroom to hole yourself up in for the better part of the night. But after a few drinks?

David enjoyed the thrumming music, the pulsing crowds. He liked that there were a million people here, that, if he was drunk enough, if he dulled his peripheral vision enough, he could be one of the crowd. He could just be David. If he was drunk enough, he could just be David Oliver for a little while, just a guy at a party, just a guy in the middle of the throng of sweaty, moving people. 

But they’d run out of drinks, and that peripheral vision might come back if he wasn’t careful, so they’d made their way close to the makeshift bar. They’d been half cornered there by Jack, one of the offensive linemen, who rapturously pitched Leon on joining him for beer darts. 

David, though, was just leaned up against the fence, waiting for Cara and Sarah to return. They’d decided that David going to the bar might cause a scene. 

“Can’t I just get a drink first?” asked Leon. 

Jack, all sweaty and red in the face, waved a hand. “Dude, we’ve got drinks, and you’ll be drinking.” He took a drink from his own can, as if it would enhance his point, then waved his hand again. “You’ll be drinking a lot.” 

“I think,” said Leon, checking over his shoulder, “I’ve got a thing going with one of the girls we came with.”

“Dude, try his sister later,” said Jack, grinning at David. David snorted. Oh, Leon had taken his shots there. It just hadn’t really worked out for him. “Nobody’s going anywhere.” 

“Not Sarah,” said Leon. “No, Cara.” 

“They’re… whatever, dude! You’re not going to think back on college and think about the girls you wish you’d struck out with! You’re going to-”

“Dick,” said Leon, laughing. 

“-wish you’d played more beer darts with Jack!” Jack held up a hand. “I swear, everyone over there is dogshit. They can’t play at all, dude. I need a partner or I’m going to be fucked tomorrow.” David raised an eyebrow, and Jack shook his head. “O’Neal’s got us doing maxes on a Saturday.” 

“Brutal,” agreed David. Lifting maxes on a Saturday morning. Horrible thing to do. 

Jack held up a hand, as if to say, ‘see?’. “We need you, man.” 

“Dude, if your whole thing is getting a guy who can throw, what the fuck are you bothering me for?” asked Leon.

“Because, dude!” Jack paused mid sentence again to take a drink. “Because, dude, David’s too important to risk.” 

“Well, fuck you, too,” said Leon. 

“Hey, dude, that’s my dawg,” said Jack. He swung an arm over David’s shoulder, and David grinned at Leon. “Gotta protect the QB.”

“God, I need to find a cornerback or something,” said Leon, looking around performatively. “Someone whose self-worth is tied to making David look like an asshole.” 

“Dawkins is over there,” said Jack. “That’s D-Line.” 

“He flattened me two practices ago,” agreed David. 

“Well,” said Leon, marginally brighter, “they should give him a fucking medal for that.” Jack and David both laughed, and Leon shook his head. “They need to try me on defense, man, I’m so tired of the receivers.” 

“You’d have to run backwards all the time,” said David. Leon squat down, replicating the starting position of a corner, and started chopping his feet. David frowned. “Hey! No! Come on, you can’t leave me.” 

“Look, dude,” said Jack, removing the arm from David’s shoulder and swinging it around Leon’s. “C’mon. We’ve got drinks and shit.” 

Leon glanced at David, seemingly persuaded by the temptation of drinks. Drinks and, apparently, the company of Jack over Cara. 

“Want to?” he asked. 

David looked back towards the bar, towards the girls. He could make out their hair in the back of the line, still waiting. Too early in the night to leave them without warning. He nodded back towards them. 

“I’ll meet you guys later,” he said. 

“Cool,” said Leon, nodding. “Cool, well, try to bring Cara too, right?” 

David nodded, and Jack held out a hand. David smiled, dapped him up, and watched as the pair disappeared into the crowd, Jack started plowing a path. 

See, that was the kind of football player he liked. Jack. Jack, without ego, seizing every bit of joy out of the job that he could muster. And, okay, he probably shouldn’t be here before a max lift day, but Jack had earned it! 

And David had no legs to stand on. 

He leaned back up against the fence and grinned. He had been whiny earlier. He’d been whiny about coming to a party and being recognized, but it wasn’t all bad. The population of these parties was only, like, twenty percent people who wanted to hound him into the dust. It was mostly people who didn’t care, who were here to drink with their friends, to dance and laugh and imbibe. 

And David liked to dance and laugh and imbibe. 

He tapped his toe, watching the swirling crowd at the center of the yard. So many people. So many people just moving. 

There’d been a version of him that had hated dancing. It was hard to remember it, really. He was pretty sure that, when he’d come freshman year, nervous about being some kid at a party, he’d only danced a couple of times. The idea of getting it wrong, of doing movements incorrectly, had forced him out to the edges of things. 

David was good at moving. His life was doing the right movements, making his body work in the correct way. And the idea that he was supposed to go out onto the dance floor, drunk and surrounded by a million people and just do something? Doing something without a lick of practice to it? 

It had scared him.

And then, he’d come to another party. It had been last year, one of the only ones he went to, at the tail end of the spring, and he’d just… given in. Decided, as he had with the rest of his life, as he had with his relationships with his parents, as he had with his love of things that didn’t fit at all with ‘Star Quarterback’, as he had with football, to let the noise filter away. To do the thing he wanted to try, to see if it worked. To flow downstream. He’d decided that the way to be David, to not be ‘Star Quarterback’, even when he was on the field, was to just see. To get wrapped up in the music and see if he could be bad at something.

And, honestly, David had no idea. Probably. He was probably terrible. 

Did it matter?

Not there. Not in the music.

His body was a machine made to move well, to excel, and he relished in being bad at something. At being willing to be bad at something. His parents had yearned for perfection, and he needed none of it on the dance floor. No one on the dance floor asked for perfection. They asked for energy. They asked for movement. They asked for someone to let go, to listen to the music and move. 

He liked that he had both. He liked that his body, finely tuned, built, could still do things poorly. He liked that it was both. He relished that, out on the dance floor, there was not a trace of ‘Star Quarterback’. Out on the dance floor, there was David. There was only David. David, an individual buried in the collective movement. He was there, amongst hundreds, just one of many.

“Hi!” Cara shoved a beer into his hand. Not expecting anything, some of it immediately spilled down David’s shirt. “Oops! Sorry, I opened it on the way over.” 

“And, from the feeling of it,” said David, taking the can and weighing it in his hand, “drank a little.”

Cara glanced around. “Where’d Leon go?” 

“Recruited for a game,” said David. Sarah bounced up behind Cara, her hands overloaded with cans. 

“Where’s Leon?” she asked. 

“He’s- we can go find him,” said David. He turned towards where Leon and Jack had disappeared. The wake was long gone. 

“Fuck that,” said Sarah. Her eyes had followed David’s away from the yard. “I want to dance.”

David nodded at the beers in her hands. “And what’s your plan for all that?”  

“My plan,” said Sarah, maneuvering three into the crook of her arm, then cracking a fourth with her now free hands, “is to drink very, very quickly.” She held out the can to Cara, whose eyes were also looking out towards the side of the yard, off where Leon had disappeared. At the lack of response, Sarah nudged her. “He’ll be around.” 

“Right,” said Cara, taking the beer. “Right.” She took a long, heavy sip, and then held it out for David. 

“Drink,” said Sarah. “Four beers. I think we can get it done in under five minutes.” 

“God, Mom would hate us,” said David. 

“Good!”

They did it faster. Sarah timed it. She kept checking her phone, clapping when it wasn’t her turn to drink, all while David and Cara tried to have the semblance of a normal conversation. Four minutes, five beers, because David wasn’t exactly keen on bringing the half drunk one Cara had pushed on him out to the dance floor, and then they were out into the crowd.

He would find Leon soon enough. He’d promised himself that. But, right now, launching into a week that required more of his body than most others, a week that needed it to be perfect, this had to happen first.

The music was perfect. Thumping, loud beats, anchors that he could tie himself to. David never heard much of the songs when he got to this point. They had lyrics. He knew they had lyrics. But it all sort of melted into the background. David, more than anything else, could shut away the noise and dig into his body. 

* * * * *

It took ten minutes, a lifetime when you’re dancing, when you’re drunk and moving your body without relent, for the first break. Cara and Sarah had to go to the bathroom, and a pair of girls had started to crowd David on the floor. Sarah had waggled her eyebrows at him as she’d announced her exit, making sure to, on the way out, call him ‘big bro’, as if to give tacit permission to the girls. 

And as soon as they’d left, David had excused himself, moved out of the center of the throng, and found his way back to the edge. 

The girls had been pretty. They’d been very pretty. If David wanted to, he could indulge himself to look, to touch, and he knew that. But it came with all sorts of complications. Out there, on the floor, the boy they were looking to dance with only looked like David. The boy they wanted to dance with, to kiss, to fuck, was Star fucking Quarterback. 

He allowed himself to watch them, to look back at the pair, who had melted back into a conciliatory group of girls. 

They were probably nice girls. 

Off, then, to find Leon. Sarah could yell at him later.

He picked his way along the fence, making sure to avoid treading on too many toes, and pushed his way through a crowd gathered at the edge of the yard. Then, down the side, the grass striped by inadequate lighting, and towards the crowd gathered there. 

Beer darts was simple. Simple as it was beautiful. And, already, he could see three people sitting there, Leon’s back to him and a pair of girls seated across. Which, frankly, was perfect! Watching was never as good as playing. 

He settled himself into the chair next to Leon, grinning at him.

“Free chair?” 

“Good timing,” said Leon. “Jack had to bail.” 

“Well,” murmured David, glancing across the gap of grass, “I’ll have to be careful.” 

“Nah,” said Leon. “They’re new girls.” 

And then, David looked at them. 

It hadn’t been that long since he’d seen Anna. She’d done something different with her hair today, although David really couldn’t tell what aside from ‘different’—his memory wasn’t quite that good—and she was twisting a finger into it, her face taut. David smiled at her.

“Hey,” he said. 

“Hey,” said Anna. She didn’t return the smile. 

Odd. David tried to wrack his brain as to whether or not he’d done something stupid that weekend. He didn’t think so. Or, at least if he had, it hadn’t been devastating enough to be memorable. 

So, in lieu of anything else, he just smiled again. And then, glancing around, caught Lucy’s eye, and smiled at her, too. The whole crew, then, sans Margot, because the girl sitting across from him wasn’t Margot. No, she had dark hair. Dark hair…

David held the smile on his face, because he was entirely unsure what to do if he wasn’t smiling. 

Because, the… girl?

Not a girl at all.

Unmistakable. Unmistakable, even in the half darkness, even after the alcohol and the sweat and all of it. He knew that face. That face was Sebastian’s. 

But… hardly…

There were tits. David wasn’t imagining that. Right there, below a tight shirt, and David had never seen Sebastian’s stomach before, but it looked nothing like he would have expected. And his face! His face, covered in makeup, yes, but… 

He was pretty. Very pretty. 

And there was the hair, falling down his head, past his shoulders, and Sebastian didn’t have hair like that. 

Was he grafting Sebastian onto this girl? He had to be, didn’t he? He had to be drunk, and he had to be imagining the boy from his Friday classes, because he’d just seen him. He’d just spent the entire day with him, an entirely too pleasant day, and now he was imagining that this girl, whoever she was, was him. 

Because there was no way. 

But… it did look like him.

He just kept smiling, and the girl, whoever she was, opened her mouth, opened the red, painted lips, and said,

“Hi. I’m Viola.” 

It struck David over the head like a hundred bricks. The voice. The voice and the name. 

The name. 

Viola?

That couldn’t be a coincidence. They didn’t make coincidences like that, not even in Garland. No, no, that had to be…

Well, she’d just said the name. That name.

Viola. 

Showing up to a party like this was insanity, and he was smiling with impossible composure. Insanity. It was insane for him— her?— to have done this. 

And what was it? What was the reason that…

God, his head spun. Even in thought, he was struggling to keep it straight, because he looked like that. And the words! They’d come out as if he was any of them, as if he was exactly the same as they had been, and that was impossible. 

Seb didn’t have a sister. He’d mentioned a brother. And even if he had a sister, none of that explained how she was sitting here with Anna and Lucy or how she looked like a complete ringer. Sarah didn’t look near that close to him. And she sounded like that! And she was smiling at him, and so, because what the fuck else was he supposed to do when a girl like that smiled at him, David smiled back.

He took a breath, and slowed his brain. 

Allowed it to work.

She’d said the name Viola. She’d said the name Viola, and so, at the very least, there was no Sebastian right now. At the very least, she didn’t want anyone to say a word, and she was looking at him with slight nerves, and that had to be it. Viola. A tip, a clue, and right now, David couldn’t say anything else. 

He couldn’t escape the insanity of it. That anyone would come here, like this, dressed as she was dressed, was beyond. That she was sitting there, smiling at him, and that she’d said the words at all? Monumentally dumb. What could the benefits of that possibly be? What, for the love of God, could compel someone to do something so stupid? 

Lucy murmured something from the side, and Anna fixed on David.

“Is it a good idea for you to be playing?” she asked. 

David stared at her. Then almost laughed. “It’s fine,” he said. Then, glancing to… to Viola, he smiled. “I’m sure you’re a great shot. And, if you’re not, well, you can take it up with coach.”

The girl shifted in her chair, her eyes fluttering, then smiled at him, confident. “I don’t like football anyway.” 

Her voice didn’t just come with a higher pitch. It came with intonation, too, and David forced himself to hold steady. It was different than he was. So comically, absurdly different. 

“I’ll keep my legs wide, then,” said David. “For safety.” 

Viola smiled, and David felt a bit of himself stir. As if she could tell, her smile widened, and, when she spoke, it came with more energy. “Well, since you’re the quarterback, I take it I don’t need to worry about being hit.” 

And then, she pulled her legs closer together, pressing her feet right on each side of the can. 

David wasn’t gay. David was pretty sure, at the very least, that he wasn’t gay. It wasn’t even really a hard line for him; His parents wouldn’t have minded, and he was pretty sure that he had enough talent to justify it if he wanted to. And, yes, he’d always had a sort of easy chemistry with Sebastian. Seb treated him neither like the ethereal star nor the complete meathead, and that distinguished him from damn near everyone outside the football team and his immediate family. They talked about other things. They talked a lot.

But Sebastian had never spoken to David like this. 

This girl was smiling at him, ruby lipped, doe eyed, and she’d just spoken with unequivocal authority. She was different. Whatever this version was, it was different. Sure, Sebastian didn’t like football, and David had known that. He’d said so. He’d just never wielded it liked that. He’d never spoken it into the air as if he wanted David to wrap around it, wanted to pull David from the stratosphere and sit him under a heeled boot. 

David didn’t even think about it. He pulled his own feet together, the can propped between them, and smiled at her. 

“Equal footing,” he said. 

And Viola? 

Viola giggled. 

“Sure,” she said. 

David wanted to rap on his ears, dislodge whatever had allowed the sound to come through like that. What the fuck? He could see the entwinement if he strained, the little hint of his voice in hers, but it was faint. It was very, very faint, buried beneath layers of pitch. This sound. Her voice. What the fuck?  He looked to Lucy, who gave him a half smile, and then to Anna, who was too busy folding her hands over in her lap, and then back to Viola. 

Viola smiled. “We live in the same dorms,” she offered. 

David nodded, because if he didn’t nod he was going to laugh. She’d said it as though it was the answer to his question, as if he was wondering where, exactly, she lived, when the real question was where the fuck did she come from? That voice, that girl, swapping over from Sebastian. And, okay, Sebastian had never exactly been the pinnacle of manhood, but he was a guy! He’d always been a guy! Fully formed!

Viola was not a guy. Impossible to look at her and see guy. She was right there, all eyes and red lips and smooth skin, and David had to turn to Leon. It was insane. Everything was insane. 

Leon was wearing an entirely unperturbed expression.

Right.

Well, it was insane to him. 

“You want to go first? Start us off strong?” asked Leon. He held out his hand, revealing a pair of darts, and David remembered that he’d come here to play beer darts. 

“Oh,” said David. “Yeah, yeah.” He looked back to Viola, who had managed to reposition herself on her chair, her back a little straighter. She looked more nervous now. A little less confident. David wondered if she’d forgotten exactly what she’d signed up for, too. 

And that wouldn’t do. No, no, he didn’t want her to be nervous about him. How in the world she wasn’t panicking right now, how she’d managed to be more confident than the boy was beyond comprehension, but he was unwilling to shatter it. No, no, that wouldn’t do.

He grinned, twisted the dart between his fingers. David Oliver could play quarterback. David Oliver could throw a dart with accuracy, just if he needed to. Not a problem. Not. A. Problem. 

“I’m a good shot,” he said. 

Viola pursed her lips. “You better be.” 

David smiled again, a little wider, and Viola closed her eyes. She was still. Unflinching. David allowed himself to push the dart forward, trying to imagine the arc. To see it. To visualize the throw. 

One shot. Into the can, and she’d turn those doe eyes back on him. 

He threw.

Perfect shot. 

It never even came close to her legs, never threatened them, and now she had opened them, gave a relieved smile, and David got to deliver the second bit of news. He laughed.

“Why are you smiling?” he asked. He nodded towards the can, back between her legs. Viola smiled at David, picked up the can, and pressed red lips to the puncture. She drank. 

David watched. 

It felt indulgent to watch. To watch her. To watch her lips against the metal of the can, tilted back, a bit of her hair falling towards her cheek. To watch the drip of beer that fell away from her lips, that she failed to grasp, trickling down her chin. To watch her drink. 

And then, it was Leon’s turn, and David managed to get his head to turn to the right to watch his teammate throw.

Leon missed. Put the dart right off to the side right where Anna’s foot would have been in any other scenario. Right where, if she’d been either David or Viola, she’d have been punctured. 

Lucky, then, that Anna was not Viola.

The darts circled around. Viola twirled hers in her fingers, which seemed to be, somehow, more dexterous than Sebastian’s had ever been, or perhaps David had never paid enough attention to notice. She was all focused on the can, set right between his legs.

“Let’s see that aim,” teased David. 

Viola gave him a haughty look. She looked like she might huff. “See, I’m not an athlete,” she said. “I never claimed to be a good shot.” 

“See,” said David, sitting back further in his chair, “that sounds like an excuse.” As if he needed to up the ante at all, he made sure to pull his feet in, ensure that they were as close as they could be. Then, he ran a hand through his hair, letting the little bits tangle in his fingers, and smiled at her. 

David could tell it had the intended effect. Viola’s lip turned, just a little, and she shifted in her chair. She aimed. He kept still. 

It was a good shot. Just hit the edge of the can, and it threatened to spin between David’s feet. He clamped down, and the girls whooped, and Viola smiled broadly at him. She pointed a finger at the can and swept it up. 

David obliged. He bent, picked up the can, his eyes staying with hers, and drank. Her eyes watched, lingering and taking him in, and David slowed his pace. Finally, after a few seconds, he replaced the can, put out a hand, and, without it ever really passing his mind, gave her a little bow. 

It had been a good shot. 

Viola giggled again.

Anna took her turn, and again David managed to tear himself from Viola. It gave David the chance to catch the concern on Anna’s face. Eyebrows raised, lips pursed, hands squeezing hard against the dart. 

She missed.

Darts back over, and David turned his in his hands. One more shot would probably end the game. His last had landed low enough that it had mostly brought the beer in Viola’s can down to its final third. Her feet were still tucked by the side, propping it up. But, it just wouldn’t do to end the game now. There was something that came after this, and it was probably some kind of apologetic explanation, and David would accept that, because David was happy to accept things as they came, but David didn’t want that to happen yet. No, he didn’t want an end. 

So, he’d just have to miss. 

And, he readied for that, prepared to put the dart into the grass. 

And then, something else. 

Viola, her eyes on him, uncoupled her feet from the can, swung a leg over her knee, leaving her foot right out in front of the can, and started moving. The foot, the ratty shoe, swung in front of the can, back and forth. 

It would be a mistake to call it fluid. No, she was wobbling herself on the chair, propping her hands on either side to support the movement. In any world, any rational world, it would be a ridiculous thing to be doing. Funny, even. 

But it wasn’t. 

Her face was all confidence, a smile and a smirk that begged him to try it. Try to slip it past her legs. Try to make it happen. Try it. 

“Hold on,” said Leon. “She can’t do that.” 

“It’s moving,” said Viola. She’d never looked to Leon at all. Doe eyes, all on David. “He just needs to time it.” 

David smiled. If there was anything he could do. If there was anything that David Oliver could do, it was throw something. A football. A dart. What was the difference when you came down to it? He’d thrown footballs drunk. Not, like, in games before, but he’d thrown them. 

“Just timing,” he said.

“Just timing,” said Viola. 

The foot swung. Back, forth, back, forth. David rolled the dart between his fingers. He’d thread needles before. He’d thread a million of them. 

Back and forth. 

Back and forth. 

He lined up his shot. It was doable. This was all doable. Never mind who the foot was attached to for a moment, and just focus on the can between the legs. Just focus on the shot. Ignore the girl. 

He threw. 

It was wrong. 

All wrong.

Her foot swung back, right at the wrong moment, right at the moment he had expected it to hold, and the dart was already gone. 

It was like the world was moving in slow motion. Her foot came back, and the dart came fast, and all David could do was watch. Watch, as the dart ripped through her jeans. Watch, as the end of it wobbled. Watch, as Lucy lept from the side.

David was up, too, up right as the dart struck her. 

Fuck. 

Fuck. 

Lucy was on her faster. She was down next to Viola in a flash, her eyes wide. Viola stood, too, staring at the dart sticking in her ankle, then wobbling backwards a step. Beside David, Leon murmured something that sounded like ‘oh shit’, but might have been something about ‘throw shit’. 

Anna, though, had collapsed into an immediate fit of laughter. 

“You kind of deserved that one,” she said. 

“Bathroom,” said Lucy, slinging an arm under Viola. Viola had mostly stopped wobbling, but she was still staring at her ankle. “Soap and water and band-aids and- Anna, stop laughing.” 

Fuck. Oh, fuck. He’d been so caught up. 

“Sorry,” he said, needing to get it out into the air. Viola looked up at him, up in complete bewilderment.

“She played the game,” said Anna, hand to her chest. “Really David, if you weren’t so-”

“Anna!” Lucy stared daggers into her. 

“Sorry, sorry,” said Anna, now waving that hand. She looked to Leon, half grinning, and shrugged. “Draw?” 

David finally chanced a glance to Leon. His face was nearly as amused as Anna’s. He nodded and waved her off, and David was about to flop back down into his chair, needing to sit more than almost anything.

But Viola spoke. 

“You have to finish that.” Arm draped over Lucy’s shoulder, but Viola had never looked more in control. Doe eyes were back, and the little corner of her mouth was curling again, and she nodded towards the can. 

“Oh god,” said Lucy. 

Warmth returned to David’s chest. Everywhere, really. “I haven’t seen blood yet.” 

“Oh god,” said Lucy again. “David, I promise there will be blood. Viola, can I please excise the fucking dart from your leg?” 

Neither of them looked at her. Viola kept watching David, and David kept watching Viola, and the corners of Viola’s lips were turning even more, and when she spoke again, it was with authority. 

“Drink,” she ordered. 

For a second, David held her gaze. 

Who was this version? 

Did it matter? 

He bent, picked up the can, and drank. And Viola smiled, full smile, triumphant and victorious.

And then, they were gone. Back in the house, out of the yard, giggles disappearing, and David was left to pick up the pieces. 

It was nothing but pieces.

This girl had appeared from thin air, as far as he could tell. Maybe she’d been carved from the same fabric as Sebastian, but there was such starkness. He could not picture, not in a million years, Sebastian doing a single thing that Viola had just done. The difference was so all encompassingly total. It was one thing for it to be the looks, for whatever version this was to look different. But… all of it. 

“Dude,” said Leon, laughing. David blinked and realized he was still standing, empty beer can clutched in a hand. “Dude, what the fuck are you still standing here for?” 

David blinked again. 

Because… because David wasn’t gay, was he? And this would be gay, wouldn’t it? 

That hadn’t felt very gay, though. No, that had felt decidedly not gay. It had just… it had just felt good. It had just been fun. It had just been right. 

And maybe, potentially, it might be a little gay, but David wasn’t one to question things that fell into his lap. David didn’t look gift horses in the mouth. David went with the flow. David took what the defense gave him. He didn’t look for a specific thing. He waited until something felt right. 

“I don’t know,” said David. Leon grinned. 

“Well, don’t stand around for me.” 

* * * * *

David had followed. David had followed, and then he’d found himself on a ratty couch in the living room of Sigma Pi, and then he’d been joined by Lucy and Viola, and Viola’s leg had found itself draped easily over his lap. Lucy had positioned herself between them, a thing he was still trying to decipher, but it didn’t matter. They were talking.

No. Not true. They were flirting, was what they were doing. 

She was different right now. This version of her, pulled from the shadows of this party, a girl without explanation, was different. Less timid. Less concealed. Those bits were still there, and he could see through the fog and grasp them, grasp them in moments when another guy approached the couch, when someone looked a little too closely at her, but they were thin moments. They were harder to hold than the confidence.

It helped that he was there. If Sarah and Cara had bemoaned the collapse of male attention onto David, neither Lucy nor Viola seemed to mind. Guys approached the couch, sure, but none of them came to talk to girls. They came for him, to give him attention, and David swore there was a tick of relief on their faces each time it happened. 

It’d never been easier to soak up attention.

It made sense, too. If it had been David, anyone, really, he’d be in a complete panic. She was at this party like this, and the wrong kind of move? Well, not every frat brother was evil. Really, most of them weren’t on the individual level. But frat parties didn’t operate on the individual level. This world would despise the version of Sebastian that had walked into the party, and they would have no trouble making that known. 

So, if there was a convenient magnet for the attention of the esteemed brothers of Sigma Pi? David was all too happy to fill the role for the night. 

Even so, David was under no illusions of Viola’s confidence. And if he had, at some point, seen it slip further than the small moments, it was overcome by the rest of it. She bat her eyelashes at him, and she giggled, and at one point, under the guise of forcing something from David’s mouth, she’d pushed him to call her a girl. 

They’d been sitting, and Lucy had been playing a funny kind of defense, and Viola had asked if he had bothersome friends. And he’d started to say, ‘Well, my friends don’t normally sit between me and girls’. But he’d paused halfway through the thought and a word short of the sentence, and Viola had only grinned at him. She’d asked, ‘you and what?’ 

Girls. 

The answer had been girls, and David had been happy to supply it. 

It was impossible to sit here and not want to supply it, to sit here and not believe it in its totality. This version. She was. She was. 

The other question, though, the one growing inside him, was if she understood that he knew. With the darts, he’d been convinced that she’d clued him in. Viola. Surely, she couldn’t think the name wouldn’t tip him off? But, here, she acted like she needed to conceal bits of information. Like she needed to be careful with her words, lest she reveal that she was not, in fact, just Viola. 

He’d tried to convince her it wasn’t the case. Mentioned Seb, even if the reasons for being in Lucy’s dorm last week weren’t about him. Tried to put the right spin on his words. Here, in the depths of the party, he couldn’t very well say it out loud. But she didn’t need to be nervous. She didn’t need to let the bits of anxiety creep back into her face. 

Anxiety did come, though. Just not from David.

Anna had disappeared into the party. 

And now, David was standing, and the girls were, too, and Viola, blood still enmeshed into the denim of her jeans, stumbled on the way up. 

David pulled an arm around her waist. It was instinctual. Instinctual to not let her tumble back into the couch. 

It could just be a friendly thing. 

It didn’t feel like just a friendly thing. 

And Viola, without missing a beat, swung her arm over her shoulder, and now they were pushing through the crowd, following a blatantly disapproving Lucy, searching for Anna. 

“Do you think she’s alright?” asked Viola. 

David looked down at her. She was biting her lip, staring forward into the party, her eyes searching. Anxious. “She’ll be okay,” said David. Viola threatened to slow, so he allowed himself to apply a little pressure. 

They made it through to the yard, to the little steps. And there, David saw a different set of girls.

Sarah and Cara were standing at the edge of the yard, talking animatedly to each other. There were two more beers in Sarah’s hands. David very well might have to go on a search for her soon enough if she wasn’t careful. 

It was her that saw them first. She nudged Cara, who turned, and they both beamed at him. David, more than anything in the world, wanted to stick out his tongue, because there was patronizing and then there was whatever the hell Sarah was, and he would appreciate if they stopped looking at the pair of them like zoo animals. 

Still, he had just disappeared for the better part of an… hour? God, it might have been even longer than that. Or, shorter? 

Lucy bumped the pair on the way by, and David grinned. Sorry, he mouthed. Not for the bump. Just for the M.I.A. bit. Sarah wiggled her eyebrows, and Cara grinned. 

And then, he looked past them, and he saw Anna. On the right edge of the yard, huddled next to a fence with at least half a dozen other girls. 

“Oh,” he said. “I see her.” Lucy spun, and David nodded. “She’s been adopted.”

They pushed through. Lucy rushed forward to reach Anna, who was wobbling a bit by the fence.

“Good eye,” murmured Viola. She squeezed his shoulder, then disentangled herself from him, her arm running down his back as she moved towards Anna. 

“I’m very perceptive,” he said. 

The pair of them circled Anna, and David allowed himself a second to breathe. Anna was in a state, eyes swelling in and out of focus, and he knew well enough that it was just about time for her to go home. And if she went home, so did Viola. So did the girl. 

David didn’t know what to do with that. He wanted her to stay. He wanted her to be here longer. She’d appeared from nowhere, and they’d only really had a small bit of time. And whatever came after this was sure to be more complicated. Sebastian would make his grand return, because David wasn’t under any illusions that Viola was about to march into Film and settle next to him. 

But whatever did come next, he was willing to wait for. Because, god, if she’d come here, if she’d done something this monumentally risky, then it wasn’t a stretch to say she existed outside tonight. For god’s sakes, there was the voice. David couldn’t do that with his voice. Whatever that was, it was the kind of thing that kept steady practice. It was the kind of thing that she must have worked on. It was the kind of thing that indicated control.

She had control. Whatever came next, she had control. Ball in her court. 

Margot was saying something to her now, looking between the pair of them. David caught only the last bit, Viola’s faux insolence. 

“The men at this party are horrible.” 

He laughed. 

And then, almost as quickly as she had arrived, she was gone again. Lucy and Margot gathered Anna, and they started out towards the fence, and David, lingering, watched Viola follow. She was limping, just a little, favoring the right leg over the left, her hair swishing on her shoulders. He watched her go. 

She hadn’t even bothered to say goodbye. She’d just gone.

Her court. Ball in her court. 

“Oh,” said one of the girls from the circle. She knelt down to the ground, picked up a phone, and whirled to the vanishing group. “Wait.” 

David didn’t think about it. “Here,” he said. “I’ll take it.” The girl, hair curling from the sweat and the heat, blinked at him, nodded, and handed the phone over. 

Out the fence, after them. Ball in her court, but he wanted to give her every chance to hit it.  No questions. He didn’t want to leave any questions in her mind where he stood, what he knew, that he would want to see her again. This version. Sebastian, too, sure, but he wanted to see Viola. 

They were still on the curb, a scene unfolding around Anna, a water bottle being coaxed towards her mouth. Lucy looked up, then scowled at the sight of him. 

Viola, though. When she looked up, her face lit, and David felt his body tighten. She bound up the grass towards him, and David smiled, even as she half limped the last few steps. 

“Hi,” she said. Over her shoulder, Lucy was still giving him a bit of an eye, and David passed, what he hoped, was a placating smile. Nothing to worry about. And then, back to her, back to the doe eyes looking up at him. She was smiling, gentle and warm, and she was only a foot and a half from him now. 

David swallowed. “Anna left her phone.” He held out it out for her to take. She looked down, and David had a moment to look at the top of her head. Whatever hair this was, it couldn’t be Sebastian’s. The color was close, but not exact. Even in the dark, he could tell that much. Viola was still just looking at the phone, as if she needed it to light to confirm that it was really Anna’s. “Vi.” 

“Oh.” Viola bit her lip and took a hold of the phone. David, though, didn’t release. Viola didn’t either. “Thanks.” 

“Sure.” They were still touching now. It was more delicate than it had been before, when he’d had to support her through the party. More precious. She was only barely brushing against the base of his palm. “I’m glad you came tonight,” he murmured. 

He was watching her lips. He wanted to press his lips into them. Wanted to press himself into her, to pull her tight into his body. And, she was leaning. Swaying, really, in the night air, swaying closer to him. 

“Me too,” she whispered. 

“Sorry about the leg,” he said. 

“It’ll heal,” said Viola. They were close now. Moments from it, from a kiss that had once felt entirely impossible, that had been entirely inconceivable, and they were moments from it, inches from it. 

“I like this version of you,” he murmured. Just another couple of inches now. Just another couple of inches.

 

* * * * *

 

“No!” Viola had let it go on too long. She’d been fine to be pulled out of the water by him, and she’d been fine to wipe the makeup away and face him, and she’d even been fine to let him tell her all about how he’d known from the start, but this was a bridge too far. Now he was lying. Now he was lying. “That never happened!”

Beside her, still planted on the dirt, David stared, eyes wide. “What?” 

“You never said that,” said Viola. “You never said that, David. You never said anything like that to me, because I wouldn’t have… I wouldn’t have done any of this if you had.” She could accept the rest of it. Accept it in it’s ridiculous futility. But not this. Not that he’d said those words, because he hadn’t. 

“Done what?” asked David. He looked around, as if there was some sort of thing he was supposed to see, as if the fruits of her labor were hiding behind a tree trunk. 

Viola covered her cheeks with her palms. No. No, no, no. “You never said that,” she contended. “You didn’t.” 

Again, David searched the beach with his eyes. “Are you… joking?” 

“No!” 

“I… I definitely did,” said David. He shook his head, closed his eyes, and let out half a laugh. “I did.” 

Viola’s hands shook. He was staring at her, earnest and calm, and that made her feel more insane. She closed her eyes. David had said a lot, had brought together things she hadn’t realized, but that bit was different. That was different. She’d drank so much by that point, and there’d been the relief of finding Anna, and there’d been the… there’d been perfume and the sweat and him…

And she’d been looking at his lips. 

And she’d completely tuned out whatever it was he’d whispered, because all she could think about was the other bit his lips could do. 

“You knew,” said Viola, weakly. She flopped back down onto the ground, catching herself with her hands. “You knew.” 

The whole time. The whole time. She’d been running around, thinking that he was going to kill her, trying to cover her tracks, and he’d said it to her face. 

“You thought I didn’t know?” asked David, quietly. He’d asked that at the start, when he’d pulled her out, still sputtering and trying to peel the makeup off her face. He’d asked why she thought he didn’t know, and she’d asked why the fuck he thought she knew. 

It had never been obvious. 

Not to her.

“No,” she said, miserably. “No. Why didn’t you say anything?” David gave her a small smile, and Viola cringed. “I mean, after that. We kept texting, and then… yesterday?”

David shifted, absently cradling his knuckles. “Well, I don’t know. I sort of figured that this was your thing, and that you were going to take the lead or whatever.”

But there had to be more. “No, but… when we texted, you acted like there were two different people.” That didn’t make sense. That didn’t make sense.

“Like I said,” said David, “I let you take the lead. Like, when I texted you after the party, just to kind of see where we stood, to kind of say I wanted to talk.” He shook his head. “And you kind of pretended that you hadn’t been there. Or, like, that there were two of you? I don’t know, it was weird. And so I went along with it, because what was I supposed to say?” For a moment, David, looked like he was unsure if he wanted to continue, chewing on his lip. 

“And then, you had a second phone number, and it sort of seemed like you’d just really, really planned things out.” David shrugged. “Like, there was this sort of plan, I guess. Like you’d done this before, and so I just figured, you know, if you were doing it that way, that worked because… I just didn’t really have any idea what I was doing. I didn’t know what to make of any of it. And I was okay with that, because I was having a good time. I… I like talking to you. Both versions, really, but I liked talking to Viola. It didn’t seem like some big stretch to let you dictate. And, yeah, I mean, I wanted to see you. But we talked about that, and I figured, you know…

“And then,” David let out a little laugh, “yesterday. And you looked like… well, I wasn’t expecting ‘Viola’. But you seemed like you didn’t even want me to treat you like Sebastian. It was like we’d gone backwards.” There was a lump in Viola’s throat. “I just didn’t really know what to think. How to act. I guess… I guess I just sort of tried to keep doing what we’d been doing over text. You know, like, treat you the same, but just pretend Viola didn’t exist instead?” David let out half a laugh. “I guess I wasn’t very good at that.” Then, an even smaller laugh. “I think I was pretty bad at that even before, actually.” 

Viola wanted to wade back into the pond. Yesterday felt so much stupider now. The texts, too. The whole time, she’d thought she was flirting with danger, thought she was flailing about…

Well, she was. She had been. 

She put her head in her hands. If it was possible to fall through the ground and float away, it would be a nice time for that to happen. She would like that very much, thank you. No one to revel in her mortification. No one to raise an eyebrow. No one to laugh. 

“Fuck,” she whispered. “I’m so stupid.” 

“Honestly, I’m a little relieved,” said David. Viola pulled her hands away to look at him. He was twisting his own fingers, repeated a little pattern of circles in his palm. “I just… well, I kind of didn’t know what to think. You know, kind of thought whatever… whatever the whole ‘Viola’ thing is… um, was over. And then, when Sarah texted me, I sorta thought maybe you were just done with me instead.”

“It’s definitely not that,” said Viola, quickly. She wanted to fall through the ground again, but David just smiled.

“Well, I don’t know. You were so weird yesterday. And you… look, it makes more sense now why you wouldn’t see me, but, like, I don’t know.” 

“Okay, well first of all,” said Viola, reassessing the sentences before, “there’s… well, I don’t think there’s really a way for the ‘Viola thing’ to be over.” That needed to be said. Because if he was going to know, he ought to know. 

“Oh?”

“It’s going to be permanent,” said Viola. And, for the first time, she realized she’d slipped back into her voice at some point. Impossible to trace when, but she had. “Or, um, it… it already is. Sort of. It’s… not going away.” There was still a bout of faltering confidence when she said that. It was different to say to David. Different than when she’d said it to the girls, to Annabelle. 

“Oh,” said David. There was still confusion in his voice. Shit.

Viola closed her eyes. It was easier to say into the dark. It was easier to say to no one, to dull that sense for a moment and just… “It’s… I’m transgender,” she said. “And that night was sort of the night I started to figure that out. I mean, okay, there were moments before then, but that was-”

“That was the first night?” 

Viola opened her eyes and looked at David. David, who was not so subtly wearing bemusement all over his face. One more time, she wished she could fall through the ground. 

“Yeah.” 

“You figured it out that night and you went and looked like that?” He really looked like he might laugh, so Viola gave him a reproachful eyebrow. David waved a hand. “I’m sorry. Its just ridiculous, is all. I just… well, I figured you’d been doing that for a while. With the voice and everything?” 

Oh.

The ridiculousness was not her. It was the voice. It was the… well, the competence of the girls, mostly, the competence of the girls’ makeup and their clothing and the darkness and the alcohol. That, and the voice. A ten-year-old Viola’s contribution to her older self. 

So, eighteen-year-old Viola repositioned her throat again. “What voice?” she asked, all Sebastian again. Then, Keira. “This is just what I sound like.” 

“See, that would’ve been more impressive if I hadn’t just heard you doing a Matt Damon impression,” said David. 

“I was not doing a Matt Damon impression,” said Viola, fixing her own voice back on and glaring at him. “That was Duke Orsino.” 

“Orsino sounds remarkably similar to Matt Damon,” said David. 

Viola bat him gently with the back of her hand. Then, she cupped it in her lap. Probably not a good idea to be doing that. 

Except…

It registered, finally, in her brain that David had known. Not in the bad way, not in the way that was frightening and scary, but in a completely different way. He’d known from the start, through all the flirting, through the almost kiss, through to the texting and class and all of it. He knew now. He knew now, and he’d known then, and he’d wanted to kiss her then. 

Her brain shorted. 

“I can’t believe you knew,” she said.

“Well, I didn’t know everything,” said David. “I sort of thought you might just be trying to sneak into frat parties. You complained about it enough.” 

Viola let out half a laugh. “I don’t think anyone wants to go to frat parties that badly.”

“You’ve met my sister, haven’t you?” asked David. 

Oh, yes. “Yes, we had a wonderful talk in the bathroom about you,” said Viola. “She said you were- hang on, if you’ve known this whole time-”

“I didn’t tell Sarah,” said David, quickly. Viola gave him a look. More information, please. “Look, she saw us together, and then she proceeded to little sister all over everything.” Viola raised an eyebrow. “She just got excited. But she doesn’t know anything, I promise.” 

“What about Cam?” 

“What about Cam?”

“Well, he seemed to think you had a thing for me,” said Viola. 

“Viola,” chided David, gently.

Viola blushed. “I meant, like, why does he know?” 

“Because,” said David, leaning back, hands in the dirt, “I basically carried you through a party.” 

“You did not carry me through a party,” argued Viola. “That is not how that went.” 

“Okay,” said David, shrugging.

“Asshole,” murmured Viola, and David laughed. 

“I wasn’t saying it as a dig,” said David. “I was saying it as a fact.”

“Oh, thanks,” said Viola. “That’s what I was worried about.” 

“You’re welcome,” said David, brightly. 

Viola wasn’t sure exactly what to do. This was never supposed to happen. This was so wildly not part of the plan, not part of any of the bits she’d been shooting for, and now she was lost. To this point, almost all of the accidents of the last two weeks had been calamitous. They’d all been terrifying and scary, and this was those things too, but it was also different. 

She swallowed, leaning back on her palms. Good things. Good things could happen to Viola Collins. It was okay for good things to happen to Viola Collins. 

“So,” she said, without an end to the sentence in mind. 

“So,” replied David. He was looking at her, all soft eyes and sweaty hair and stubble, and Viola had to swallow.

Shit. She tried to find the words to ask the question she wanted to ask. They were in there, in her brain, but right now they seemed completely beyond comprehension. God. Shit. “How… are you?” 

David gave her another bemused look. “I’m good,” he said. “How are you?” 

“I’m good,” said Viola. Shit. 

“Good,” said David, and he really was about to laugh now. 

Viola glared at him. “Don’t be an asshole.” 

“I’m not being anything,” said David. 

“You’re being an asshole,” said Viola. 

“Fine,” said David, succumbing to the threatening laughter. “Fine, yeah.” He recovered. “How’s the ankle?” 

“It’s… it’s fine,” said Viola. She’d take any redirection. “It’s been a couple of weeks now. I did have to go get a bunch of antibiotics.” 

“Sorry about that,” said David. “I don’t think I’ve really had the chance to apologize in person.” 

Viola allowed half a smile. “You did. At the party. Promised to bring me a fruit basket. Or, rather, have one of your ‘lackies’ do it.”

“Oh, I do remember that,” said David. “I don’t think I ever got around to it.” 

“Well, there’s still time.” 

“Would it be alright if I delivered it myself, or are you going to insist on the lackies?” asked David. 

Viola rolled her eyes. As if. As if he couldn’t. As if she would be upset if David Oliver wanted to dote on her. 

And yet… 

She felt almost ashamed to put it into the world, but she had to. David was David, and she was just Viola. There was a question. A bubbling, boiling over question that didn’t register, because, well, if he had known, if she wasn’t some mystery girl to him, she didn’t get it. “Why do you even like me?” asked Viola. 

David seemed surprised by the question. “Why… wouldn’t I like you?” he asked. 

“Well, okay, but why me?” 

“Don’t you like me?” asked David. “Is there some grand reason that you like me?” 

Viola frowned. So not the point! Everyone liked David. David was David. And Viola, for all that she was, was complicated. And, fuck, even before that, Sebastian hadn’t exactly been the most popular guy on campus. Not unpopular, but there had to be some kind of justification. 

“That’s different,” said Viola. “You’re… you could have anyone you wanted. You could be with anyone, if you wanted to. Like, fuck, David, you’re…” 

David grimaced. “Famous,” he offered. He sounded so defeated to put it into the air. Famous. 

“Well, yeah.” 

David looked at her, very pointedly, very plainly, and shook his head. “Have you ever really thought about it?” he asked. “I mean, I know we’ve joked about it, but like, seriously. Have you thought about how… how much it can suck to be that? I’m always in the process of sifting through people. I’m always in the process of sifting through to find people who like me, and people who like what I am. There’s this sort version that people looked at me and see, this guy who plays football and drinks beer, and, like, yeah, I do those things. I like those things. But, fuck, there’s so many people who want me to just be that. To be the version of him that they think of on a cereal box.

“And I’m okay with that. With having to do that. But just because I’m used to sifting doesn’t mean I like it. And it definitely doesn’t mean that anyone that might want to date me is someone that I want to date.” David rubbed his neck, absently.

“But… I talk about football with you,” said Viola. If the justification was that Viola didn’t talk football with him, that was ridiculous. They did. Even if she was dismissive about it, it came up a lot. 

David gave her half a smile, a soft one. “Sure,” he agreed. “But not only football. And… and, it’s different.” He paused, considering. “There was this point, like, two weeks into class, and we were talking about things, and you were sort of asking me about classes and stuff. And I told you that I had always sort of wanted to be a poetry major. I think, at that point, we hadn’t really done anything with Shakespeare yet, and Dali was sort of just lecturing about whatever.

“And, like, you didn’t just immediately loop it back to something else. God, it’s so… it’s so nothing. But we just talked about it. Like, you seemed into the fact that I liked poetry. And, look, I know it’s dumb, and I know a lot of people wouldn’t care, but you seemed… I don’t know, you seemed into that bit of me. There’s sort of this thing that happens when I’m around a lot of people, you know? Everything falls back to football. I do it too, sometimes. I do it a lot, actually.” He shifted on the dirt, his feet unable to stay idle. “It doesn’t happen as much with you. And even when it does, when we’re talking about football, it’s less… well, it feels like talking about football the way I used to. When I was a kid.” David smiled. “I think I sort of lied back in that class, though. Told you I didn’t like theater all that much. Like, somehow if I told you I liked theater it would be too much. I could let you imagine me liking poetry, but theater was too far or something.” 

Viola screwed up her mind. She could remember classes. She could remember classes, but that far back, just to the beginning of the Spring, was so hard now. She shook her head. “I don’t remember that,” she said, quietly. 

“It’s not a big deal,” said David. “It wasn’t, like, a super important conversation.” 

“It was to you,” offered Viola. She wanted to remember it. She wanted to remember it desperately. He was grasping it, and she wanted to hold it, too.

David smiled. “No,” he said. “No, it’s just one that sticks out. It’s always a little like that.”

“Yeah.” 

“I’m not saying I’m into you because you’re nice to me or whatever,” said David, thoughtfully. “But it does help.” 

“I don’t even think I’m that nice to you,” said Viola. “Sometimes I’m-”

“Viola,” said David. 

Viola bit back. “Sorry. Sorry, I just… I get why people like you. I get why people would like you, I just don’t get why you like me. I mean, God, at least you like poetry. Or, theater. Shakespeare. I just…” She wasn’t even sure what there was about her to like. What were the defining qualities? She felt like she’d just stripped them away, torn herself down to the bone. Was there even anything there to begin with?

“Well,” said David. “You’re funny, and you’re quick, and… and I like spending time with you. And that’s sort of it, right? Like, I like spending time with you. It’s not that you’re some magical perfect coalescence of traits. I just like spending time with you.” David grinned. “And you like mystery novels, and you do crazy impressions, and you look good in a crop top. I mean, there’s other stuff. But, I’m not asking you to get married. I just want to spend more time with you. You know, time when we’re not supposed to be watching Annabelle Bridges lecture on the proper pronunciation of Shakespearian stuff.” 

Viola was hung on a detail. “How do you know I like mystery novels?” she asked. David squeezed a single eye shut, very hard, and did something that split a grimace and a grin down the middle. “No.” 

“Well,” he said. “It felt sort of rude to interrupt. Like, I don’t know, you kept saying you didn’t want to see me over text, so, like, I wasn’t going to barge in.” 

“Except today,” said Viola. 

“Except today,” said David. “After, you know, Sarah, I sort of… well, I needed to talk to you. Somewhere that wasn’t class.” 

“Did you specifically wait until the perfect moment or was that a complete accident as well?” asked Viola, really laying on the sweetness. David attempted to smother the laugh by biting his lip. It didn’t work. “God, I should make you jump in the pond.” 

“These things don’t happen every day,” said David. “You have to seize the moment!” 

“Asshole.”

“If I hadn’t jumped out of the bushes,” said David, holding up both hands, “you’d still be trying to fool me and I’d still be trying to figure out why the hell you were being so weird.” Viola glared at him, and David left his hands up. “Do you want me to go jump in the pond?” 

“No,” said Viola, a little haughty, “I just want you to be repentant.” 

“Next time I perform Shakespeare with you, I’ll make sure you know it’s happening first,” said David, and Viola laughed. 

That went both ways, really. 

And then, they went quiet for a moment. And Viola wanted to return to the bits they’d left in the rest of the conversation. The bits about them. 

There was still the lingering doubt. What were they doing? What was the plan here? Was there a plan? David was David, star quarterback, famous, and Viola was only freshly Viola, and all of this could be infinitely complicated, and they’d only known each other for, like, two months. Two weeks, really, if she only wanted to count time as Viola. It seemed indulgent. It seemed decadent. It seemed like something she ought not do.

Good things should happen to Viola Collins, though. 

“You’re okay with… with…” She wasn’t exactly sure what she wanted to ask. With me? With trying something? It was too soon to ask for too much. Dating? A date? Hanging out? Something, surely. Something. 

Something with her. Are you okay with me? With me?

“I,” said David, gesturing to himself, “am okay with whatever.” He peered out over the pond. 

“Okay,” said Viola. That was okay. Okay was okay. But…

“But,” he said, “there are some options that I like better than others.” His hand brushed, just for a second against hers, and Viola chanced half a smile. He grinned.

“You really would think the Shakespeare lover would be better with words,” said Viola. 

“First of all,” said David, leaning back into the dirt, “I think you’re being very brave with that criticism.”

“Asshole.”

“Second of all,” said David, his voice rising higher over her laughter, “I can only tell you so many times that I am not a fan of the romances! Now, if this was some sort of tragedy, I’d have the perfect line.” David sat up straighter, as if he was preparing to deliver a monologue, staring out over the water. But he stayed perfectly silent.

Viola sighed, reveling in the melodrama. “Do I need to do something tragic to get this out of you? Should I go jump in the pond again?” 

David relaxed, letting down his shoulders and grinned at her. “No,” he said. “No, I’m quite happy to not live in a tragedy, thank you very much.” 

“Me too,” said Viola, very firmly. 

David snorted. “Too much time in a comedy? I-”

“I really don’t want to talk about it,” said Viola, talking louder, barely holding back the laugh. It all seemed so much funnier now than it had ten minutes ago. Just as silly, but half as catastrophic. “I don’t want to talk about it.” 

“Okay, Viola,” said David. 

Viola let out a breath. “I couldn’t be Beatrice, now could I?” 

“Look at you with the Shakespeare knowledge,” said David. “Pretty soon, you’ll be-”

“I need cooler friends.” 

“Friends, huh?” He grinned at her. “Is that what we’re going to be?”

Viola looked at him, at the broad shoulders, at the award winning smile, at the glistening sweat falling down his face. Friends? “No,” said Viola. Definitively. 

No. 

No, they would not be friends. They could be, of course, but… no. No. They were going to be something else. Exactly what that was, how it fit, she still couldn’t see, but they were going to be better than friends. 

Viola Collins wanted something more than friends.

“Okay,” said David. He was still smiling at her, softer than the grin before, gentler. “Okay.” 

“Okay,” said Viola. The end of his fingers crept onto the end of hers. Just the ends. Just the ends. 

But she wouldn’t kiss him now. Not like this. Not as she was now. If David didn’t mind, that was okay, but she was bare faced, dressed like a boy, and covered in pond water. Show me thy women’s weeds or whatever. That version would kiss him. Not this one. Not like this. 

So they held it there, his hand settled on hers, staring out towards the water, until David had to go. Because he had to go. He’d stayed too long, and he needed to practice, and his coach was going to kill him, and Viola was honestly thrilled he had to go. She needed to go home and dry off and rethink her entire life and she wanted a moment, maybe, where her whole mind wasn’t clouded by the sight of David Oliver’s stubble. 

He stood, unfurled himself from the sand, made his way back towards the path, gave her a final smile, and asked the question he’d asked once a day for a week. 

Can I see you tonight?

And this time, she said yes. 

And then, he was gone, his footsteps retreating down the path, and Viola allowed herself a moment to fall back into the sand and laugh. Catastrophe avoided. More than that, even. More than that. David Oliver had known, and he’d liked her from the start, liked the version of her that desperately needed to exist, and that had been far from a given. It had been an impossibility once. A complete, unadulterated impossibility. 

In the sand, staring at the sky, her shoes still soaked, it was impossible to worry about the rest of it. It was impossible to worry about her mother, to worry about housing, to worry about her scholarship and the world and her life. It was impossible for it to matter. David Oliver. David fucking Oliver. 

Tonight. 

They hadn’t even said what. They hadn’t even said what they were going to do, and it didn’t matter. Something. She’d sit in his apartment and stare at the wall for four hours for all she cared. Whatever they did, whatever they figured out, however they managed to work a moment to be together, out of sight of everyone else, because David was still famous and Viola still needed to keep her head down, she’d be Viola. Only Viola.

And then, something did come to mind. Something that the star quarterback would hate, but that David Oliver would love. 

This early in the semester? 

She had no idea, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask.

She stared at the sky, at the endless blue stretching out over her head, the clouds dotting it, and smiled.