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While investigating the bowels of Markham University one night, Luna and Owen found the perfect party venue—a defunct laboratory with a faulty lock in the basement of the Life Sciences building. The lights had all burned out, but the pair found that replacing just a few bulbs gave them the ideal moody lighting for a midterm bash.
Owen draped the walls with abandoned art from his oil-painting class, while Luna pasted arrows from the archway outside the building, down the staircase, and through the hallway to direct the partygoers to the not-so-secret location.
When the clock struck nine, Owen suggested they crack the good bourbon before the early birds showed up. They toasted with plastic tumblers. Owen hid the bottle just moments before Amber, Bobbi, and Casey arrived. Owen called them the ABCs and was under the impression that they were inseparable and somehow identical, which was simply not the case.
Amber Klein was a lanky blonde who always seemed to speak at a volume two clicks above necessary. Her roommate, Bobbi Schwartz, had the shiniest black hair Luna had ever seen and a slightly wandering eye. The eye thing mostly made her look like she was suspicious of everyone. Casey Carr had unruly blond hair and equally unruly breasts. The only common denominator was that the three women lived in Avery Hall.
Owen didn’t care for any of them back then, but Luna liked Casey and would always try to get her alone. Having grown up in a cult, Casey had some hilarious anecdotes about commune life. Plus, she was freakishly smart, enough to make Luna want to know why she was slumming it at Markham. She didn’t ask, of course, because when you ask questions, you invite them in return. As for the A and B: Amber had an irrepressible crush on Owen, which manifested itself in embarrassing drunken displays of desperation. Bobbi played Amber’s sidekick—a sinister one, Luna thought. Bobbi always encouraged Amber to go for it, knowing Amber would embarrass herself. Casey tempered Bobbi, always trying to keep Amber in check and restore some dignity. As predicted, shortly after her arrival, Amber found her way to Owen and began flirting with abandon.
Soon, others arrived: first Ted, Owen’s neighbor in Watson Hall. Ted was just six months shy of being able to procure beer on his own. He had big calloused hands from summer construction jobs and a thick Jersey accent. Drunk Luna always wondered what those hands might feel like on her body, but she could see that other women had the same idea and was never able to get him alone.
Another dozen or so coeds of various degrees of acquaintance to Owen and Luna arrived before midnight. Owen controlled the music with a handful of CD mixes assembled just for the festivities. Luna had veto power and would remove any disc from the player when Coldplay came on. Owen took to pressing the SKIP button when he’d see her approach, mostly because she had a habit of ejecting a disc and snapping it in half.
“Why?” Luna would say every time she heard her nemesis, as if the popularity of the band was among the great mysteries of the universe. Owen barely liked Coldplay; he just liked seeing Luna’s focused passion against them.
When Scarlet Hayes entered the party, the room quieted for just a second. From the moment Scarlet arrived on campus, people—mostly men—took note. It wasn’t just the long legs, plump lips, and shiny auburn hair, which had to be a dye job to match the name. Scarlet had swagger, a seeming confidence uncommon among women of her age. The swagger turned out to be fake, but it was attractive all the same. She was also nice. Everyone thought so back then. Turned out, that was fake as well.
Scarlet first rested her gaze on Luna, then stealthily clocked Owen’s location. She sat on the table next to Luna and put her arm around her.
“Hey, Luna. How are you doing?” Scarlet asked.
“I don’t know. What have you heard?” Luna said.
Luna was stoned. Very, very stoned.
Luna heard something ringing. It sounded just like Owen’s phone. This is going to be a thing, Luna thought, people ringing all the time.
“Is that you?” Scarlet asked.
“Never,” Luna said.
“It’s me,” Scarlet said, reaching into her purse and answering the call. “Hi, Mom. I can’t talk now. I can’t hear you. I really can’t hear you. I’ll call you tomorrow. Didn’t hear that either. I’m saying goodbye now.”
“Owen has one of those,” Luna said. “Doesn’t it bother you, people being able to contact you all the time?”
“Sometimes it’s a drag,” Scarlet said. “My mother calls a lot. If I don’t answer, she keeps calling. But once, I got lost driving home from the city, and all I had to do was call my dad and he gave me directions.”
Luna was about to suggest getting a good set of maps, when she spotted Owen, cornered by Amber and Bobbi. His panic was on full display.
“You should save him,” Luna said.
She said it because she saw the way Owen’s eyes glazed over into lust whenever Scarlet was in range. She said it because she saw how Scarlet wasn’t entirely Scarlet in front of Owen, as if she was holding back, pretending that she felt nothing. She said it because watching the charged energy between them made her uneasy. A girlfriend would alter the essential ingredient of their relationship. Luna struggled to imagine whether the new recipe would even work.
“Why don’t you save him?” Scarlet said.
“Because he wants you to,” Luna said. “You like him, don’t you?”
“Not sure. I need more data to decide.”
“Then go collect some.”
Scarlet eyed Luna suspiciously and jumped off the table.
En route to Owen, Scarlet passed Ted. Ted took Scarlet’s seat. His thigh brushed against Luna’s. She felt a rush of heat. Luna took a sip of her drink. She had a sense that she wasn’t experiencing time in the usual fashion, because after the next sip, the drink was almost dead.
“Would you look at that,” Luna said. “I need a refill already.”
“Don’t go anywhere,” Ted said.