we smile at the moon

EIGHTEEN | GUYS MY AGE

"HONORIA? YOU WEREN'T there just now," Marissa said when she saw me in the corridor. "Miss Carpenter just told us that we have a social tonight."

Socials. When the teachers made sure we interacted with another house for about an hour straight, and everyone was so awkward even usual friends stopped talking with each other.

"Which house?" I asked, tilting my head, praying to god it was anything but Aesir. I was even fine with Sorren, because at least I had so many friends there.

"Aesir."

I didn't bother hiding my distaste. "Oh, fuck me."

She gave me a sympathetic look. She didn't know what happened between me and Seb—almost no one did outside of my friends and his, but it didn't take a genius to put the pieces together. "Yeah, it's during second prep."

Even worse. Yunji had music then again. So I was left with Adelina and no one else. It was quite possibly the worst thing that could ever happen to me. As I thanked her, my mind went through the many ways I could potentially get out of it. I could pretend to be sick. I could attempt to bail two seconds in by saying I didn't feel very well. Or I could hide so well that no one could find me and then tell the teachers when they started looking for me that I'd completely forgotten or didn't know, and Marissa would feel kind enough to act like she'd never informed me in the first place.

I despised this with every inch of my body. But really, there was nothing I could actually do about it as I trudged back upstairs to my dorm to grab my textbooks and continue on with my lessons.

Adelina found me after lunch. "Did you hear from Miss Royce?" she demanded. "Social with Aesir."

"I'm so fucked," I said with a bitter laugh. "There's... Christian, I guess."

"As if he won't be standing next to Lucy the whole time?"

I went through my mind. "Victor...?"

"You are not friends with Victor. I am not friends with Victor. You share a single class with him, that's all."

I bit my lips. "I'm on decent terms with Kwanfong and Damian."

"But they won't come near two metres of you if Seb is there."

I let out a wail of anguish. "Oh god, this is going to be literal hell. I can just stick with you, I guess?"

She gave it some thought. "I guess there's Leonid Bogdanov, but I don't know if he'll talk to you with Sebastian and Theodore around either."

"This is horrible."

She glared. "Yeah, no kidding. Are you going to try and escape?"

"Thought about it," she said, tilting her head. "I do not think it will work."

Adelina let out a sign. "Well, you can just stick with me and Yunji. Nothing's going to happen. The girls know what happened, they won't comment about it."

"Yunji has music."

Adelina swore under her breath. Loudly. "Well, fuck me. It's you and me, Hon dearest."

"You and me. Against the world. Such fun."

Adelina let out a sigh. "It'll be okay. It's just like, an hour anyways. It'll pass in a blur, probably. I'm going to be honest with you, I don't actually think there's going to be any socialisation. Like, we're all still just going to stick with each other and ignore the boys, and they're going to do the same to us."

"I damned hope so," I muttered. "It's going to be hell on earth otherwise."

"It's going to be okay," she said, patting my shoulders. "Nothing's going to happen."