You weave through clusters of students. A girl in a cropped top screams with laughter as her friend nearly trips. Someone clinks bottles. Someone else yells over the music. Nobody looks at you twice.

The kitchen counter is sticky with spilled drinks. You grab a red plastic cup, fill it from a half-empty keg, sip. It's warm. Cheap. Whatever.

You scan the room once—maybe twice—and find nothing. Just bodies. Just noise. Just the feeling of being the only stranger in a room full of people who already know each other.

You slip toward the back, past a hallway lined with jackets and shoes, and push open the glass door to the terrace.

The cold air hits you like relief.

There's a figure leaning against the railing, broad shoulders silhouetted against the dim glow of the streetlights below. Dark hair, long, loose, spills down his back. A thin curl of smoke rises from his hand, drifts upward, disappears into the night.

You step out, careful, and take your place a few feet down the railing. The silence between you is easy. The city hums somewhere far below. The party is muffled behind the glass.

Then you feel it—a shift in the air. Someone's eyes on you.

You glance sideways. He's looking at you. Calm, dark eyes, unreadable. He brings the cigarette to his lips slowly, takes a drag, exhales.