Page 64 of Her Alien Neighbor

“You know it’s supposed to snow tonight, right?” she asks, tying the belt of her peacoat tighter around her waist.

“It’s muscle memory,” I explain, trying to justify my own stupidity. “Remember when we’d drink really fast and then walk from one house party to the next? That was in the dead of winter, and we never wore coats.”

“We were also in high school and thought we were immortal.”

“Excellent point, Samwich,” I say, accepting defeat. I run ahead of her and yell, “Come on!”

When we make it into the gym, the lights are off and it’s completely empty. “Don’t tell me I spent the entire day psyching myself up for this and we got the date wrong,” I groan, crossing my arms.

“Hello there!”

We turn around to find Maggie, the class president and organizer of this event, poking her head in through the gym doors.

“The heat’s not working in here, so we’ve moved the reunion to the cafeteria,” she explains, holding up pieces of paper with “Event in cafeteria” on them. “Just putting up these signs for people coming in.”

Maggie and Sam make pleasant small talk while we walk to the cafeteria. I can’t hear any of it over the sound of my heart thumping like a war drum. The music bumping from the stereo is also quite loud. We reach the edge of the cafeteria, and Maggie runs off to greet someone. I grab Sam’s hand, keeping her from moving deeper into the room.

“You okay?” she asks, looking down at our joined hands where I’m squeezing hers way too tightly.

I swallow, and picture Axil’s face. The way his light brown hair falls across his forehead. I focus on the dimple in his cheek, and how the skin next to his eyes crinkles when he laughs. By the time I envision his lips, my heartbeat has steadied. “Yeah, I’m good,” I tell her, letting go.

We grab our name tags and drink tickets off the front table, and head toward the bar. “Only two tickets each? Fó,” Sam grumbles once we get in line.

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“It’sew, basically,” she says. “As in, I find it disgusting that we get so few drink tickets, considering how much I pay my therapist to talk about my high school days.”

I chuckle, feeling extremely grateful that she’s my date. “Perfectly reasonable.”

Izzy finds us in line and cuts several people to stand with us. “Whatever, I’m queer and nonbinary living in a small-ass town,” Izzy says, justifying the action.

Nobody behind us says anything. They must know not to mess with Izzy.

“Good for you,” Sam says encouragingly. “You’ve earned it.”

Izzy orders our drinks, which is how I end up with a whiskey sour, a drink I never would’ve ordered for myself. After a tiny sip, however, it’s not that bad.

We head for a table where a few members of the old Drama Club are gathered. They get to their feet when they see me approach and run up to me, cheering. It’s not the reaction I expected from anyone here, quite the opposite, actually. It catches me off guard.

“Vanessa! So glad you came back for this!” Henry Campbell says as he traps me in a dance-y type of hug where we sway side to side. He pulls back to look at me. “We’ve been following your career and just, wow. That car commercial? Amazing! You must be having such a blast in L.A.”

“You’ve been following my career?” I ask, noticing the nodding heads of other drama kids and their spouses standing around us. “Well, it was really just the car commercial. I haven’t done much since,” I explain, not wanting to disappoint them. If they were hoping for inspiring stories on how to make it in Hollywood, they’ve come to the wrong person.

“No!” Jenna Smythe adds. “You had that line in that rom-com a few years ago. Hilarious!”

“Oh, yeah,” I say, having forgotten all about it since it only paid $400, and it was one of two gigs I booked that month. “That.”

“You had that other commercial too. What was it?” Emily Rosenberg pipes in. “For the, um, the pizza toppings?”

“Right,” I nod. “It was a new recipe for a spicy chicken pizza for a frozen food brand.” That job paid $2,000, which felt like I had won the lottery. I was finally able to pay off one of my credit cards with that paycheck.

We take our seats at the table, but even then, all eyes remain on me.

Henry sighs. “We are so proud of you.”

I look around, genuinely confused as to who he’s talking to.

“You, Vanessa,” Emily clarifies with a giggle.

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