Rise of Ember Quin

2

The car ride over is a ten-minute autopsy of Ember’s last five years. Every subdivision blur is a slide under Rae’s conversational microscope: how they both survived middle school, the weirdly sexualized mascot at the ice cream place, the time Rae convinced her to dye her hair “a respectful auburn” and it went straight orange. Ember says little, mostly making inoffensive noises, but Rae is unbothered—she fills silences the way one fills a pothole, seamlessly, with grit and volume.

Rae pulls her Prius to the curb in front of a house that looks like it belongs in a prescription drug commercial: brick, two stories, a porch strung with lights that blink in the late dusk. Ember sees bodies on the lawn, clots of teens orbiting a plastic folding table. She can already feel the bass of the music vibrating in her chest, the way it might scramble her heart if she gets too close.

Rae cuts the engine, pulls the key, and turns to Ember with a look of ceremonial gravity. “Ready for this?”

“Not even a little bit.”

“That’s the spirit!” Rae snorts and slides out, popping the trunk to fish for a bottle of sparkling grape juice and a purse so small it might as well be decorative. Ember hesitates. Through the windshield, she watches a pair of boys—Jackson’s teammates, she thinks—throwing a football back and forth, beer cans in the crook of their non-throwing arms. Their voices spike above the music, hooting at a wild pass. Ember swallows and tugs at the hem of her dress again, wishing she could retreat inside it like a turtle.

Rae circles around, opens Ember’s door, and offers a hand. “Your chariot, milady.”

It’s a joke, but Ember takes it, letting herself be hauled up onto the sidewalk and toward the party’s event horizon. Every step closer, her stomach knots tighter, like someone is twisting her intestines into a balloon animal.

They pass the boys on the lawn, who pause just long enough to glance at the newcomers. Ember feels the glance like a scan, quick and total—hair, dress, thighs, verdict. The shorter boy—she remembers his name starts with a C—gives Rae a grin and a half-arch of the brow. He says nothing to Ember, who focuses on the damp grass, counting her steps to the porch.

The music is louder here, a burbling undercurrent of synth and drums. It pulses through Ember’s feet, up into her jaw. Someone opens the front door and a fog of cold air, weed, and Axe body spray pours out. Rae grins wider.

“This is it,” she whispers, as if they’re about to step into Narnia.

Inside, the sensory assault is immediate: temperature shock, humid and sticky, bodies everywhere. The living room has been gutted of furniture, replaced with scattered beanbags, half-empty cups, a sagging air mattress already claimed by two people making out. There are at least thirty teens in immediate view, more voices coming from the kitchen and an open sliding door to the backyard. The colors are garish—blacklights, a string of LEDs set to seizure mode, someone’s lipstick gone radioactive under the UV. Ember nearly recoils from the flash.

Rae navigates the crowd like she’s been training for this all her life, greeting people by name, high-fiving, squeezing shoulders, instantly absorbed into the current. Ember trails her, keeping close, but each time Rae says hi to someone, Ember is left behind, staring at a tapestry of unfamiliar faces that ripple and shift without ever focusing on her.

A hand shoves a red plastic cup into Ember’s grip. “Drink?” The donor is a girl in neon biker shorts and a mesh top, smiling in the predatory way of a person who knows you’re not going to say no.

Ember shakes the cup. Something brown and sticky sloshes. “What is it?”

The girl shrugs. “House special. Just don’t mix it with the blue stuff.”

Ember sniffs, fakes a sip, and holds onto the cup like a security pass.

She turns to locate Rae, but Rae has already merged into a group near the kitchen, arms windmilling as she tells a story. Ember hovers, tries to look interested in the architecture, the slow creep of condensation down her cup, the way the LED strip casts her knees an alien shade of green.

People glance at her, then away, in the practiced choreography of teenagers. She hears them, too—snippets of conversation flaring up and dying off, a million micro-dramas unfolding. “Is that Jackson’s girl?” “She looks different with her hair down.” “Didn’t she used to be, like, super quiet?” Ember imagines herself a party ghost, visible but insubstantial, haunting the edge of every interaction.

She drifts, not so much moving through the room as being moved by it, one shoulder-bump to the next. A laugh somewhere to her left—sharp, high, almost cruel. Ember shrinks, tucks her elbows in, and edges toward a wall. She stands there, back pressed to plaster, trying to figure out where to look that won’t make her more conspicuous. She can see the backyard through the glass door, silhouettes clustered around a patio heater, someone’s phone blasting a different playlist in open rebellion against the one inside. She considers making a break for it.

Instead, she watches Rae. Rae is radiant, in her element. She’s telling a story about the time she got banned from a spin class for “excessive twerking,” punctuating every sentence with wild gesticulation. People actually listen. They laugh. Rae catches Ember’s eye, waves, and mouths “You good?” Ember nods, makes a thumbs-up, and immediately regrets it.

Someone else, a boy with a man bun and a denim jacket, sidles up beside her. “You’re Rae’s cousin, right? Ember?”

She blinks. “Yeah. That’s me.”

He offers a hand, shakes hers with a deliberate, gentle squeeze. “I’m Grant. This party is kind of a nightmare, huh?”

Ember shrugs, at a loss for the correct response. “It’s loud.”

He laughs, like she made a joke. “You get used to it. Want me to get you something else to drink? Or, like, escape plan?”

She almost says yes to the second thing, but her mouth doesn’t cooperate. “I’m good. Thanks.”

Grant nods, then floats away, already drawn into another orbit. Ember watches him go, then checks her phone. No new messages. She wonders if Jackson is here yet, or if he’ll ghost after all.

She tries to steady her hands, but the trembling is worse now, amplified by the proximity of so many eyes. The wall behind her is cold and oddly comforting, and she leans into it, hoping she might phase through like a glitch in a video game.

The crowd swells and contracts, people moving in unpredictable waves. Ember tunes out, focusing on the buzz of the LED lights, the smell of cheap tequila, the faint echo of Rae’s laughter from the kitchen. She realizes she’s been clutching the cup so hard her knuckles are white.

She sees Rae motioning from across the room, pointing to someone at the sliding door. Ember squints—she can’t tell if it’s Jackson, or just a tall shadow with the right build. Rae gives her a thumbs up, pantomimes an exaggerated flirting gesture, then disappears again.

Ember stands, statue-still, for what feels like half an hour. The party moves around her, never through her. She sips the drink, coughs at the burn, and tries to convince herself she’s part of the night, not just an observer. But every glance, every averted gaze, every whispered comment reminds her otherwise.

The room is stifling now. She considers leaving, but the thought of stepping back through the gauntlet of Jackson’s friends outside makes her knees soft. Instead, she watches the door, hoping, dreading, waiting for the moment Jackson appears.