There was a kind of don’t speak until spoken to kind of vibe about Sierra’s smoky, glittery make-up— but I cracked down that veneer when I complimented her and then asked if she had plans for tonight. She had been invited to some parties out on Frat Row and asked if I wanted to come with.

Sierra was one of the few people on our dorm floor with a single— and I thought it suited her. In her room, we sat on top of her fuzzy green rug. I tapped the iridescent silver onto her eyelids, smudging it out evenly to distribute the glitter, then held up my hand mirror for her, saying, “Done.”

“Oh. My. God,” she smiled into the mirror and touched the side of her face.

“You’re right, this is so pretty. Where did you get it?”

“Chinese and Korean beauty brands are elite when it comes to glitter,” I said. “I can send you the brands I use!”

“I would love that,” she said. “Now let me do your glitter!

Once we started talking, we lit up like a match to gasoline. We used each other’s make up, wore each other’s clothes. I orchestrated a weekend out with the other girls on the floor, Sierra brought the drinks. She invited me to house parties, and we made a game of who could catch a boy first, her with her shirt so low-cut guys couldn’t look away, and me with my skirt so short they made my legs look long. I confided in her how much I wanted a boyfriend— she laughed and asked me why. When we weren’t in class or sleeping, we didn’t leave each other’s side. I told her about my parents’ fighting years that plagued my high school days, but how they still chose to be together— she said,

“That’s fucked up.” I asked her about her life. She ran freer than me, her parents didn’t watch her come and go or ask who she hung out with. Sierra told me she lost her virginity at fifteen to a hot senior at her high school. I thought she was so cool.

On the nights we couldn’t be bothered to go out, we people-watched from her bedroom window. Sierra had pushed her bed against the window on the far side of the room. Fairylights hung above the window, the ambient lighting of the room soothing us to conspiratorial whispers. Her room was a sanctuary for the girls on the floor, where we congregated to get ready for parties or to dish out advice to each other on all things boys, school, and clothes. We sat in the Sierra globe of existence, begging for her wisdom.

Sierra pointed out a drunk girl causing a traffic pile up on the street, screaming after a boy who rushed out to grab her. We could hear her muddled sobs through the

traffic.

“She’s going to die,” I said.

“For a boy, imagine,” Sierra said.

“I wanna see,” my roommate, Angie, whined, trying to push her way to the window.

Sierra jumped off her bed. Angie took her place, but realized Sierra’s attention was moving elsewhere, and was eager to be included. Sierra opened her mini fridge— and unveiled a whole bottle of pink lemonade vodka.

I asked, “How the hell did you get that?”

“I asked that guy in my class to buy it for me. He didn’t even charge me for it.” “Which guy?” I asked. She talked about so many guys.

“How do you do it?” Angie asked. “How do you get all these boys to be obsessed with you?”

Sierra ignored the question and poured the pink liquid into two mugs for me and her and a plastic cup for Angie. She joined us back on the bed, putting me at the center of the three of us.

“Who are you in love with this week, Ivy?” Sierra asked.

I lifted the mug to my lips, smelling the vile liquid. I said, “His name is James.

He’s a junior. He’s so cute. We hooked up last week—”

“You hooked up with someone?” Angie asked.

“Like hooked up or like just kiss?” Sierra asked.

I gave a coy smile.

Sierra and Angie both gasped, demanding more answers. I sipped the pink vodka, for once feeling like the cool one, and I recounted how we met at a Frat Party. Sierra had disappeared into the crowd, and I was left alone. In the darkness of the house, my black hair and black dress blended me into the background. When I was pushed to the ground by the staircase, blonde girls and blonde boys passing me like I didn’t even exist, I thought I would burn up from embarrassment. Instead, James took me by the hand, lifted me off the ground, and brought me out onto the dance floor. The spotlight on us.

“You know he’s not looking for a relationship right?” Sierra said.

I blinked, “You know him?”

“Every girl knows him,” Sierra said. “He’s a whore.”

I laughed, though the word nipped at my dignity.

“He looks for easy fucks—” Sierra laughed, then she saw the look on my face.

“You didn’t sleep with him, right?”

“No— but—” I did other things with him. His lips were on parts of me I had never let anybody else before— and it was exhilarating. But reality was on Sierra’s lips now.

“I’m surprised he didn’t run when he smelled relationship desperation on you,” Sierra laughed, causing Angie to laugh too because she was no longer the butt of the joke.

I downed the vodka.

“We’re just hooking up,” I said, the lie burning just as much as the vodka. “It’s not that serious.”

“Like you can do casual,” Sierra said. She touched my hair with fake endearment,

“You’re too romantic.”

I got off of her bed and put the mug on her desk. The alcohol turned in my stomach like I’d barely eaten, but it was really Sierra’s saccharine voice and Angie playing along that sickened me.

“I’m being serious.”

“Whatever,” Sierra said. “You’re in love with someone new every week and they always disappoint you. You’ll come crying to me when this is over. Then you’ll be in love with someone new.”

“I’m not in love with him.”

“Fine, whatever. Don’t be so defensive. I’m just teasing.”

.*.*.

Every morning, I curled my long black hair, did my eyeliner and blush, and picked out a cute outfit— I did everything with the idea that James would see me and want me. My little fantasies would only carry me further down the stream away from

reality.

But trying to find one boy on a campus of 50,000 people and a city of more than 500,000 people was like playing Where’s Waldo, but Waldo could move. However, that didn’t stop me from dreaming. Through social media, I picked out his favorite color from a throwaway post (blue), figured out his major (premed), and his parent’s names

(Joan and Carl, divorced, currently in new relationships that they posted on Facebook). Our paths never crossed unless we were at a party— and even then, he never saw me. At the end of September, I saw him kissing another girl at his frat.

Sierra said, “Play it cool, Ivy. If you want him to even consider hooking up with you again, you have to play it cool.”

That was Sierra’s motto: play it cool. Chill out. Just don’t care. Sierra didn’t care. That was the thing— she didn’t seem to care about anything, but I wasn’t her. She said to the girls on our floor that I was ungovernable. If she told me to not text a guy back, I had already double texted him. If she told me not to see a guy, I would already be trying to plan a hangout with him. The girls on our floor loved listening to Sierra and I go back and forth on what we believed our “game play” to be. But after the “other girl” fiasco I decided to try Sierra’s strategy.

A few weeks later, I was tipsy on whatever Sierra gave me. I hugged her as she laughed with the pudgy boy-bouncer outside the frat house.

An older boy who moved with confidence opened the door of the house. A few girls stumbled out of the frat behind him, but he wasn’t bothered as he consorted with the boy-bouncer.

Sierra asked, “What’s your name?”

Before the older boy answered, his eyes swept over her, and then me.

“You’re Ivy,” he said to me.

I let go of Sierra, and tilted my head at him, “What’s your name?”

“In, in,” he said first. I climbed the steps with one hand on the railing. He took my free hand and grinned, “I’m Carter. You’ve been here a few times, haven’t you?”

Sierra pushed past him and away from me without looking back. She slipped my mind as Carter led me through the adjoining rooms, past the wooden hutch, into the kitchen, opening me a beer. We stood in the corner of the kitchen, my back pressed against the counter. In the dim-light, I could see the table littered with open beers and red solo cups. I swigged the beer and winced, “This is disgusting.”

He laughed, tweaking my chin to lift my face to his, “Hey, I got you that, and you immediately shit on it? I have to teach you some manners, sweetheart.”

I giggled Pure satisfaction buzzed through me. Carter noticed me, not Sierra.

I took another sip to be polite, and he leaned in and whispered, “You’re so hot.”

I giggled again, leaning forward into him. I felt James enter the room. My forehead touched Carter’s shoulder. Carter’s arm came around to lean on the counter behind me, effectively pinning me in place.

I could feel James’ eyes on me, but I forced myself to look at Carter’s lips.

“Do you want to dance?” I asked Carter.

“We can dance right here,” he said, pushing his body up against me.

I laughed.

His lips grazed my ear, “We can dance in—”

“Carter,” James said.

He pulled away from me while I took a long bitter sip of my beer.

“Can I talk to Ivy?”

“Fuck off, James,” Carter said.

“You fuck off,” James said, taking my wrist, pulling me away and out of the kitchen.

At the wooden hutch, he took the beer from my hand and put it on the counter.

“You shouldn’t mess around with Carter. He sucks.”

“You suck,” I said.

James scoffed.

“Why do you even care?” I asked, though I could hear my heartbeat in my ears. It deafened me as I strained to hear James’ answer. Why. Why. Why?

“Because,” he said. He gestured around. He sighed, his cheeks flushed. “Because I don’t like seeing you with him. Does that explain it?”

“If I can’t be with him, then who can I be with? You don’t get to control—“ “Me. Be with me,” he said.

He led me up the stairs. In the darkness of his room, James let his fingertips gently move across my cheek, his eyes focusing on something, probably the stray glitter I had dusted my eyelids with. Then he touched my smiling lips and smirked, before cupping both my cheeks in his hand and kissing me with fervor. He pressed me against the bedroom door. I wrapped my arms around him, pulling him so close in order to make us turn into one.

The next day, I told Sierra about James admitting he liked me and our hook up. But while I spoke, she stared at her phone the entire time, texting someone else. Until I said, “You were right.”

“I know,” she said, looking. She smirked at me, “I’m always right.”

I laughed, at the time, thinking she was joking.

She put her phone down, “Oh my god, let me tell you about this guy who’s been sliding into my D-Ms. He has a girlfriend, but he won’t leave me alone. He’s like obsessed with me.”

.*.*.

On Halloween night, Sierra and I dressed up as fairies— she went as Tinkerbell, and I went as Silvermist. Angie wanted to be a fairy with us, but we excluded her, and she ended up doing a trio costume as Charlie’s Angels with some other girls from our floor.

“You guys look so cute,” Katie P. said to me and Sierra.

Sierra wrapped her arms around my neck, “Thanks.”

I held onto the strap on my right shoulder to keep it from sliding down too far and giving everyone an undue view of my flat chest.

“Are you seeing your boyfriend tonight?” the other Katie, Katie R., asked me.

Sierra dropped her arms, rolling her eyes, “Who cares about James! We’re going to dance— everyone, drink!”

I ignored the question too as Sierra poured everyone a round of messy shots.

This was just one of many nights the girls on this floor went out as a group. Most nights all of us ended up back in the dorm, some girls throwing up, others crying on the common room floor, and Sierra missing in some guy’s bed, texting me she would be back in the morning. I would be in the bathroom, holding Angie’s hair back, as she spat bile into the toilet and cried about how nobody liked her and how she was ugly.

Sierra and I led the group along the street towards Frat Row. Tonight she was being friendly towards me and the other girls again. She had spent the two weeks prior dismissing me whenever I had anything to tell her about James. She’d even mocked me and said, “If things are going so well with him, why are you talking to me instead of him?” Instead, I confided in the other girls, Angie, the two Katies, and anybody else who would listen to me.

That night, James found me on the dance floor. He twisted strands of my long black hair between his fingertips. His eyes trailed down over me, before landing on my lips. The only thing I felt confident about tonight was my red lips— the only thing I chose for myself, though Sierra tried to talk me out of it because Silvermist didn’t have red lips. But I loved lipstick, I loved the way it made me feel, and I thanked God in that moment because James couldn’t seem to look away.

He whispered in my ear, “Do you want to stay over?”

I didn’t get to reply because Sierra wrapped her sweaty arm around me and said she needed to throw up. James and I locked eyes, in a not sexy way, and rushed her to kitchen trashcan. I leaned over Sierra, holding her hair back. Standing across from me,

James, in a sexy way, brushed my hair out of my face and tucked it behind my ear.

I took Sierra home after that.

We ended up on the bathroom floor, not thinking about germs as we usually did because we were both drunk: her on alcohol, me on love. She wretched into the toilet. I rubbed her back and asked if she needed anything. She leaned her elbow against the toilet seat and her head in the crook of her arm. I saw her blue eyes through her halfclosed lids and thick eyelashes, mascara stained her cheekbones. She was crying— from the pain of throwing up? I couldn’t tell.

“Nobody… nobodywantsme—”

“What?”

“Nobody wants me,” she said slower, her eyes closing.

“Sierra, that’s not true.”

“What do you know?” she said. “Everybody wants to stay with you—”

She turned her head and wretched more into the toilet bowl.

The only thing I could do was hold her hair back, wipe the sweat from her neck, and wait for all this to pass. It was the first time she said something so sullenly. I never saw that side of her again. She forgot it even happened.

.*.*.

“Why are you afraid of relationships?” I asked James one night after viewing the Christmas Lights Show on campus. He made me hot cocoa, and we sat in his bed, cuddling, drinking, talking. His hand melted into my stomach, warm. His hair was getting long. I could feel his wet hair against my shoulder as he nuzzled his cheek into me, pressing kisses across my skin.

“James…”

“Ivy.”

“I asked you a question.”

James said, “You’re ruining the mood, Ivy.”

I pulled away, “Well, I want to know.”

He looked away. He ran both his hands through his hair, messing it up out of frustration. He huffed, leaning back, and away from me.

“What do you want me to say, Ivy?” he said. “My parents fucked me up? That love is a forced delusion? Love isn’t enough. I don’t really care to fucking find out when I know how it’s going to end— I know that it’s going to end.”

“You can choose for it not to end—” I said.

“Why do you even think that love conquers all? Why do you think that being in love makes up for all the shit people do to each other, all the hurt they cause each other?

Love is not enough. A relationship doesn’t survive just because of love.”

“I think love is a choice,” I said.

“You don’t know shit, Ivy. You’re living in your make-believe world where everything is good, but it’s not like that. You’d let someone treat you like shit if they told you they loved you when all they want is a convenient ego-boosting fuck.”

In moments of intensity, I often deflated. I couldn’t stand shouting, the loaded and colorful words, the swearing, the insults. When my parents shouted at each other, I locked myself away and drowned them out with love songs or romance novels. It was not in my nature to be harsh, and in return I couldn’t take such harshness.

Tears dripped out of my eyes before I could stop them.

“I’m sorry,” James said. “I’m sorry—”

I got dressed and left his frat house, walking down the Christmas-lighted street back to my dorm with my tears freezing on my cheek.

I texted Sierra first, asking her if she was at the dorm. But I went directly to my bedroom, where Angie sat up when I entered.

“Ivy, what happened?”

“James, he’s a jerk,” I said, kicking off my shoes, unfurling my scarf from my neck, and unzipping my coat as if my clothes were suffocating me. I choked on my sobs,

“He said I’m an easy ego-boosting fuck.”

“Ivy, oh no,” Angie said, coming to hug me.

Just as she did, Sierra opened the door to our room, “Oh my god, I got your text, what happened?”

We went to Sierra’s room, ending up on her rug, sipping on a new bottle of sharp tequila. Angie nodded along to my story, parroting Sierra, who let me lay on her lap, staring up at the ceiling, sobbing uncontrollably.

“Boys fucking suck,” Sierra said. “I told you, I told you he doesn’t want a relationship.”

“I know, but he’s just been so sweet.”

“Boys lie. You have to play the game better than them.”

“I think you should go for guys who want a relationship, Ivy,” Angie said. “Isn’t it better to have matching values?”

“I thought he would change his mind.”

“Fuck him,” Sierra said. “Who gives a shit about him? He’s just some guy.”

I sniffled.

“He’s some sucky, slutty, bitch,” Sierra said. “Drop him, Ivy.”

I cried even more “You think he doesn’t like me?”

“You two are just fundamentally different,” Sierra said. “You can’t make people like you.”

“You do,” I said, finally letting my eyes focus on her. She had everybody obsessed with her. She gazed down at me, brushing my hair out of my face, her fingertips running through the tears on my temple. Despite the gesture, there was a barely concealed smugness on her lips.

“You want a relationship,” she said. “I don’t. That’s our difference. I already told you how to act if you want a guy like James. You listened, it worked, but it didn’t last because that’s just not you.”

“What, I’m just not cool, like you?”

“I mean, basically,” she said. “How desperate you are is unappealing, Ivy. It scares guys off.”

“But that’s just me. Maybe I’m just desperate.”

“It’s pitiful.”

I cried more.

“Just break up with him, Ivy. You don’t have what it takes to play his game.”

.*.*.

In an effort to cheer me up, Sierra threw me a 19th birthday celebration in November— half in our dorm— half at the bars. It felt like she had invited our whole floor to her cramped single dorm. She told everyone to pass cups around before calling everyone to attention. Sierra raised her glass bottle of brown alcohol into the air.

“To my bestie, Ivy— because, before me, this girl’s rice purity score was so high you’d think she would’ve gotten into a better school—” she said, whatever that was supposed to mean. “But I’ve never met someone who was so in love with everything and everyone she’s ever met, and it’s cute.” She squished my cheeks with her free hand. “So if you’re here and you’re a boy— make sure you give her a kiss tonight— even if you’re not single! Also here—” She handed me an ID and then cheers my glass and downing her shot.

I scoffed, but quickly took the shot as everybody clinked their cups round. My eyes pinched shut as the drink burned in a way that I hadn’t even experienced with vodka or even tequila, and I started to cough. “Sierra—” I said. “What was that?” Sierra giggled, “Hennessy.

I stuck my tongue out in disgust.

Sierra just grinned at me before smacking my arm, turning me around, and going off to mingle with others. James steadied me from falling completely into him.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hi,” I said, taking my hand away from him. “I— I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“What are you doing here?” I asked again.

“Sierra invited me. Said it was your birthday.”

I glanced over at Sierra who was taking pictures with a few of our friends, the flash on the phone camera lit up the glitter on her eyelids.

I crossed my arms, “So you can show up for a party, but not for me? I don’t know,

James. Since when was my birthday important to you?”

“What? You want me to beg for your forgiveness?”

“Maybe you should.”

“You’re insane. You’re full of yourself, Ivy. What is it that you want from me?”

I moved past him, determined to have a good time tonight, and not fall victim to him. Maybe if it was any other day, not in front of my friends, I would forgive him, but the hennessy was already taking hold, and I just wanted more. How could Sierra have guys she would never date begging for her in a second— and I couldn’t get the guy who supposedly liked me to apologize to me and mean it?

I held my cup up to Angie who was pouring drinks for everyone— and quickly downed another shot of Hennessy. James stood there watching as I drank 2 shots in a row and went for another before he grabbed Angie’s wrist and stopped her from pouring.

“This isn’t you, Ivy.”

His figure blurred in my eyes.

“I’m ready to dance,” I said, looking for Sierra. At the same time, she found me.

She looped her arm around my shoulder and her other arm in James’ arm and said, “Uber’s here!”

She forced James into the uber with us with Angie, while the two Katies  and other girls followed us in another uber.

In the cramped backset, Sierra bumped James’s arm, “Text your friends.”

“Like they want to hangout with a bunch of 18-year-olds.”

“Tonight,” she said, leaning close to him to whisper into his ear conspiratorially, though her tone was not so quiet, “we’re all 21.”

Sierra smacked his arm playfully, looking at him through her thick lashes and red-lipsticked smile, the color which she borrowed from me, “Text your friends.” With my internal decision to have a good time, I spent most of it dancing and flitting over to the bar with Sierra and Angie. Sierra kept telling everybody it was my 21st birthday. We asked guys their favorite drinks, and when they responded with whiskey sours or vodka or beers, we would say we never tried it, and we’d have new drinks in our hands. I might’ve kissed a few guys on the cheek in response if they were cute enough. Though James’s friends eventually showed up, I could feel James’ eyes on me all night.

At the end, everything was spinning, and I threw up on the sidewalk. Angie took me home. I found out the next day that Sierra stayed at James’ place.

.*.*.

In the coming weeks, Sierra rolled her eyes every time I mentioned James, shit on him, and told me to move on. I’d made a mess on my birthday because I was angry, but I didn’t feel angry anymore. I just wanted him to answer my text messages. Sierra said, “Stop chasing.”

His roommates let me into their house. I planned to surprise him for his 22nd birthday with a box of his favorite things— everything blue, blue candy, a blue toy, a blue card. I even wore blue, as if I could trick him into liking me by wearing his favorite color.

He came back late and walked into the room with Sierra, and I sat on the edge of his bed, the two of them staring back at me. I shouldn’t have been there. Sierra’s eyes glanced over me with careless pity, and her red lips smirked.

“I’ll leave you two to sort this out.”

James went after her, asking her to stay.

I stood up, barely registering the movement. My body stilled itself as if still processing my own stupidity.

He came back, closed the door, and leaned against it, “What are you doing?”

“You like her more than me.”

“We’re friends. We’re all friends.”

“No,” I said. “We’re not just friends, James.”

“We’re not anything else!” he said, stepping towards me, incensed.

“Do you fuck all your friends?” I asked.

“Shut up, Ivy!”

I said, “I can’t— I can’t keep doing this. All I’m doing is loving you— and it’s not enough— it’s not— it will never be enough—”

The cold laugh that left his mouth chilled me through, knocking all the air out of me.

“Isn’t that what I told you?” he said.

When I left his house, I thought about texting Sierra and realized without her, I had no one to tell.

.*.*.

I passed my first round of finals that fall semester. Between James tearing me apart, Sierra brushing off my concerns, and finals, I found myself in despair that could only be distracted by something worse: statistics and anatomy. Between my tears, I spent all my time studying. Sierra said I was no longer any fun. She recruited Angie when I refused to join her to go to the bars with James and his friends. In reality, I was avoiding having to watch her and James be friendly with one another. Seeing them together made me want to push them into oncoming traffic.

On the last day of finals, the frats were throwing parties all weekend to celebrate the end of the semester. At the frat houses, the strobe lights, loud bass drops, and chorus of voices bled life back onto campus. The streets were as crowded as they were at the beginning of the year as everyone braved the cold to celebrate the end.

Sierra sat at my desk, looking into my pink heart-shaped table mirror, applying my glitter palette to her eyelids. I laid in my bed, in sweatpants and a sweater, staring up at the ceiling.

“You’re really not going to come out?” she asked.

“I’m tired,” I said. “And I should pack since I leave tomorrow morning.”

Sierra rolled her eyes, “You’re seriously letting James get to you like this? You’re letting him ruin your good time.”

“I don’t understand why we have to hang out with him. You know he hurt me,” I said.

Sierra said, “Don’t be such a baby. I told you he wouldn’t date you. You’re the one who tried to force a relationship on him and now you’re dealing with the consequences.”

“I know, play it cool,” I said, using my fingers to do air quotes.

“What’s with the attitude?” Sierra asked.

I think your advice is shit, I wanted to say. But I softened, “I’m not like that— and

I don’t want to pretend to be someone I’m not.”

“Fine, continue being desperate, and let me know how that works out for you,” Sierra said. “Seriously, stop throwing this stupid little pity party for yourself. You’re becoming just as pathetic as Angie.”

I said, “It’s weird you say that since you’ve been Angie’s best friend these past few weeks.”

“So? She needs someone to call her on her bullshit. And apparently, so do you.” “Maybe you need someone to call you on your bullshit,” I said, sitting up.

But before we could start a full blown fight, Angie and the two Katies on the floor opened the door to the room, letting themselves in.

At the door, Katie P. asked me, “You’re really not going to go, Ivy?”

I smiled weakly, “Yeah, no. I think I’m just gonna rest and pack.”

She stumbled over to my bed in her heels and hugged me, “Aww, okay. Rest up.”

The girls filed out in their short dresses and unzipped parkas, and I watched them leave with a forced smile. Out my closed but thin window, I heard them laughing about the ice and the cold and the potential of the night. Sierra led the conversation, leading them where they would go first, and how they would meet up with James and his friends. Katie P. helped Katie R. and Angie as they walked through the snow and slush and black ice. Angie desperately tried to add to the conversation. I wasn’t there— but I could hear it clearly.

I packed up my clothes, my make-up, computer, and books.

When I looked out my window, snowflakes flamed in the yellow street lamp glow.

I craved something sweet and warm. Hot chocolate, I decided. But I had already cleaned out the fridge earlier this week and unplugged it from the wall socket, per dorm rules for break.

So I pulled on my jacket, wrapped my scarf around my neck, and pulled on my earmuffs, ready to venture a few blocks to DinkyTown to get to MangoMango before it closed.

That was when I saw them: Sierra and James.

James’ arm was slung around Sierra’s shoulder— and they were laughing. From their gaits, I could tell they were a little drunk or high or maybe a mix of both. She wore his jacket, something I used to do. When they stopped at street’s edge, waiting for the walk light to flash, he turned to her, brushing her hair out of her face, behind her ear. She leaned forward. But he turned away before they even got close to kissing. He looked straight ahead and she looked at him. All I saw: James’ hand brushing my hair, his lips on my lips, a vestige of myself in Sierra.

Anna Chu is an assistant, editor, and writer, currently working on her novel. She has published her short stories in online journals, and her work has primarily focused on Vietnamese American voices. Follow her on IG @achu_172 to find her website.