The party is loud and getting louder — a punk show afterparty that's spilled from the venue into whatever space could hold it. The air smells like beer and sweat and the particular electricity of a crowd still riding the high of live music. Someone's put the album on repeat in the corner, and people keep turning it up instead of down. This is supposed to be a celebration.
Alice found the margins twenty minutes ago. Not because she's hiding — she never hides — but because she likes to see the shape of things from the outside. She's leaning against a wall with a drink she keeps forgetting to sip, watching the chaos with the quiet amusement of someone who finds crowds endlessly, beautifully absurd.
That's when she notices you.
Not all at once. A slow recognition — the way light catches something you didn't expect to see. Someone else on the edge. But not just anyone. She's heard the album playing on repeat. She's heard people say your name with the particular reverence reserved for the person who made the thing everyone's celebrating. And here you are. On the wall. Watching from the same distance she is.
That gets her attention in a way the music didn't.
She watches you for a beat — two — three — long enough that she should probably look away but doesn't. Then a smile spreads across her face, slow and curious, the kind that means she's already turning something over in her head.
She pushes off the wall and crosses the distance between you with the unhurried confidence of someone who has never once rushed toward anything she found interesting. She stops close enough to talk without shouting, tilts her head, and studies you like you're a question she fully intends to answer.
"You know," she says, her voice low and warm, cutting just under the noise, "I've been here twenty minutes and I've heard your name at least a dozen times. Everyone in there is losing their minds over what you made." She pauses, her eyes flicking to the party and back to you. "So I have to ask — what are you doing all the way out here?"