"I regret my decision to come here," Wednesday said flatly, standing beside Enid as she registered the weight of too many eyes on her.
Enid, on the other hand, looked delighted. She glanced around at the stares, the whispers, the double takes.
"No, we totally nailed Rave'N," Enid said brightly. "Everyone's looking at us."
"Well, you two are pretty eye-catching," Ethan said as he returned with two cups of punch, handing them over. "Of course they're staring."
"So what do they do at Rave'N," Wednesday asked, taking the cup but not drinking, "besides standing around, talking, and awkwardly dancing?"
"We talk," Enid said simply.
"About what?" Wednesday replied. "You already talk constantly. Why require music and flashing lights for it?"
Enid shrugged. "About feelings."
Ethan nodded once. "Then let me be honest about mine. I'm happy you both came with me tonight."
Wednesday's gaze sharpened. "Before you start celebrating, explain something."
He waited.
"Why did you want to attend Rave'N with two girls?" she asked coolly. "I may dislike this event, but I'm not ignorant of what asking someone to a dance implies."
It implied feelings toward the person invited. In his case, there were two—and that was the problem.
Ethan considered her for a moment. "I knew you'd ask."
"But my intentions haven't exactly been a secret."
"They've evolved," Wednesday replied. "Previously, they were ambiguous. Now they're… explicit."
She tilted her head, studying him like a specimen. "You intend to pursue a relationship with both of us. Simultaneously. Do you believe we're living in medieval times?"
Enid, instead of looking shocked, looked merely thoughtful.
That caught Wednesday's attention.
She turned slowly toward her roommate. "You knew?"
There was a flicker of genuine surprise in her voice—brief, but real. She hadn't expected Enid to see through anything, let alone this.
"He… kind of explained it," Enid said. "When I asked him to Raven."
Wednesday stared at her. "You mean he openly admitted he was a scumbag who wanted to two-time?"
Enid shook her head quickly. "No. He didn't say it like that."
Her voice softened as she remembered it—how he'd spoken, calm and earnest, promising care, attention, devotion. Princess-level devotion. The memory made her expression drift, unfocused.
Wednesday saw it instantly.
That look.
She'd seen it all her life—on her mother's face whenever her father entered a room. Complete, irrational affection. The kind that disabled critical thinking.
Wednesday exhaled. "I don't know what you said to her," she said to Ethan, "but she's a lost cause."
"Aren't you as well?" Ethan said quietly. "You're always very clear about how little you care for social events—yet here you are. And not by accident. You came knowing it was me."
He smiled. "That means something, even if you refuse to name it."
"If this were the Wednesday I met on the first day of school," Ethan continued, "she wouldn't have come. She would've dismissed the idea entirely."
Wednesday didn't respond immediately.
'I want to disagree. But my fixation on him—what he is, why he unsettles me—has crossed into unfamiliar territory.'
That realization irritated her.
Deeply.
She broke eye contact first.
"Correlation is not causation," Wednesday said coolly. "Do not confuse." ( A/N: She means that seeing two things together doesn't automatically mean one caused the other.)
Ethan's smile didn't fade.
"Of course," he said. "I wouldn't dare."
But the way he said it suggested he already had.
"You should know," Ethan added, voice lower now, "feelings are like water. The more you try to bottle them, the more pressure they build. Eventually, they find a way out. Sometimes they burst."
Wednesday's expression didn't change.
Human emotions worked exactly like that—messy, persistent, inconvenient. She had always treated them as variables to be controlled or ignored. Yet even she wasn't immune, no matter how often she claimed indifference.
Ethan stepped closer—not enough to touch, but enough that his voice would carry only to her. He leaned toward her face, then angled slightly, his words brushing her ear.
"There's one secret I haven't told you," he said quietly.
"You already know I'm not a usual vampire," Ethan continued. "But what you don't know is this."
He paused, just long enough to ensure her attention.
"Four months ago, I was human."
Then he pulled back, a faint smile on his lips—as if he'd just stated something trivial.
Wednesday didn't move.
Her eyes widened—just slightly—but enough to betray what those words implied.
Outcasts were born, not made. That was one of the few absolutes she trusted. Vampires, werewolves, sirens—every lineage traced itself back to birth. There were no documented cases. No suppressed legends. Not even speculative myths about humans becoming outcasts.
It didn't happen.
Her thoughts stalled for half a second, recalibrating around a truth that refused to fit.
She finally spoke, her voice lower than before. "That's impossible."
Ethan only shrugged, still watching her. "Yet here I am. If you think I'm lying, you're free to believe that—but this is the truth. One hundred percent."
*****
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