The barn was massive, its rafters strung with fairy lights so bright they turned night into day. I looked around, reeling from all the overwhelming chatter and scent of alcohol, hay, and BBQ smoke. Sierra, Noah, and I walked in the open barn doors, and the sound erupted, boots clattering, instruments tuning, and talking. 

People came up to Noah and Sierra one by one, and it felt like everyone in the world was their friend. God, why did my heart lurch at that word.

“Bonnie!” Noah’s grin shone as bright as the fairy lights above when a short, blonde woman in a beautiful, flowy lavender dress walked up to us. I didn’t even recognize her at first with such a pristine look thrown onto her. I suddenly felt like a scarecrow in comparison, managing only a tight smile. After Noah and Sierra hugged her, I followed awkwardly. None of this felt right. The entire setting was like I was thrown back in Los Angeles with a dreamlike filter on the camera.

I took a deep inhale and steadied my breathing. I came to fundraise for a horse, nothing more than that. And I absolutely wasn’t going to dance. But looking at Noah and Bonnie… No. Not again.

Of course, Weston decided it was his cue to show up when I felt like my skin didn’t fit and I wanted to unzip myself out of it. 

“Weston!” Sierra screamed, but the sound didn’t even seem that loud in the chaos of the barn. “You actually came!”

“I said I would, didn't I? And isn’t this for the horse?” Weston shrugged, and the way he stood and spoke felt like looking in a mirror to me. Did I really scowl like that? 

Sierra whipped her head to me with a mischievous smirk painted on, then turned back to Weston. “Not just the horse!”

Weston followed her gaze to me, and I immediately turned for the bar. “I’m gonna– I’ll– I mean, I should–” I looked at the four, stuttering until I just decided to point at the bar and march off. God, how embarrassing could I be?

I managed to get a cup of punch that tasted suspiciously alcoholic, and I nursed it like a life raft. The chatter was a physical wave, and the lights, though beautiful, made the corners of my vision swim. I watched the four of them—Weston, Sierra, Noah, and Bonnie—a small island of genuine connection in the swirling chaos. They were laughing. Even Weston managed a slight tilt of his mouth that, for anyone else, would be a smirk, but for him, felt like a theatrical display of joy.

Just as I took another sip, Sierra was suddenly there, her energy surrounding me. "Haven, stop hiding! They're about to start the couple's dance!"

"I am not dancing," I said, my voice tight. I gestured vaguely to the crowd. "I'm here for Bug. I'm fundraising."

"Fundraising can wait," Sierra insisted, grabbing my hand and pulling. "Weston's waiting—look!"

I was dragged halfway across the floor before I twisted my hand free. The movement was sharp, desperate. The touch was too much, the noise too close, and the thought of being that near to Weston, of feeling his touch while wearing this revealing, dangerous green dress, made my skin crawl.

"Stop!" I hissed, taking a sudden, panicked step back.

Just then, the band decided to kick off the night with a flourish. A bank of floodlights, positioned high on the rafters to illuminate the dance floor, flickered on, blasting down onto the crowd. For a sickening moment, the light felt hot, blinding. 

Everything was happening too quickly. Suddenly, couples started connecting like magnets, and I awkwardly started to make my way off the floor and back to my new safe space, more commonly known as a bar table.

A strong hand wrapped around my wrist, and I turned, expecting to see Sierra connected to it. I took a double-take as I turned. A man I didn’t even know—cowboy hat tipped too low, grin too wide—caught my waist next and yanked me into the whirl.

I stumbled, and suddenly panicked. “Hey— don’t—”

He spun me like we were old friends. My dress twisted at the seams. My wrist hurt where he held too tightly.

“Hey,” a voice cut through, low and rough, like gravel breaking glass.

I didn’t have to look. I already knew.

The man laughed, alcohol on his breath, and still, not letting go. “Relax, man. Just showing her a good time.”

“She doesn’t look like she’s having one.” Weston’s eyes flicked once to mine. He didn’t move closer, didn’t make a scene—he just stood there, still as a fencepost.

The hands around me lifted away, and I massaged my wrist as the man found a new person to harass. 

“I could’ve dealt with it.”

Weston eyed me with a face I couldn’t read. “Didn’t seem like it.”

My face heated, fury bursting in my chest. "Oh, I'm sorry, did I interrupt your night?" I let out a brittle, humorless laugh. My eyes darted around the barn, avoiding his. The name hit me like a splinter I couldn’t dig out. Charlie. Whoever he or she was, Weston missed Charlie. I knew it would sabotage any anquainticeship I could possibly earn from him, but if he didn’t back off, so be it. "Go back to reminiscing about Charlie, since you're the only one here who actually came to dance. I am here to work. So go tell Sierra that her little setup isn’t going to work, alright?!"

Then I left him as his face contorted into shock, not knowing if half of what I said was true. My unfiltered thoughts got the better of me. Again. 

I marched away, shoving past a group of people who smelled heavily of smoke and beer. I was focused only on getting back to the relative safety of the bar, but the air felt too thick. The music, a fast-paced country rhythm, was now pounding like a sledgehammer against my skull.

Then, the final, fatal trigger hit.

The band's guitarist, hyped up on the crowd's energy, did a flourish on his instrument. A pyrotechnic sparkler, illegally set off near the stage's edge, spat a short, blinding plume of gold light and smoke into the air.

It was instantaneous. The scent of acrid smoke, the sudden heat, the blinding flash of light—it was no longer a barn dance. It was the night the ceiling came down.

My entire world seized up. A primal, cold terror seized my throat, and the chatter turned into a deafening roar; the fairy lights became flickering, hungry flames. I gasped for air that wasn't there.

I had to get out. Or else my fear was going to eat me alive.

I spun on my heel, pushing through the crowd with blind, desperate force. I shoved past a group of people who smelled heavily of smoke and beer, barely registering the splash of liquid on my arm—it just registered as more unwelcome, phantom heat. The only thing that mattered was reaching the periphery, the dark, unlit corners of the barn where the noise couldn't follow.

I darted past the bar, ignoring the bartender's surprised shout, and lunged for the deep shadow that marked the perimeter. I scrambled around a large stack of empty hay bales and found a narrow service door labeled STORAGE. I didn't care what was inside. I threw myself through the doorway and slammed the heavy wood shut behind me.

The silence was instantaneous and absolute, a painful vacuum after the chaos. The room smelled of old feed and dust, but it was quiet. I collapsed in the deepest, darkest corner I could find, pressing my back into the cold, rough wall. I doubled over, my ribs aching, forcing myself to suck in the clean, quiet air.

The panic wasn't gone, but it had retracted from a monstrous roar to a dull, hammering throb in my chest. I stayed like that, hunched over, shaking, desperately trying to pull myself back from the nine-year-old girl trapped in the fire. I was dimly aware that my dress was twisted, my hair was a mess, but I was hidden. 

It took me a long time to steady my breath. It took me a long time to close my eyes and not be met with a flaming house. A burning mother. A broken family. 

I finally managed to loosen the vise around my chest, dragging in a deep, shuddering breath. I slowly unwound from my defensive crouch, my muscles stiff and protesting. My hands instinctively smoothed down the twisted fabric of the dark green dress, an attempt to re-establish control over my appearance.

As my fingers traced the garment near my right shoulder, they passed over a sudden, gaping hole. I froze. During my desperate scramble, I had torn the corset seam near my shoulder blade. The fabric hung loose, exposing a strip of skin.

I couldn't see it, but I knew what was there. The heat in my cheeks wasn't just panic; it was the sudden, white-hot shame that the secret part of me—the damaged part—was now exposed. I frantically reached for the torn edges, trying to pull them back together, but the thick fabric wouldn't cooperate. The exact part of my back that held a long, painful burn scar was fully visible. 

I pulled my long, brown locks out of the bun I had hastily made before coming to the barn dance and made sure my back was covered before exiting the closet. I walked to the bar, hugging myself as I sat on a barstool and snatched a discarded denim jacket from the neighboring seat and slipped it on. Just in time.

“Where have you been!?” Sierra screeched at me, and I felt the headache coming on. 

I stumble for words and blurt, “Dancing!”

She barked a laugh and shook her head. “No, you haven’t. I was just out there, looking for you. Where’d you get the jacket?”

“Maybe you just looked in all the wrong places.” I looked down at my jacket. “I was… cold?”

"Cold?" she repeated, her brow furrowing. "Haven, it's seventy-five degrees in here, and you're sweating. You look like you just saw a ghost. What happened?"

Her genuine concern was a new kind of pressure, a quiet one that threatened to break my resolve more than the chaos outside. I fumbled for a convincing lie, but my mind was blank. The panic had drained every drop of my mental energy.

“I went out to get some air. It’s… loud, I guess.” 

Before Sierra could press me further, a voice cut through the noise right behind my stool.

"She ran into a closet."

I flinched so hard I nearly toppled off the stool. I didn't need to turn around to know it was Weston. His presence felt like a sudden drop in temperature.

Sierra immediately turned, her hand flying to her hip. "Weston! You saw her? Why didn't you tell me?"

“Because you told her about Charlie.” 

Sierra’s mouth dropped open, and her face, usually so vibrant and energetic, drained instantly.

"Weston, that's not fair," she stammered, twisting the hem of her dress. “I never said anything about that, and even if I did, you've got to get on with your life. I miss Charlie too, but that doesn’t mean we have to grieve our whole life.”

Even with all the noise around us, the quiet was suffocating. 

“Haven, I think you should go home,” he said, his voice flat. He wasn't suggesting it. He was giving an order.

"I am not leaving," I hissed, leaning closer, my voice low and venomous. "I am here for Bug, aren’t you? You don't get to decide when my night is over. So maybe take Sierra’s advice, get over it, and help the animal."

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