Balcon was a place like no other. Five blocks away from Magnolia, the café had a wooden sign outside on the sidewalk, indicating the special of the day—a different coffee everyday named after a famous author. Those who went through the red door found themselves inside an old bookstore/coffee shop. Instead of booths, coffee tables separated sofas and chairs that didn’t match, making up different seating areas surrounded by endless shelves against the walls, filled with books of all sorts that the customers could take and read freely.

The moment I walked in, I saw her. Her long black hair was up, and her thick, black mascara turned her hazel eyes the lightest shade of caramel, easily noticed from afar. And she wore her trademark red lipstick. She sat at our old spot, the farthest left corner, on a brown velvet love seat next to the French literature, and she’d buried her face in a copy of Camus’s “The Plague” the instant she realized I’d arrived.

“Hi,” I said, after walking over and sitting across from her.

She looked up, closed her book, and watched as I put my phone on the table between us. “Hi.”

“How are you?” I asked, having no idea what to do with my hands.

“What do you want, Tommy?” she asked coldly, giving me her very best drop-dead look.

“I, uh…” I put my hands together and interlocked my fingers to keep them from visibly shaking. “I wanted to ask you something.”

She crossed her arms and sat back, frowning, either in anger or amusement—I couldn’t really tell.

“Do you know a girl named Kim, by any chance?” I asked.

“Kim Sato? Sure. Why?”

“Noah. He has a crush.”

“And you’re playing Cupid?” She smirked.

“I suppose. Only, I don’t really know her.”

“Ah. You want me to play Cupid? What do you need? Her Insta? TikTok?”

“Nothing like that. You see, he sort of convinced me to throw a party—”

Just as I spoke, my phone lit up and vibrated on the wooden tabletop with a text from Ethan. I quickly placed it screen side down. Marcy watched my every move without reacting whatsoever.

“A party?” she asked tersely.

“A costume party. Yeah.”

“Summer was right,” she said bitterly.

“Marcy—”

“Who’s coming to this party?”

“Um—Jonas, Summer, Emma, Alex—”

“Who’s Alex?”

“Emma’s boyfriend,” I said, then added, “You and this Kim girl, hopefully—”

She raised a single brow.

“Also, some friends from my new school.” I answered the question she wasn’t willing to verbalize.

“Friends? Which friends?”

“Sam, Blake, Adam…Ethan…”

“Huh.” She ran the tip of her tongue along the side of her thick, red lips, seemingly amused.

“What?”

“Nothing.”