She calls it a night

"I... I think I should go home."

Nina looked at her for a second, then nodded. "Yeah. Fair. Hoodie's on the chair. Jeans underneath. They're going to swim on you, sorry."

Hannah dressed in the hallway. The hoodie came down to her thighs. The jeans she had to roll at the waist and the cuffs. She still had no shoes. She still had no underwear. But she had sleeves, and a zip, and for the first time in hours she could lower her arms. The key sat in the hoodie pocket like a normal object. She caught herself in the mirror by the door: a small girl in borrowed clothes, hair a mess, face still red. Not a streaker. Just someone walking home late.

"Thanks," she said, and meant it.

"Don't mention it." Nina opened the door a crack, checked the street, and let her out. "Seriously, though. Don't mention it."

The walk back was almost boring, which was a gift. A car passed. Someone on a bicycle. Nobody shouted. Nobody pointed. Hannah kept her hands in the pocket and her head down anyway, because she knew what she looked like underneath the cotton, and because half an hour ago she had been running down this same neighbourhood with nothing on at all.

Her gate. Her key. Her hallway. She locked the door, peeled off Nina's clothes, folded them on a chair, and stood under the shower until she felt like a person again. Then she put on her own t-shirt, the long one she had started the night in, and sat on her bed in the quiet house. Her parents would be back in the morning. She would have to have a story.

She slept badly. Every time she closed her eyes she saw the torch in the hedge, the boy with the cigarette, her own reflection in that window.

In the morning the front door opened like nothing had happened. Her mother called hello from the kitchen. Hannah came downstairs in pyjamas, hair still damp, and told them the simple version. She had gone into the garden. The door had locked. A girl from a party down the street had lent her clothes. She had gotten back in with the spare. She left out the dare, the slide, the running, the fact that she had thrown the key herself. She left out Nina's name. They believed her. Why wouldn't they? She was home. She was dressed. She was their daughter who had made a silly mistake.

"Next time take your phone," her dad said, and that was that.

Hannah nodded. She ate breakfast. She put Nina's hoodie in a bag to return later, or maybe never. Out the kitchen window she could see the brick wall, and beyond it the path, and she could still feel the night on her skin if she let herself.

Nobody in this house knew. That was the strange part. She had gotten away with it, at least here. Out there, though, people had seen her. The party would talk. The boy on the street might remember her face. She sat with her tea and wondered how long it would take. A day. A week. Maybe it would blow over and she would only ever think about it when she couldn't sleep.

Maybe it would come back. She rather thought it would.