Wait for her to return in the living room

I don't know how long I sit there, listening to the silence. The house settles around me, the old bones of it creaking in the dark. I tell myself she's still talking to him. That the conversation is going well. That any minute now, she'll come padding back down the hall, and she'll curl up next to me on the couch, and she'll tell me everything is fine.

Then I hear it: the soft click of the study door opening.

I sit up, my heart kicking against my ribs. Footsteps in the hallway—not the sharp click of her boots, but something softer, slower. Bare feet on hardwood. She must have taken the boots off.

She appears in the doorway of the living room, a silhouette against the dim light from the hall. For a moment, neither of us speaks. She's still in the costume, but something about her is different. Her hair is loose now, falling around her shoulders instead of tucked behind her ears. The tiara is gone. The lasso hangs at her hip, but the skirt looks twisted, like she's been sitting in an awkward position for a long time.

Or maybe I'm imagining it. Maybe I'm looking for something that isn't there.

"Hey," she says, her voice soft. "You're still up."

"I fell asleep," I say. "Just woke up."

She takes a step into the room, and the light from the hallway catches her face. Her lipstick is smudged—just slightly, at the corner of her mouth. But that could be from the party. From drinking. From kissing me earlier.

"Everything okay?" I ask, and the words feel like glass in my mouth.

She smiles, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes. "Yeah," she says. "Everything's fine."

She crosses the room and sits down next to me on the couch, close enough that I can feel the warmth of her body. She smells like bourbon and something else—something I can't quite place. Something that makes my stomach clench.

"Your dad's not so bad," she says, tucking her legs under her. "Once you get past the whole... terrifying exterior."

I wait for her to say more. She doesn't.