Epilogue
A year can do terrible and beautiful things to an apartment.
Aaron and I have painted over the drywall scars, replaced the cheap vertical blinds with blackout curtains, and even managed to erase the perma-smell of gym socks and microwave popcorn that once haunted every surface.
Tonight, our living room is a cathedral of low light and higher ambition—flickering candles wedged into thrift store candelabras, strings of battery fairy lights tangled across the ceiling like synthetic constellations, a playlist of moody synthpop bumping under everything.
The couch is shoved against the far wall, its cushions replaced by a landscape of throw pillows scavenged from Sara’s post-moveout leftovers.
The coffee table is gone, replaced by an actual laboratory bench I found on the Wilcox U surplus forum, every inch of it loaded with solo cups, off-brand beer, and a punch bowl containing a neon-green fluid of Aaron’s own design.
Over it all, a dozen vintage movie posters fight for airspace, their colors hyper-saturated in the candlelight. In one corner, a group of chemistry majors attempt to re-enact the climactic scene from Rocky Horror, voices warbling with fake bravado and—pretty sure it’s—vodka.
It’s the first time I’ve ever hosted anything that could be called a party, let alone an anniversary.
Not that Aaron and I are the types to count months and days, but this—twelve months since the closet, since the kiss, since the absurd wager that detonated everything and then, weirdly, rebuilt it—is worth marking in some tactile way.
He’s the one who insisted on the theme—Legends of Cinema: Come as Your Inner Icon.
All I had to do was get through the night without crawling under the kitchen table and hiding until morning.
But it’s working. I’m working. I stand by the door in my Roger Rabbit getup—white plush ears stitched to a battered ballcap, a blue bowtie with yellow polka dots that lights up with a hidden battery pack, and overalls so red they look Photoshopped onto my legs.
My face is painted a dead ringer for the cartoon—Sara’s handiwork, obviously, though she threatened to “accidentally” Sharpie the nose if I didn’t stand still.
Every time I open the door for another guest, the wave of laughter and secondhand smoke hits me first, followed by an RSVP’d face and the ritual “Whoa, nice costume!” They all expect me to shrink back, to fumble the greeting, but tonight I don’t.
I hold the line. I make eye contact. I even remember people’s names.
Aaron drifts through the crowd in his full Jessica Rabbit regalia, a custom-sequined dress hugging him in all the right places, purple gloves up to his elbows, same auburn wig cascading down one shoulder as I wore last year.
He’s taller than anyone else in the room by a clear margin, and the way he moves—deliberate, theatrical, hips cocked for maximum effect—turns every conversation he passes into a gravity well.
It’s both hilarious and hot, and he knows it, pausing every few minutes to bend down and let someone take a selfie with his “Hollywood’s Finest” tag showing.
Sometimes he even spots me across the room and gives a wink, which turns the area around him into a radiant field of double-takes and giggling.
At 10:04, Sara shows up in a full Morticia Addams getup: black velvet dress, pinched-in waist, hair flat-ironed and blacker than a moonless night.
She glides over the threshold, surveys the scene, and makes a beeline for me.
Her hand darts up to fix my ears, which are, apparently, “listing to port.”
“Spence, you have to hold the pose,” she says, snapping my head into place with two fingers under my chin. She leans in, inspecting my makeup. “Still perfect. You’re the sexiest hare I’ve ever seen.”
“You say that to all the rabbits,” I say, grinning because I know it’s what she expects.
She softens, scanning the room. “I can’t believe you pulled this off.”
“Me neither.”
Behind her, Aaron is mixing drinks at the lab bench.
He’s flanked by two of his friends from the gym—a pair of collegiate Spartans in barely-legal gladiator tunics—and a girl in a Charlie Chaplin mustache who keeps trying to get him to break character.
He’s doing his best Jessica Rabbit, but every few seconds he sneaks a glance my way, making sure I haven’t evaporated.
Sara nudges my arm. “So… how does it feel to be hosting your own social experiment?”
I look around, the apartment running at max capacity: two former TAs arguing about whether The Big Lebowski is a classic or a cliche; the Rocky Horror crew now serenading the kitchen with a rendition of “Sweet Transvestite” that manages to be both out of tune and out of time.
“It’s not as bad as I thought,” I say, and realize I mean it.
She beams. “You’re doing great, babe. Aaron is, too.”
A thump from the stairwell cuts off the next line.
The door bursts open and Hunter enters, sporting what can only be described as “Victorian Demon on Spring Break.” He’s draped in a velvet smoking jacket and a ruff that’s definitely made from the collar of a thrift store coat.
His horns—cardboard, spray-painted gold, and attached with fishing line—gleam in the candlelight.
He has a cigarette holder in one hand, an already-open beer in the other, and a self-satisfied grin that could power a small Midwestern city.
He spots me, then Aaron, then Sara, and sweeps a deep, theatrical bow. “Ladies and gentlemen! It is my distinct pleasure to announce that this party is officially LEGENDARY.” He points at Aaron. “You, sir, er, ma’am, have outdone yourself.”
Aaron raises his glass, eyes sparkling over the rim. “Flattery will get you everywhere, Caldwell.”
Hunter swans over, drops the cigarette holder into his jacket pocket, and pulls me into a one-armed hug. “Look at you! Out of the closet and into the spotlight.” He releases me, then leans in, stage-whispering: “Are you wearing pants under those overalls, or is this a full Roger?”
I push him away, but I can’t stop the laugh that escapes. “Don’t make me throw you out of my own apartment.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he says, then lifts his chin at Sara. “Morticia, you’re a vision.”
She offers a hand, and he kisses it with exaggerated gallantry.
For the next hour, the party becomes its own chemical reaction—bonding, splitting, recombining.
Groups form and dissolve with no pattern except whatever Hunter happens to be hyping at that moment.
Sara orchestrates an impromptu charades tournament.
Aaron circulates like a benevolent ghost, checking on everyone, refilling cups, and occasionally stealing a slice of pizza from the box I’d meant to hide under the counter.
I lose track of time, of anxiety, of whether I’m supposed to be in charge or just along for the ride.
At some point, I realize there are more people here than I invited—friends of friends, plus a handful of strangers who must have followed the noise up the stairs. I expect to feel exposed, invaded, but the energy is too good, the crowd too distracted by Hunter’s latest dare.
Sara slides up next to me, her hand cool on my forearm. “Hey. Are you okay? You look… I don’t know, hyper-ventilatory.”
I shake my head. “I’m good. It’s just—this is insane, right?”
She grins. “It’s perfect.”
The playlist shifts to something softer, almost nostalgic. I catch Aaron leaning against the kitchen counter, arms folded, watching me with a half-smile. He tips his head, an invitation. I slip past the crowd and join him.
He raises an eyebrow, voice pitched low. “Surviving?”
I nod. “Not even close to dying.”
He laughs, then rests a hand on my waist, thumb brushing the side of the overalls. His eyes are a little glazed, but focused. “You’re amazing,” he says, so matter-of-fact I almost believe it.
“Is that the vodka talking?”
He shrugs, smiling wider. “Doesn’t matter. It’s true either way.”
I glance down at the dress, the wig, the way his arm curves perfectly into the small of my back.
The last twelve months flash by: the closet, the first real date, the study sessions, the all-night paper-writing, the spring break road trip to Chicago when we got stuck in the snow and ended up marathoning every Marvel movie in a single caffeine-soaked weekend.
I remember the fights, too—the shouting match over the dumbest group project in existence, the silent week after I tanked a test and refused to admit I was scared about it.
All of it compressed into this one moment, Aaron’s hand warm on my ribs, his voice steady in the middle of chaos.
“Happy anniversary,” he says.
I grin, and he leans in for a kiss—nothing big, just a quick brush of lips, but the shock of it travels all the way down to my toes.
Behind us, Sara and Hunter run crowd control, herding people away from the balcony where someone is trying to light a sparkler indoors.
The laughter is so loud it shakes the cheap glassware in the cabinets.
I catch my own reflection in the oven door: white ears tilted at a rakish angle, nose slightly smudged, eyes wide but steady.
I look less like a cartoon and more like someone who belongs.
The party swells around us, a soundwave of voices and music and clattering glass, and for the first time all night, I feel it: the sense that this is exactly where I’m supposed to be.
—ΠΩ—
The trick with parties is knowing when the tone will shift.
You can almost see it, a chemical change at the surface: one guest arrives late enough to tilt the whole mixture, or someone introduces a new element and the reaction goes exothermic.
At 11:10, right as the group in the kitchen is mid-way through a heated debate about whether Gene Wilder or Johnny Depp is the real Willy Wonka, there’s a knock at the door—a soft, uncertain tap, almost lost in the music.