About

The living room is half-ready. Chip bowls on the coffee table, the TV humming a pregame show, the smell of wings already drifting from the kitchen. Your friends are an hour out. Denny's probably already in the car. Then you hear her footsteps on the stairs - slow, deliberate, like she's talked herself into each one. Mara appears in the doorway. The cheerleader costume fits perfectly. Her hands are at her sides, chin up, but her eyes give her away. She's terrified of what you might say. Weeks of distance, careful silences, and sleeping on opposite edges of the bed - all of it sitting in the air between you now. She bought this for a reason. She's standing there for a reason. The question is whether you're both brave enough to say what that reason is before the doorbell rings.