The strobe lights hit me the second I walked in, sporting a fake id possessed since age sixteen & a criminally short grey plaid skirt, bought especially for this night, so heavy with unwarranted expectation. For a moment, they dazzled me. My eyes wandered the sweating, gyrating, desperate masses, unable to see my reason for being in this place so foreign to my usual tastes in dance club.

Had Polly bailed on me?

No, whispered some small inner something. Something about the way she had looked at me… Polly wasn’t about to offer me any more pain. Or any sort of social embarrassment, for that matter.

I stepped gingerly through the crowd, eyeing a seat at the bar. If she was indeed here looking for me, as I was looking for her, that would be the one place that no one would overlook.

Despite myself, my heart raced. She could ruin me, if she wished. My every instinct told me that. But there was a wild, adrenaline soaked part of my inner self that screamed that there was too much hope- too much – too much promise in her words for her to destroy me.

My seeming perfection came with a price, and I had paid it dearly. But surely- she couldn’t have known that?

Oh- but I have been proven wrong, if her scribbled, slanted letter was any indication. Polly knew parts of me I’ve buried and left for dead.

Out of the chaos a voice came to me, making my spine tingle and breath hitch.

“Found you, babyface,” she whispered from the darkness. “I found you.”