Written by: Paige Annecchino
Prose Winner of the 2026 The Edward R. and Frances Schreiber Collins Literary Prizes
The club was too loud, the way things are loud when they’re trying to distract you from yourself. The bass didn’t just shake the floor—it shook decisions loose. It encouraged the sort of thoughts that had consequences the next morning. High ceilings disappeared into the dark, smokey air, revealing tracings of steel beams. The air was thick with sweat, perfume, and spilled drinks as lives collided and dissolved in fleeting moments. Bodies surged in waves like water trying to escape a container, and yet everyone chose to stay. The music was the kind of repetitive, endless beat that made time feel circular, like the night could go on forever if no one looked too closely. And everyone in the room seemed invested in maintaining that illusion.
Avery stood at the bar, leaning their hip against the scuffed metal edge, holding a vodka water that had gone slightly warm. They didn’t drink it so much as hold it like a prop—an accessory to prove they were participating even though their posture betrayed them. Their friends surrounded them in loose semicircles of laughter and flirtation, leaning across each other to shout stories that would be forgotten in mere minutes. Avery listened without registering what was said, nodding in all the right places, eyes wandering, searching for something undisclosed even to themselves. They watched the room with a practiced detachment that most would mistake for misery. Avery would chalk it up to exhaustion. Really, it was fear. Fear of judgment or rejection that Avery could no longer withstand. Their only security was a worn pack of cigarettes hugged tightly against their quad in their jean pocket. Mostly for the reassurance that escape was possible. Avery relied on the promise of an exit to be in such an overwhelming presence.
Meanwhile, on the dance floor, Taylor moved like the music was infused within their bloodstream rather than outside of them. Their friends were loud and joyful, arms thrown around shoulders, moving whatever they wanted to the beat. Taylor’s drink was more colorful and sweeter than an alcoholic beverage should be. The kind of thing someone orders without fear of calories, grams of sugar, and the effects their choices have when the night’s over. Though most of the drink found its way sloshed on the floor or Taylor’s friends, rather than in their body. They danced with an unguarded carelessness. Not for attention but for the hope that the retelling of such evenings would be worthwhile. Taylor relied on the romantic belief in the endless possibilities hidden in big cities that you were one room away from anything you could ever want. They never missed a night out, believing one of them would leave them stumbling into that room. Most would call it naïveté, but it was a choice Taylor made time and time again. And in that belief, they radiated, glowing beneath the strobe haze.
As nightlife promises and often delivers, their two groups collided inevitably. Taylor’s friends pushed and squeezed their way toward the bar, laughing with such commotion it must have been forced. Avery’s group shifted to make room, bodies brushing in incidental touches that are both accidental and fated. Reaching to grab another sickeningly colorful beverage, Taylor’s forearm skims another’s in a passing contact that’s usually ignored. But the touch was warm, deliberate only in the way coincidence becomes intention. In a brief pivot, Avery turned and met Taylor’s gaze. A momentary stillness fell over them as if something had been quietly acknowledged between them. Taylor’s expression was open in the way people are when they haven’t yet decided what something could mean but are willing to let the possibility exist. Avery held their gaze longer than they would ever intend. It was long enough to feel the weight of it and the quiet question that hung in the air. Taylor leaned in closer, burying their shoulder in Avery without a care of invading, to exist in their space.
“Hey,” Taylor said plainly, grinning a toothy white smile.
“That’s a bold choice,” Avery said, eyes flickering toward Taylor’s bright and syrupy concoction. They had tried for light but landed closer to guarded teasing. Immediate regret followed as they internally mulled over the instinctual distance disguised as humor. But Taylor laughed unbothered.
“I like things that taste like sugar and regret,” they rebutted, clearly drunk and wholly at ease with the fact. The confession was open, unashamed, and gentle in its transparency. They nodded towards Avery’s glass in return. “I don’t think you get to have an opinion about what I’m drinking.”
Avery looked down at their sulking vodka water, a weak apology in liquid form. Instead of bracing for offense, they felt a unique sense of relief— Taylor hadn’t flinched, hadn’t recoiled, hadn’t made the moment heavier than it needed to be. Taylor seemed entirely content in their presence, which was unusual enough to make Avery’s chest tighten. Though not in a painful way, more like realizing they could exhale.
So Avery did something uncharacteristic. They pulled a worn pack of cigarettes from where it had been tucked against their thigh. Thumb resting on the cardboard like it was a small, private secret. They held it up between them in a quiet offering.
“Do you want to go outside?” Avery asked, not casually, but carefully. Allowing the question to be what it was: an opening. A door towards something unnamed.
Taylor didn’t answer with words, just nodded once. The kind of nod that was steady and certain, without hesitation or ceremony. They turned towards the crowd, and the room pressed back in around them. Avery stepped forward, assuming Taylor would follow closely in stride. Though before they could take more than a few steps, Taylor reached out and took Avery’s hand. The gesture was simple and instinctive; how one reaches for something with the quiet fear that if they don’t, the moment will slip away. Avery didn’t look down at their hands, didn’t react outwardly at all. But the gesture landed exactly where it was supposed to.
Deep in the downtown club, the two of them pressed forward in a tangle of a movement. Everyone blurred around them, faces half-illuminated by strobes, and strangers packed closely like sardines, body to body. Concrete floors held layers of spilled liquor, sweat, and time. Sticky underfoot suggesting that no amount of mopping would turn them to their neutral state. The space itself had the unmistakable bones of a converted warehouse. Brick walls were original, though covered in paint meant to look intentional. Steel beams overhead served as a reminder that the building had been built for storage, distribution, and work. Now people gathered in this footprint, except instead of loading pallets or inventory, they loaded themselves into temporary versions of themselves for the night. The transformation never seamless as the past clings faintly to the edges. Visible in ways the walls absorbed the sound instead of holding it. In how the windows were painted black instead of replaced. The crowd carried a similar layering. Makeup blurred under the accumulating sweat from the heat. Hair dampened and curled against necks. Clothes were chosen for how they wanted to appear rather than how they felt. All working together to create a surface version of the self meant for viewing, not knowing. It was encouraged here. The club, a place where you were both obvious and hidden. Amid it all, their joined hands remained unadorned. No performance or practiced expression. Skin to skin, warmed and dampened. The contact stayed and held its own shape against everything fleeting in the room.
The door slammed shut behind them, cutting the night clean in two. The music vanished mid-beat, leaving a silence that felt almost too big. Cold settled around them slowly, not a shock but a clarity. The outside air held no perfume, heat, or artificial color. It smelled faintly of exhaust and wet sidewalks. A scent that belongs to a city after midnight. Cars moved past in slow intervals, headlights briefly cutting through the dark. The streetlights cast a steady, soft glow. Out here, the pace was slower. Conversation, if it happened at all, happened in low voices that didn’t require shouting. A few other people were outside; they were different from the ones inside. Nothing was required of them. They leaned against brick walls, smoking or scrolling to simply catch their breath. Faces were bare of forced expression, posture loose. No desire to be seen. Just existing for a moment when the room wasn’t falling in on them.
Their hands slipped apart once they were fully outside. The cold air moved in where the warmth of the club had been, drying their palms immediately. Avery still held the pack of cigarettes in their other hand. The Lucky Strikes were not a casual choice. They were the kind of cigarettes people smoked because they liked the idea of something with history. Old movie posters, jazz records, the strange belief that certain small habits could make someone seem sharper or more composed than they felt. Avery didn’t smoke to look cool. They smoked because the ritual had steadied them once and then kept steadying them. It felt easier to continue than to question why. Avery tapped one out, set it between their lips, and held the pack towards Taylor.
Taylor paused long enough that the hesitation was confession enough alone. They took one anyway, holding it with a nervous delicacy between their fingers. Taylor decided not to mention that they had never smoked before. The sweetness and alcohol were still in their veins, keeping them a buoyant version of themselves. A version that felt bolder and cooler than the one that usually surfaced under office lighting with calendar reminders and polite small talk. The daylight version of Taylor knew how to be reliable, how to show up on time, and how to do what was expected of them. Tonight, they were someone who could say they liked the taste of sweetness and regret and not flinch. Someone who could reach for another person’s hand in a crowded room without needing to think it through first. They weren’t ready to return to daylight Taylor.
Avery reached into their jacket for a lighter. Not a disposable one, but a brushed silver Zippo. Solid and well-balanced in the hand. The metal had been worn smooth over time; its surface dulled in places where fingers had traced the same paths again and again. They flicked it open with a small click. The flame rose steadily, a little yellow island in the dark. Leaning in, they lit their own cigarette first. The motion easy and unthinking. The ember flared at the tip then quickly settled into a subtle, even glow. Smoke moved from Avery’s mouth in a long, practiced exhale. They turned the lighter towards Taylor. Taylor brought the cigarette to their lips carefully, while Avery cupped their hand to shield the flame from the breeze. Their faces came close. Close enough for Taylor to see the faint scratches on the lighter’s surface, the tiny dents revealing years over months.
“Nice lighter,” Taylor said quietly, just noticing. Avery didn’t shrug or look away.
“It’s been in my family for a long time,” they said. Taylor’s cigarette caught and they inhaled too fast. Smoke burned sharply in their throat and they turned slightly to the side, letting out a tight cough. Avery didn’t laugh. They just watched Taylor try again, slower this time, like someone learning to breathe differently. Taylor’s hair fell in a loose, dark sweep that caught the streetlight at its edges. A few strands clung to their temple, softened by heat, while the rest fell naturally, without effort. The collar of their shirt dipped as they lifted the cigarette, revealing the clean line of their collarbone. Muscle shifted subtly with each breath, not meant to draw attention. It just existed, and Avery found themselves unable to look away. Their own inhale was steadier than Taylor’s thin, tentative exhale. They adjusted, quietly, leaning into the rhythm of it. Both of them leaning back against the brick wall beside the club. The cold wall pressed through their shirts, grounding them. Shoulders brushed, a small touch and neither moved away. Taylor kept their eyes forward when they spoke again. Voice low so it didn’t break the moment.
“Tell me more about the lighter.”
The request wasn’t prying. It was a careful way of asking to be let in. Taylor didn’t interrupt as Avery turned the Zippo once over in their palm. They watched Avery watching the lighter. Their own cigarette burned unevenly between their fingers, the ember pulling off-center. The smoke rose in a thin, uncertain thread. Avery’s cigarette burned in a slow, consistent glow. It sat lightly between their fingers, the hold natural. Taylor couldn’t help but think the way the lighter fit suggested it had lived there for years, shaped to them as much as they were shaped to it.
“It’s the thing that stayed,” Avery admitted, but the sentence didn’t seem to be enough, so they continued. “It was my dad’s. Part of the everyday things he carried— keys, wallet, cigarettes, and this. Something that had become a part of him. Since he’s been gone, people like to assume it’s sentimental that it’s a symbolic reminder of him, but that idea faded faster than I care to admit. After a while, the lighter stopped being about him and became something else entirely. People change, places shift, routines fall apart, and most things don’t stay long enough to feel sure of. The lighter stayed. It’s meaningful because it’s constant.”
Avery lifted their eyes after saying it, slowly, preparing to regret having spoken so plainly. Taylor was already looking at them and met their gaze without hesitation. Their expression didn’t shift into sympathy or softness but simply steadied. A quiet recognition, the kind that happens when someone else has also learned how to keep going after the world rearranges itself without asking. For a brief moment, Avery had the strange sensation of seeing their reflection in someone else. A glimpse of their own hurt, endurance, all mirrored in the depth of Taylor’s dark eyes.
Between them, the cigarettes continued to burn. Averys held a glow in a slow, controlled line, the ember advancing with practiced patience. Taylors burned quicker on one edge, ash loosening in soft fragments that scattered on the sidewalk. Attempting to steady the burn, Taylor adjusted their fingers. Avery didn’t comment, didn’t guide, didn’t correct. The cigarettes burned as they burned without interference. They didn’t need to say what it meant to hold things differently. Both of them had learned acceptance the hard way that many of us unfortunately do—through changes that arrive without permission, endings that didn’t wait for approval. They had both worn steadiness like armor, shaped in different ways. Avery in control, Taylor in brightness. Standing shoulder to shoulder against the wall, something had settled between them. Taylor had always believed a night could allow them to stumble into a room that held what they’d been searching for. Avery found themselves, for the first time, not minding the search.
Taylor drew in a breath, right on the edge of speaking. Avery shifted slightly closer, the warmth beneath them steady. They leaned in, their temple finding Taylor’s shoulder with a quiet certainty. And that was when the club doors flung open beside them. Sound exploding back into the night. Music surged out in a heavy rush, laughter cracked sharp across the sidewalk, and a cluster of bodies spilled out. One of Avery’s friends lurched towards the curb and bent forward, retching onto the pavement. A sour smell cutting through the lingering smoke in the cool air. Another friend, with bloodshot eyes and yelling too loud, saw Avery and waved frantically.
“There you are—we have to go—the Uber’s here—come on,” they insisted, already grabbing Avery’s wrist. Not in the intentional way Taylor had, but with a familiar, thoughtless urgency of someone who assumes the promise of your presence. The gesture pulled Avery just enough that the Lucky Strike slipped from their fingers: lost more than dropped. Avery resisted in the smallest way, which is worth noting, turning back towards Taylor. Mouth parting to try for anything—an explanation, an admission, a promise. But the moment was already collapsing. Avery was shoved into the backseat, pressed beside a friend who smelled of vomit and sweat layered with perfume. The door shut too fast for Avery to steady a hand against it. The lock clicked, small and definitive. Through the tinted window, Taylor was where Avery had left them. Standing in the quiet of the streetlight, shoulders drawn in the smallest degree. They looked at the car for a breath that felt longer than it was. And then slowly, Taylor let their own cigarette fall. Not fumbled, not lost, released. The ember hit the pavement, flared once, then crumbled as Taylor pressed it out with the toe of their shoe. Taylor only lowered their own gaze and turned back towards the club, disappearing into the doorway as they allowed the bass to swallow them once more. Avery continued to watch until the city blurred into motion and there was nothing left to look at besides themselves mirrored in the glass.
On the sidewalk, the two cigarettes lay where they had fallen. One lost in the rush and the other released. The ashes cooled and fallen, without ceremony.