On the way to the cafe, Lauren stops in at a convenience store and buys a can of tuna. "I figure it's got to be sick of turkey sandwiches by now."

Leyla digs her chin into the collar of her thick winter jacket and eyes the crowds of college kids moving between bars and parties. "I can't believe it's a Saturday night, and this is what we are doing."

"Do I have to remind you that you were previously hiding in your room because you don't like parties?"

"And that equates with hunting for stray cats?"

"Sorry, small town," Lauren drawls. "I don't have much else to offer."

Leyla laughs.

Inside the courtyard, Lauren points to the crate. "Take a seat there if you want. Lots of tripping hazards out here."

"I've seen, remember?" Leyla teases.

"Very funny." She carefully negotiates the junk, and dumps the contents of the can on the saucer she keep out there now. Then she sits on the crate beside Leyla, pulling up the collar of her jacket to protect her neck from the cold.

It's quiet for a minute. Just the distant sounds of other people's Saturday nights and the rattle of a loose signpost out in the alley. Lauren feels weirdly peaceful for once, sitting here amongst the abandoned furniture and debris, waiting for a skinny cat to show up. Leyla's quiet too, stuck somewhere in her own thoughts, maybe.

"What is it you don't like about parties, anyway?" Lauren finally asks her.

"I don't know. Here, I feel like it's just all about getting messed up. This is going to sound so lame to you, I know, but in my home town, in Pakistan, my friends don't drink or take drugs. We had parties, we danced, we had fun, but it wasn't about chasing some high or being wasted." She shivers and wraps her scarf one more time around her neck. "I love dancing. I love laughing. I love being with my friends. But I guess I just don't understand the appeal of rendering my brain incapable of making sound decisions for me and then sending it into a room full of people to just see what happens."

"For some people, I think it's the only way they have of making things happen."

"They hide behind it, you mean?"

"No, well yeah, maybe sometimes. But it's also about finding the boldness, you know. Mixing things up." She smiles. "Expanding the gene pool, so to speak."

Leyla pulls a face. "What do you mean?"

"You know how in biology they tell us how groups of animal species migrate and re-mix to make the gene pool bigger? How if they don't, species with small gene pools would get all in-bred and fade? I guess that's what parties are for: making bigger gene pools. Everyone in one space, drinking or taking enough so that they're brave enough to mix with people they wouldn't look at usually, expanding the possibilities of combination. Creating new formations to be gossiped about on Monday. But it's about being bold enough to expand those horizons, maybe."

"So getting wasted at parties is just another biological imperative?"

"Maybe. Also, they can be fun. And maybe I'm more sympathetic because I can be guilty of it myself."

"I don't mean this judgementally, but why can't people just be brave anyway? Without it?"

"That, I can't answer."

Leyla pulls her knees to her chest, wraps her arms around them and sighs extravagantly. "I'll get used to it. If I've learned anything this past year it's that you can get used to anything."

"Not like you expected?"

"Not at all. For one, it's freezing," she says, hunching into her jacket. "I definitely didn't see that coming. My best friend Rani always talked about living here. She thought it was always summer and that it never rains and everything is about happy endings like it is in the movies we'd see back home. We had no idea places like Walla Walla exist, so cold and green and …elemental."

"Neither did I," Lauren says. "I don't know anything about Pakistan, either."

"No one here does. No one here knows about anywhere but here."

"So why did you decide to study here?"

"My parents did. They said If I got my degree here, I'd be able go to medical school anywhere. I was accepted here, and I have an aunt and uncle in Vancouver, so my parents felt better about me staying somewhere close."

"Do you go home for holidays?"

She hugs her knees again. "My parents don't want me to until I graduate."

"Why not?"

"I think they want me to focus."

"Don't they miss you?"

"Yes, but school is more important, they say."

"Do you miss them?"

She nods and rests her chin on her knee. "I miss them. I miss home. I miss my friends. I'm grateful to my parents for giving me this, but…home's home, right?"

"I guess." The only thing Lauren has missed, aside from V, is that certainty that comes with knowing your world. But she's even getting over that now. "Do you like staying with your aunt and uncle."

She shrugs. "They both work at a university, so they're never home. But they expect me to always be. And because I don't know anyone there, I am. It's lonely. I prefer it here. Last spring break I took a volunteer job leading campus tours so I could stay here. Anyway," she says. "Tell me about your family."

Lauren opens her mouth and closes it just as quickly. What is there that is safe for her to say about her family? Luckily, the cat chooses that moment to make her appearance, scuttling across the wall, to sniff the air. She must catch a whiff of the tuna, because she leaps down and heads straight for the can.

Lauren, happy for the distraction, says, "Okay, so, a closer-to-medical-school-than-me opinion, please: Do you think she could be pregnant?"

Leyla sits up, peering at it. "As someone who has never seen a pregnant cat before—that she knows of—I have to say…" She taps her chin thoughtfully. "Yes. Definitely."

"Really?"

"Look at that belly."

Lauren sighs. "What am I going to do?"

"You could try and catch her. Take her to a shelter."

"She bolts if I go within three feet of her."

"Then I don't know. Make her trust you."

"Easier said than done." Lauren slaps her legs. "Okay, well, cat has been spotted. Let's go."

"Okay." Leyla sighs. "Back to the scene of the crime. Or the gene pool."

Back at the house they stand at the door, surveying Leyla's living room-turned dance floor. Before she knows it, Lauren's feeling that small beginning of a buzz of excitement. Even without booze swimming in her veins. Who knew? She turns to Leyla, who's frowning, probably planning her escape to her room. "You know how you said you don't like the whole drinking and getting messed up thing?"

"Yes," Leyla says, moving out of the way of two guys stumbling out the front door, laughing hard at something.

"There was one part you said you liked."

She narrows her eyes. "What?"

"The dancing," Lauren says slyly.

"I guess, bu—"

"So come on." Before Leyla can refuse, Lauren grabs her by the hand and pulls her into the teeming mass that is the living room. As she weaves her way around bodies, she feels the floor pulse beneath her feet, the music so loud it hums in her rib cage. She keeps a firm grip on Leyla's fingers as she plunges deeper into the crowd, searching for the epicentre. When she finds it, she turns, gives Leyla a sly smile and a why the hell not? shrug. Then she leans close to her ear and yells, "You're here now. Might as well!"

Then she squeezes her hand, lets it go, and begins to find the beat. Leyla looks at her for a long moment, then throws her head back and laughs. Then she starts to move, too.

In the swirl of bodies Lauren sees Raf and Helen and a kaleidoscope of faces from classes and campus and hallways and cafeterias. Helen blows her a kiss and then spins away, her braids flying around her face. She spots Dan with Busy, swaying uncertainly but smiling as he runs his fingers through his hair. Another song comes on. A high school classic. The room erupts. She shuts her eyes for a moment, just feeling it, and when she opens her eyes again, Leyla's right there beside her, moving to the sounds. And she's even smiling.