Billy had given her worried looks the day after the party, but was back to his normal self quickly enough. On Tuesday, she met up with Calvin at the café where they'd first run into each other.

Calvin picked up his meatloaf sandwich. "Mm. Worm meat casserole with squished maggot sauce on toast. Just like Mom used to make."

Susie shook her head. "Doesn't work on me anymore, Calvin." She plucked a grape from her fruit salad. "Mmm, eyeballs," she said, popping it into her mouth. Chewing and swallowing it with an audible gulp, she said, "The retina's the best part."

Calvin burst out laughing. "You've definitely changed in the past ten years."

"So have you. Actually going to class voluntarily, and doing your homework. Most of the time, at least. Never would have expected that ten years ago."

"I kind of realized that I need to pretend to be an adult occasionally. Hobbes yells at me if I let too many things slide."

"How's he doing?"

Calvin sat back. "Same as ever. He keeps telling me...well, he plays conscience sometimes. Not always." He looked around to make sure they couldn't be easily overheard. "So, I talked to Rob. Billy's politically untouchable in the fraternity - his sponsor is the house president. If we try to push through there, it becomes he said/she said, and Billy's sure to argue that you just can't hold your beer."

She nodded. "I figured as much."

"However, Billy's annoying the heck out of some of the brothers. Parents' Weekend is this weekend, and he's trying to get everyone to get all their alcohol out of the house in case his mother goes snooping. Meanwhile, some of them figured out what probably happened to you - somebody saw Billy putting vodka into a cup on the night of the party - and they're livid. If you had reported anything to the university, they'd get had for letting an underage person drink."

"Okay, so if we can't get him through the fraternity, what do we do?"

"I'm thinking we do something while his parents are here. Something to let his parents know what sort of kid they've raised. Oh, speaking of which...Mom and Dad want me to invite you over for dinner some night."

"Any particular reason?"

"Just that they haven't seen you in ten years, and want to see how you grew up."

"How's tonight?"

"That'd probably be fine. I'll ping Mom." He pulled out his phone and sent a quick text to his mother.

"Not your father?"

"Oh, please. Dad will take a cell phone when they force it into his cold, dead hands. He's annoyed enough that Mom has one." His phone chirped, and he glanced at it. "Okay, tonight's fine. So, here's my idea..."

Calvin picked her up after her last class, driving her into the neighborhood she hadn't seen in so long. She didn't recognize anything until she saw her old house, and then the memories came crashing back.

"That's it!" she said, pointing.

Calvin grinned at her. "Yep. An older couple bought it when you left. They...didn't like me much. They moved out after about four years, and tried to rent it."

"That can't have ended well."

"Nope."

He pulled into the driveway. "Anyway, they sold it to a couple with a toddler. I'd calmed down a bit by then, and the kid's pretty cool. Her name's Sophie. She's about nine now. We get into snowball fights in the winter. She's got pretty good aim."

Susie laughed as she climbed out of his beater car. He led her into the house, calling, "Mom, I'm home!"

Susie looked around. "No tackle from Hobbes?"

"He stopped that when I got bigger than he is," Calvin said.

"Susie, how nice to see you again!" Calvin's mother said, bustling into the room and giving her a hug.

"It's nice to see you too," Susie said.

"Dinner's in twenty minutes, so I need to go finish up," Calvin's mother said. "Why don't you show her around, Calvin. Your father's running late today, he'll be home soon." She hurried back into the kitchen as a timer started beeping loudly.

"Hey, you wanted to show me some of your drawings," Susie said, poking Calvin in the shoulder.

"Yeah, they're upstairs in my room. Let me go get them," he said, heading up the stairs.

She decided to follow him. His room was cluttered, with piles of books - textbooks, fiction, art instruction, Photoshop tutorial, and more - stacked near the desk, which held a computer monitor, a keyboard, a mouse, a graphics tablet, and Hobbes. She waved to the stuffed tiger, feeling only slightly stupid, and said, "Hey, Hobbes. Mr. Bun said to say hi back."

Calvin stopped and grinned at her, that grin that she never could quite tell if it meant Thank you for playing along or Sucker, I made you act silly. With a smile, he sorted through piles, tossing books and papers into new heaps as he went. One paper, yellowed and covered in childish scrawl, drifted out of its stack, and she picked it up. Glancing at it, she was surprised to see her own writing at the bottom, so she looked more closely.

It was a contract he'd given her when they were six, saying they would ignore each other's existence and not attempt any sort of conversation. It also specified that he would never ask her out on a date.

"You still have this thing?" she asked, showing it to him, and he flinched as if he were barely holding back from snatching it out of her hands.

"Well, I sure wasn't going to get rid of it, it was important at the time. And then you left, and..." He gave her an embarrassed smile. "I missed you," he said in a small voice.

Susie looked down at the piles, unable to meet his eyes. "I missed you too. Eventually. It took a while."

"What, it wasn't an instant pang of loss?" he asked dramatically.

She sat on his bed, still holding the paper. "Nope. When we moved to Seattle, there was a boy a year older living next door. I was thrilled to live next to someone normal. For about a month."

"And then?"

She looked up at him, noticing the grin on his face. "I got bored. He didn't do anything interesting."

From below, Calvin's mother called, "Calvin! Susie! Dinner!"

She set the contract on the desk and followed him out the door.

Billy was off meeting his parents at the airport for Parents' Weekend when Calvin arrived, carrying a paper bag with their supplies. "Let's go," he said. "Rob says he's showing them the fraternity first, so we've got twenty minutes or so."

Susie kept a lookout down the hall as Calvin picked the lock on Billy's door. "How did you learn to pick locks?" she asked quietly as the lock clicked open.

"Internet," he said. "That's where I got the picks from, too." He opened the door and they slipped through quickly.

Susie hadn't been in Billy's room before, and shook her head at the posters of mostly-naked women on the walls. Calvin handed her the bag, then took up station in the hallway as a lookout. They'd decided that, as the injured party, the pleasure of planting evidence should go to her. She pulled three bottles of cheap beer out of the bag, sliding them behind a couple bottles of Coke. A cheap bottle of vodka went underneath the bed, propped to roll out if the bed was jostled too much. Half a dozen empty beer cans were hidden in the closet, set to clatter if the closet were opened.

Susie's phone buzzed; Calvin had sent a message. he just left the frat.

She looked around; everything was hidden, but likely to be visible if his parents did any snooping. She sent a quick message: All done. Clear to come out?

The reply came back almost instantly. clear

She slid out the door, closing it behind her and hearing it lock automatically. Calvin nodded, and they went into her room, opening the door enough to hear what happened. "Good thing he doesn't have a roommate he can blame it on," Calvin whispered. Susie grinned back at him.

They heard Billy leading his parents down the hall, telling them all about the fraternity and how they were a bunch of serious, studious young men who would never drink or throw wild parties. Billy's mother sounded skeptical, but Billy led them into his room triumphantly.

"I don't think those posters of tramps will help your chances of finding a decent woman, Billy," his mother said loudly.

"He's a boy, Marge," his father said. "And he's got good taste in pictures, at least. You got anything drinkable here?"

"I've got some Coke," Billy said. "It's in the fridge."

"I'll get it," Billy's mother said, then suddenly shrieked, "Oh sweet merciful Jesus! BILLY! How could you?"

The shouting had brought the RA, who, upon seeing the alcohol, had been required to write Billy up for violating the dorm alcohol policy. He was officially on probation with university housing until the end of the year. Half the people on the floor had turned out to hear the shouting, and when Billy tried to argue that he didn't drink and was being framed, somebody talked about seeing him with a beer at the party the previous weekend. Billy's parents gave him an ultimatum: depledge from the fraternity and enter alcohol counseling, or drop out of the university and come home immediately. Calvin and Susie had had to fight to keep from cracking up.

"I do feel a bit guilty that it's gone this far," Susie whispered.

"He spiked your drinks, then set himself up to be the one to take you home. You know as well as I do he was trying to get into your pants while you were too drunk to consent."

"I know. But..."

"He tried to use alcohol against you. We used alcohol against him. Let the punishment fit the crime."

There may be a slight delay before the next chapter, as I've realized it desperately needs a rewrite.