The school felt different.
Maybe it was the silence between Conner and Skie, the way they passed each other in hallways like ghosts of who they used to be.
Or maybe it was just how the world shifts when something breaks — quietly, steadily, like a bone healing in the wrong direction.
Skie hadn't spoken to Conner in five days.
Five days of swallowing every apology she rehearsed in the mirror. Five days of telling herself he didn't deserve one. Five days of missing him anyway.
Dylan noticed.
He saw it in the way she stared at her phone during lunch, waiting for a text that never came. In the way Conner threw himself harder into football — practicing like he was trying to forget something he couldn't say out loud.
And in the way Aaron had started sitting closer to him. So close their shoulders touched sometimes.
Under the Bleachers — Dylan and Aaron
"Does he always get like that?" Aaron asked, biting into a granola bar as they sat under the bleachers behind the football field.
Dylan blinked. "Like what?"
"Conner. All fire, no direction."
Dylan gave a half-smile. "Yeah. He burns fast. But he burns for the people he loves."
Aaron looked out at the field, where Conner was running drills like his life depended on it.
"Guess love makes you do crazy things," Aaron muttered.
Dylan looked at him then. Really looked.
"You believe that?"
Aaron hesitated, then said softly, "I want to."
There was something in the way he said it — not quite sad, not quite hopeful — that made Dylan's chest tighten.
"Why'd you move in with your mom?" Dylan asked carefully. "If that's not too personal."
Aaron paused. Then, "My dad...he drinks. A... lot. Got worse after the divorce. I stayed for a while. Tried to take care of him. But it got bad. Like... holes-in-the-walls, cops-at-3am kind of bad."
Dylan swallowed.
"And Skie?" he asked.
"She always hated being in the middle of it. She stayed with Mom. It tore her up when I didn't."
"She misses you," Dylan said.
Aaron looked at him. "I know. I miss her, too."
They sat in silence, just the distant sound of a whistle blowing and sneakers scraping turf in the background.
Then Dylan said, "I'm glad you're here."
Aaron turned to him. "Yeah?"
Dylan nodded, pulse quickening. "Yeah."
Aaron smiled — slow, real — and reached out to brush a bit of glitter still clinging to Dylan's cheek from rehearsal.
"You missed a spot," he murmured.
Dylan couldn't breathe.
But he didn't move away.
Elsewhere — Skie's Spiral
Skie sat on the bathroom floor between sixth and seventh period, knees pulled to her chest, ignoring the buzzing of her phone.
She didn't cry.
She just... existed. In that awful numb space between anger and regret.
Everything was unraveling.
She missed Aaron.
She missed Conner.
And she hated how neither of them seemed to need her anymore.
A notification lit up her phone screen: Dylan
"You okay?"
She stared at it. Didn't reply.
Because how do you say no when you've made yourself the villain in your own story?
Later That Night — Dylan's Room
Aaron sat cross-legged on Dylan's bed, flipping through one of his old scripts while Dylan tried to clean up the chaotic mess that was his closet.
"Did you really play Juliet?" Aaron asked, eyebrows raised.
Dylan grinned from inside his closet. "I did.
Opening scene. Balcony monologue. Full gown. The works."
"Damn," Aaron said, clearly impressed. "Bet you made everyone fall in love with you."
"Only the straight boys who were confused about their sexuality," Dylan deadpanned, emerging with a crown of fake roses tangled in his hoodie.
Aaron laughed — really laughed — and something shifted in the air between them.
Not dramatic. Not explosive.
Just… soft.
Safe.
Real.
Aaron looked at him — at his glitter, his curls, his chaos — and said, "You're kind of amazing, you know that?"
Dylan stilled.
Then smiled.
"So are you."
Meanwhile — Conner, Alone on the Field
The lights had shut off an hour ago.
But Conner stayed, sitting on the fifty-yard line, grass cold beneath him.
He'd told himself he didn't care.
That Skie had chosen everyone else over him, again and again, and he was better off.
But the truth was, it was eating him alive.
She knew him. Better than anyone. And he missed her so bad it felt like grief.
The kind of grief that sticks in your ribs and whispers at 3 a.m., You ruined this.
And maybe he had.
But he didn't know how to fix it without falling apart first.