EMME

His brothers on the other hand were great. Jack, who was only a year your junior, was one of your closest childhood friends, the two of you as thick as thieves when it came to neighbourhood shenanigans. And Luke as a child was obsessed with you. In his mind, you were his sister and he wanted to do everything by your side.

…but Quinn?

He never apologised for the rogue puck, nor had he made any attempt to be nice towards you or make conversation. In fact, every time you were in the same vicinity as him, he acted like your presence was the biggest inconvenience, ignoring you at every turn and fleeing whenever you showed up.

And so the silent feud persevered and the thorough dislike felt was an emotion well-shared.

You rid your head of all those thoughts as you climbed out of your car which you had parked just down the street from the Hughes’ lake house. It was Halloween at the Hughes’, despite it being the middle of July.

Halloween was always a big holiday in the Hughes’ household, so when the brothers couldn’t celebrate it together in October due to their demanding careers, Jack had come up with the clever idea to hold a costume party once a year in the midst of summer to give everyone a chance to let loose and have a bit of fun.

So here you were, in the middle of July, dressed in denim daisy dukes, a brown tank top and brown, leather cowboy boots. You’d thrown together your costume in a matter of minutes, hell-bent on borrowing the brown cowboy hat you regularly saw hanging on the coatrack in the Hughes home.

Your boots clattered against the pavement as you approached the lake house, the sound of music and people talking, singing and dancing seeped out into the night air of Michigan. You pushed open the door, being instantly greeted by a wave of heat and a faint smell of alcohol wafting through the air.

“y/n!”

You whipped your head towards the crowded living room where Luke had clambered over the couch, to reach you. You stumbled backwards as he threw his arms around you, your chuckles radiating as he rocked you side to side in joy.

“I thought you weren’t going to come,” he whined as he pulled away, finally letting you look at the costume he adorned.

“And pass up free drinks?…never,” you hummed, fixing his black robe. “Also, I’m loving the costume, Anakin.” Luke grinned and scratched his head as he glanced down at his costume bashfully.

“I love your…oh my god,” Luke trailed off as he read your tank top, his eyes widening and cheeks blazing as he slapped a hand over his mouth.

You beamed from ear to ear as you glanced down at your shirt which conveniently read “Save a horse, ride a cowboy.”

“I’m a cowgirl, Luke,” You laughed, “actually, where’s that cowboy hat I always see when I’m around here? And can I borrow it please?”

Luke’s look of shock and amusement remained laced across his features as he glanced around the party.

“What?” You asked in confusion, following his eyeline only to freeze where you stood. “No…god, no, Luke!”

“I think the hat’s already in use,” Luke spoke, lowering his lips to your ear so you could hear him as he shuffled to your side. “Bye!”

Luke laughed heartedly, patting you on the shoulder before he returned to his friends in the living room, leaving your eyes locked on the sight ahead of you as a scowl crept onto your face.

Standing right ahead of you, sipping a drink as he talked to friends was Quinn Hughes…dressed from head to toe as a cowboy.

Fuck. Your. Life.

This was great, this was just fantastic. You wanted to rip your hair out in frustration, especially when you saw how good he looked in it.

One thing you refused to ever mention, was that despite your deep-rooted dislike for him, the eldest Hughes brother had been one of your first crushes because let’s be honest, objectively, Quinn Hughes was a good-looking man. You’d have to be a fool not to notice it. Your childhood crush on him had faded, yet every once and a while, it poked its ugly head out and caused you to go into full lockdown mode.

And now, seeing him in denim jeans, a grey shirt that stretched around his thick biceps and the cowboy hat you’d intended to steal, the ugly head of your childhood crush flared up, screaming at you to act on your desires.

With a huff, you folded your arms over your chest and headed towards the kitchen to grab a drink to wash Quinn out of your mind.

Hours later and a few drinks in, you found yourself sitting on the couch, with your legs strewn across the cushions, a plastic cup in hand, and a mind buzzing with alcohol-induced courage. The party had escalated into chaos as the night wore on, with laughter, music, and questionable dance moves scattered around the home.

Despite your initial annoyance at Quinn's unexpected presence, you had managed to avoid any direct interaction with him throughout the evening, skilfully avoiding him. However, as the night continued, you couldn't help but find yourself stealing glances across the room at the eldest Hughes brother. He seemed relaxed, chatting effortlessly with his friends, his cowboy attire adding a rugged charm to his usual demeanour.

Lord, you needed to get a grip.

But each time your gaze lingered on him, a vicious and conflicting mix of irritation and attraction stirred within you.

On your latest trip to the kitchen, you had glanced backwards and the party’s noise dulled as Quinn's eyes met yours. Even from across the room, you could see his nostrils flare and his eyes flash with an emotion you couldn’t place. For a brief moment, the world completely stilled as the intensity of his gaze pierced through the crowd. You quickly averted your eyes, heart pounding in your chest, but the memory of his piercing stare lingered, igniting a flame within you.

You’d abandoned your mission of heading the the kitchen and had swiftly taken back up your residence on the house’s couch, lounging back into the cushions, feeling rather flustered from the minimal interaction.

"Hey, y/n!" Jack's voice boomed over the music, snapping you out of your thoughts. He plopped down on the couch beside you, a wide grin plastered on his face. "Having fun?"

"Yeah, it's been a blast," You nodded, offering him a lopsided smile as your head lolled toward him. He had chosen to be a football player for the evening, adorning a jersey and eye black smeared on his cheekbones.

Jack chuckled, nudging your shoulder playfully. "Glad you could make it,” he spoke up, raising his voice to be heard. “You know, Quinn's been asking about you."

"Really? Why?" You asked defensively, as your eyebrows shot up in surprise, a mixture of scepticism and intrigue swirling in your head.

"Who knows?” Jack shrugged, taking a sip of his drink. “Maybe he wants to bury the hatchet or something."

"I highly doubt that."

But deep down, a small glimmer of hope flickered within you. Could it be possible Jack was telling the truth? The thought sent a strum of anticipation coursing through your veins and straight to your beating heart.

Before you could dwell further on the matter, Jack grabbed your hand, excitement evident in his eyes. "Come on, let's get a drink!" He urged, pulling you onto your feet as you allowed Jack to yank you towards the kitchen and straight past his older brother, whose eyes seemed to be locked on your figure.

–

You didn’t know how long it had been since the kitchen, but right now you were holed up in one of the bathrooms upstairs, staring at yourself in the mirror. You were at that wonderful stage of tipsy where the world was good and bright.

A sudden and loud bang on the door rattled its structure as you groaned and banged back.

“Occupied,” you practically sang, your eyes flitting from the mirror to the door.

“You can’t be up here, it’s off limits,” the deep voice called back sending butterflies cascading through your stomach. With a giggle, you opened the door and shook your head.

“Move on, Hughes,” You tutted, “you should never hurry a woman in a bathroom.”

Quinn’s eyes widened a fraction from where he was leaning against the door frame, expecting there to be someone hooking up or throwing up inside of the bathroom.

“This is still out of bounds,” he eventually sighed, his arms folding across his chest.

“Even for me,” you fluttered your eyelashes jokingly, biting your lip as you stared at Quinn’s unmoving figure.

“Especially for you.”

It was as if those words sent all of your insecurities tumbling down, each one of them being thrown in your face as your upbeat persona completely dropped. You suddenly felt rather sober, all of the adrenaline and fun seeping from your body.

“Fine,” you hissed, bumping his shoulder as you passed. You were going to head down to the party but you felt your body turn back to face him before you could. “Actually, no!”

“You have a real stick up your ass you know that, right? I tried to be civil with you but all I get back is whatever this…” you gestured to his disgruntled state. “–is. I’m done trying. It’s obvious you don’t like me, so quit staring and quit asking about me. We don’t have to be friends or even be civil anymore, we can just stop.”

You turned around towards the stairs with gritted teeth, before you spun around on your heel once more.

“Oh and for the record, you stole my intended hat,” you pettily huffed, slowly reaching up and taking the hat from Quinn’s head before pulling it onto your own. “I’m taking it back for the rest of the night.”

A sigh fell from Quinn’s lips as you fixed the hat on your head with a smirk, nodding to nothing as you looked up at the man once more.

“Now, I’m done,” you eventually hummed in satisfaction, walking back towards the stairs.

Before you could get any further, you felt Quinn's arm snake around your waist, pulling you back towards him, his chest meeting your spine. Opening your mouth the argue once more, you found yourself faltering, feeling his nose brush along the supple skin of your neck, the scruff of his beard leaving a wonderful tingling in its wake.

"Haven't heard you heard, pretty girl?" His voice rasped, his lips skimming the shell of your ear as your heart quickened. "You wear the hat, you ride the cowboy."

Your breath caught in your throat at his closeness, his cologne engulfing you as your heart fluttered in your chest.

“Quinn…” you struggled to say, your body pliant as he slowly turned you so you were chest to chest with him.

“Had to watch you all night walking around in those little shorts without a care in the world that everyone was watching you,” He continued, his hand reaching up to brush hair out of your face. “But you were watching me, hm? You always do, even when we were younger.”

Your mouth was slightly agape as you remained quiet, your eyes following Quinn’s that dropped to your lips briefly.

“Think I haven’t noticed it?” He spoke, his nose brushing gently against yours. “Oh, sweetheart, why don’t you ask me how I noticed.”

You couldn’t find the words to speak as you tried to process what was happening and why you liked being held like this by him.

“C’mon, don’t go all quiet on me now… go and ask.”

“How..?” your chest rose and fell unsteadily, warmth rushing around your body at you and Quinn’s close proximity. “How did you notice?”

You watched as his head lifted slightly, a soft chuckle breaking from his lips.

“Because I was watching you,” He stated, his voice an octave above a whisper as he locked his deep and softening eyes on yours. “I always watched you, starting from the moment I hit you with that damned puck.”

“You never apologised for that,” your stubborn remark mixed with the need that your voice trembled with.

“How was awkward, twelve-year-old me ever going to walk up to a pretty girl and try to explain himself?”

“You thought I was pretty?”

“I think you’re the most beautiful girl, I’ve ever seen.”

You ducked your head before Quinn tutted and lifted your head with a warming smile.

“You got me nervous,” he admitted, his voice soft in a way you’ve never heard before. “So when I hit you, I grabbed the puck and pretended it didn’t happen. It was only after that, did I realise what I had just done.”

Quinn sucked in a small breath as he continued, his thumb caressing over your cheekbone in soothing strokes.

“I tried to apologise to you so many times but you hated me too, you know? I’d already pissed you off, I didn’t want you to thoroughly hate me.”

His confession sliced at your heart but your body radiated in a desirous heat that ensnared all of your senses, as you leaned closer to his body, relishing the firmness of his chest and the way it rumbled when you’d stepped closer.

“I don’t think I could ever hate you, Quinn,” you whispered, your hands reaching up to hold onto his biceps.

“Can I kiss you?” Quinn’s hoarse voice murmured, causing your thighs to clench in anticipation. “Please?”

A primal desperation swept over you as you nodded and pulled Quinn down onto your lips. Your lips met in a clash, electricity humming around you as he swept his tongue along your lip.

For a first kiss with him, this was better than you had ever imagined.

The two of you remained locked, Quinn’s hold from where he cupped your cheeks, grounding you to the earth as you grasped at his arms to steady the sudden lightness that filled your body.

When the two of you withdrew to catch your breath, his forehead dropped to rest against yours as the two of you breathed one another in. The party downstairs was a distant memory as you surrounded yourself in Quinn and the moment that lingered in the air.

Another moment passed before the two of you jumped straight back into the kiss, the addictive excitement driving the two of you. Kissing Quinn was like driving fast with the windows down in summer; hot, freeing and thrilling.

Your hands tangled at the back of his neck as he held you tighter to his skin, one of his hands dropping to your lower back to press you against him.

A loud clatter from the stairs caused the both of you to pull apart, watching as two of Jack’s drunken friends almost face-planted. Quinn reached back out to you and dipped his head to whisper in your ear.

“Jump.”

Without another thought or complaint, you jumped into his awaiting arms, your legs locking around his waist as he carried you to his room, down the hall and out of sight from prying eyes. Quinn’s lips found yours in a feverish dance as he pushed his back against his door, to open it before he brought you inside and kicked it closed.

“Quinn,” you found yourself panting, your heart beating a mile a minute as the heat of your flesh became unbearable, the desire to have his hands all over you overwhelming your senses. “I want you.”

“You have me,” Quinn smirked, his head lowering to press kisses along the curve of your neck as he slowly sat on his bed.

Still entangled around him, your legs straddled his thighs as he pulled you close. His hands moved to your waist, holding you as he continued his tirade of kisses down your neck, pausing only to suckle on the sweet flesh casting a darkening bruise on your skin.

Soft moans of pleasure tumbled from your parted lips as your hips moved forward and back on his lap, desperate for any friction or satisfaction.

“Look at you squirming, you need it bad, hm?” Quinn teasingly murmured against your skin whilst you whined at his words, your hips rocking. “What do you say, pretty girl, want to ride a cowboy?”

His words caused a pure and animalistic craving to wrack through.

“Please,” you gasped out as he nipped your neck, brushing his tongue over the mark.

“I’ve got you,” Quinn whispered, tossing the hat from your head, his hands whipping your tank top over your head to leave you in only your bra. You felt a breath escape you at the sudden movement, your head dropping forward to look at him.

“Beautiful,” he commented with half-lidded eyes, lingering on your exposed flesh as one of his hands lifted to undo the back of the bra. The bra fell swiftly with your help, your arms tossing it somewhere into the darkness of Quinn’s room.

Quinn’s eyes darkened at the sight of your bare chest, his tongue running along his bottom lip as he admired you. You whimpered as he grasped your breast in his hand, kneading the supple flesh, eliciting a sharp moan from your lips.

“Never seen anything more perfect in my life,” he spoke, bowing his head to swirl his tongue over your nipple, his other hand pinching and kneading the other in a perfect contrast of pleasurable tension. Your hips ground down onto the growing bulge in his pants, relishing the raw material of his jeans against your shorts. He kissed across the valley of your breasts, capturing your other nipple in his mouth, showing it the same amount of attention as the other.

You were a stuttering mess, when he eventually withdrew, his eyes dark and careful as he slowly lifted you from his thighs and placed you on your shaky legs.

“Last chance, pretty girl,” Quinn breathed out, his fingers dancing along the waist of your shorts. “You sure you want this?”

Without breaking eye contact, you unbuttoned your shorts and let them fall to your ankles, stepping out of their constraints before you climbed back onto Quinn’s lap.

“I was promised a ride,” you simpered, your eyes ablaze as you bit down your lip. Your hands ran over his clothed chest, pulling the hem up, revealing Quinn’s sculpted body. He slowly sat up, allowing you to completely yank the grey shirt over his head.

In a sudden move, he gripped your hips and spun you, changing your positions so that you were pinned beneath Quinn, your chest palpitating as your eyes flared with a venereal need.

He stepped away from your body, slowly unbuttoning his jeans, as you moved to prop yourself onto your elbows.

With bated breath, you watched Quinn as he shed his clothes, your heart racing with anticipation. The air in the room felt charged with desire, every movement he made sending a jolt of electric excitement through your veins. As he discarded his jeans, revealing his toned physique, your eyes drank in the sight hungrily, a certain lust igniting within you.

Quinn's gaze never left yours, dark with intensity as he prowled towards you, his steps deliberate and purposeful. Your breath hitched as he knelt before you, his hands trailing up your thighs, sending shivers of anticipation cascading down your spine.

"So pretty," he murmured, his voice husky as his lips brushed against your skin, leaving a trail of fire in their wake whilst his hands pulled down your panties. His touch was electrifying, sending sparks of pleasure dancing across your skin. “Oh, baby, you are soaked, all this for me?”

You gulped as he let a grin crawl across his face, reaching behind him to place the panties in his drawer before he returned to you.

With trembling hands, you reached out to touch him, your fingers tracing the contours of his body, memorising every ridge and plane. The heat between you was palpable, a primal need driving you both towards each other with an irresistible force. You gently pulled him towards your face, unable to bear the tension any longer.

As Quinn's lips found yours in a searing kiss, you melted into him, surrendering to the fiery passion that consumed you both. You dragged him down on top of you, his body a heavy yet comfortable weight pressing against your bare body.

“Need to feel you,” you rasped, heat flushing across your body. “I want to feel you.” You rolled over, to be on top of him, your legs automatically pulled apart by his thick thighs. “Do you have?…have you?..condom, where?”

You found yourself babbling, finding it hard to focus on the words as your body cried in desperation. You watched as Quinn opened his fist revealing a silver, foil packet, which he’d grabbed from the drawer.

“Put it on for me?” Quinn asked cheekily, winking at you as you practically tugged the packet out of his hands.

“Fine,” you rolled your eyes, earning a soft poke in the side from the man beneath you as you shifted your weight to manoeuvre Quinn’s underwear down. Your eyes locked on his whilst fingers gently dragged the material down, allowing his thickened cock to slap against his stomach. You suppressed a guttural groan at the sight.

You were practically salivating at the view, your eyes wide with wonder as you carefully reached out and stroked down his shaft, spreading his beads of pre-cum down his length, relishing the grumble that wracked through Quinn’s chest as he watched you with parted lips and a heated look.

Your teeth ripped open the wrapper of the condom, and you slowly rolled it onto Quinn's length, feeling the tension between you bubble over. With each movement, your heart raced faster, your body craving the feeling of him that awaited.

Quinn's breath hitched as your fingers traced over his skin, as you grinned down onto his thighs, hardly able to contain the vicious warmth pulsating through your veins.

With the condom securely in place, you straddled Quinn once again, feeling the heat of his body beneath you as you positioned yourself, ready to take what you both yearned for. His cock brushed over your dripping wetness as his hands found their way to your hips, guiding you gently as you lowered yourself onto him, the shaking sensation of fullness engulfing you both.

A low, guttural moan escaped Quinn's lips as you sank down, inch by inch. Your mouth parted in pleasure, your hands grasping at the flesh of Quinn’s abs for stability. The burning sensation of the stretch to accommodate his length, fuelled your desire as you gave yourself a second to adjust to his size.

“Oh my god,” you gasped out, slowly rocking against Quinn, sparks of pleasure bursting up your spine whilst you threw your head back.

“You take it so well, pretty girl,” Quinn huffed, his tight grip on your hips urging you up and down on his cock. His grip was an anchor, keeping your body grounded despite the ethereal pleasure you were experiencing.

Your walls tightened around the ridges of his length as it glided through your wetness. The room was filled with a cacophony of sounds, your pants of satisfaction mixing with Quinn’s carnal groans.

Your bodies moved in perfect harmony, a symphony of passion and desire as you lost yourselves in the rhythm of the moment.

Quinn’s hand crept towards the epicentre of your pleasure, his thumb circling your bud as you ground down on him. You let out a strangled yelp as he thrust up to meet your movements, both of you chasing your orgasms.

Your nails dug into his flesh as you moved up and down with his guidance. Your pelvis meeting the the sparse hair on the base of his cock as he hit the spongey spot inside you that erupted in glorious pulses every time he brushed against it.

“I can feel you clenching me,” Quinn murmured, his thumb quickening against your clit as you approached the edge of ecstasy. “You gonna come for me, pretty girl?”

“Quinn,” you panted out, picking up your speed as you tethered on the dangerous edge of your climax.

“That’s right,” He urged, his thrusts up unwavering as you met them in pure need. “Let everyone know who’s making you come.”

Your thighs shook as the knotted tension in your stomach loosened as Quinn pulled you closer and closer to that glorious bliss.

“Y’look so good,” Quinn practically slurred, his eyes half-lidded as he watched you bounce. “You’re so close, pretty girl, c’mon, let go, I’ve got you.”

His words shot straight down your core as the tension in your stomach exploded, as your body shook in the purest of pleasure, loud moans escaping your parted lips as your orgasm washed over you.

Quinn pumped up into you, letting you ride through the bliss as he grew closer and closer to his own. His grip on your hips held you on him as you relentlessly clenched around his length.

With a final grunt and a chasing thrust, his grip tightened and he spilt into you, eliciting a whine from you at the mere feeling.

Your body felt boneless as Quinn pulled you down onto his chest, his arms wrapping around you to hold you close. Both of your chests rose and fell in sync, both completely blissed out whilst his hand entangled in your hair, holding your head toward the crook of his neck.

You moved your head carefully to press chaste kisses to his jaw, as he lightly chuckled and adjusted his hold on you.

“How was your ride, pretty girl?” Quinn mumbled, his head lolling to the side to meet your eyes.

“Perfect, 7/10,” you whispered with a soft smile, your fingers tracing his cheek.

“Only seven?” Quinn spluttered in shock, but before he could descend into a panic, you continued.

“Mhm…I think we need to go again,” you nodded very seriously, mischief glittering in your eyes. “You need to convince me, cowboy.”

“You’re a cheeky thing, aren’t you,” Quinn hummed, his hand twisting around your hair to gently pull your head back.

“You like it,” you smiled, brushing your lips across his.

“Damn right I do,” Quinn growled, “Now hop back on, baby, seems like I have some convincing to do.”

Keys fumbling in your fingers, you managed to slip into your car, prayed to God that Brooke hadn’t mentioned your embarrassing arrival at his front doorstep, with hopeful eyes and a foolish heart that worked too slowly for its own good.

There did exist a small part of you, beaten down and ignored, that wished to see Jack’s figure silhouetted in your rear view mirror, frantically running, trying desperately to explain, or get you to stop, or anything.

But he wasn’t there. Just the lonely road, cast in the melancholic gloom of the moon.

Traffic lights and the shine of other cars blurred behind a wall of tears, crystallizing at your waterline. Heartbeat thundering like a racehorse, fingertips trembling with such force you had to white-knuckle the steering wheel to avoid crashing—you weren’t sure if anything had ever hurt this badly, not when Jack had tried to teach you to skate, which left you with a twisted ankle and him with heaps of guilt. Not even when Jack had forgone your years-long plan of boycotting senior prom in favor of taking Kaylee Hills.

It was funny, retrospectively; every hurt, every wound, every moment you looked back on to compare this pain to was tied ineffably to Jack.

Just as you were.

It wasn’t seeing Brooke, hair messed and eyes blown that cleaved your chest in two. No. It was the fact that Jack had asked you there, set a time, and forgot? Lied? Which was worse? Both equally managed to reach in and sink claws into your barely working heart, both conveyed the inexcusable message that Jack Hughes did not care about you, or your feelings.

Yellow shifted red. Feet working, brakes squealing, you barely managed to stop your car at the line. A part of you knew you shouldn’t have been driving in this condition, knew it could lead to a crushed car and broken bones—maybe even death, but right now, with a mind void of rationality, you didn’t care.

Had he done it purposefully? Your reeling mind flashed back to the night that crumbled the last bit of stability out from under you, when you’d overheard Brooke complaining to Bianca—maybe finally she’d gotten the exact same message to Jack, and maybe this was his way of severing all ties, even if it was the coward’s way out.

Flashing lights of a bar’s sign caught your watery eyes. Everything told you to ignore, ignore, ignore—speed back to your dorm and cry all night in Kaylen’s arms.

But you were mad, heartbroken, and in desperate need of something to distract you; something that would balm the burn traveling its way to the center of your heart. It made for a detrimental coalition—one you’d regret in the morning, when your mind dusted off the layer of rage and betrayal that currently chased away any semblance of reason.

But right now, it hadn’t dissipated. And right now, you needed a drink.

Eyes feathered to you. Neon lights of old-timey signs lit up your face, branded with the remnants of tears and ruined mascara. Normally, the attention would’ve rendered you self-conscious, made you think twice and just leave. Not tonight. Tonight wasn’t about having fun, or finding some boy that looked suspiciously like Jack to hook up with. It was about forgetting, and you weren’t doing a very good job at it right now.

Sliding onto one of the bar chairs, you saw the look of the bartender—a kindly middle-aged women with one too many tattoos on her left arm. Hair likely disheveled, face marred with the evidence of a breakdown, you knew you weren’t winning any beauty competitions.

Wiping your cheeks, you leant yourself on the bar top and sighed. “Um—just a gin and tonic, please.”

Had her gaze lingered any longer, you would’ve been able to see the pity, the foreknowledge only people who had lived possessed; you didn’t want any pity. The woman nods, setting down the bar glass she was wiping before going to make your drink.

Questions cleaved a cavern in your chest—one you were afraid couldn’t ever be closed, not by your desperate hands, the blood already pooling at your feet, drowning you.

Why?

That was the main one. Why had Jack invited you over if Brooke was there? To rub it in your face? A white flag of surrender he’d never waved, never keen enough to read into your hopeful looks and wanting touches; perhaps the realization had come, and with it, the itching desire to peel away the old blanket of childhood and finally toss it. Love always existed between Jack and yourself—but it wasn’t the same. Never had been. Foolish hearts plead otherwise, bent at your knees hoping for a miracle, anything that could bring you the heart of the boy I’d kept in your mind for all your life.

To Jack, you was the comfort of an old film—unchanging, seen over and over that the lines branded into his mind, jokes lost their luster. You should’ve given up when his heart fell into the claws of another, but, of course, you was nothing if not wishful. Something that was biting you in the ass at current.

Music blurred into a track of static in your head. Bodies came and went at the barstools beside you, ghosts, likely wondering about the girl hunched over the bar, halfway in the grave. The soft burn of liquor became nothing compared to the sear of heartbreak—such a visceral feeling you understood why now people claimed to die of a broken heart. Every heartstring felt a moment away from snapping, sending your barely-beating life-force into the abyss Jack had cracked inside of you.

Fraying memories, once the softest comfort, a reminder that you mattered enough to hold a place in Jack’s life became soured by the burn of new perspectives. Nights spent in his room, the glow of his TV playing some movie we weren’t paying attention to, rather captured by the conversations we’d rehashed a million times. Yet, somehow, they never got old. You thought that you’d cemented my place in Jack’s world, erected an effigy of your relationship that could never be struck down.

Regimes don’t last forever. His heart was conquered by another. And here you were, standing on the outskirts of a kingdom you’d been exiled from.

Lights smeared into multicolor, suffocating fog rolling into your headspace—it’s then the bartender ceased giving you drinks, when already you’d lost any shred of self-decency that remained in your unfortunately still-alive body. Hands on your shoulders made you start, before the kind voice of the bartender rings in your ears.

When had she come to you?

“Alright, honey,” she murmurs, helping you off the barstool and over to a booth hidden in some alcove, shielded slightly from the music and people—a migraine was already splitting open your skull. “You’ve had enough, yeah? Let’s take a seat.”

In no condition to argue, you obliged. How had I even ended up here, stood at the funeral of a love that’d never even been realized? Mourning the loss of something you’d never even had? Pathetic, obsessive—yearning for the best yet always handed the worst. Your cards were long shown, hand folded; you’d given up the game long ago, yet couldn’t escape the table, forced to watch it go on, to see the winners cheer and take home the prize.

Losing Jack’s friendship was unfathomable. Your safety net since high school, since before everything. How had one girl toppled the castle you’d built, brick by brick, lain into the framework of your heart?

Unrequited love wasn’t kind. No prisoners would be taken—killed on sight by the deadly blow of rejecting words. Jack didn’t even know. You’d never even had the chance to tell him what happened, why you’d phased from his life like a forgotten memory. Maybe that was for the best.

Maybe that was my closure.

“Okay, sweetheart—do you have anyone who could come get you? Emergency contacts?”

Jack.

Traitorous mind. Hopeful heart. He wouldn’t come, not when hooks held him back, ones he’d willingly sunk into his flesh.

You groaned, offering the bartender your phone. Only a few contacts were favorited—close friends, some family. Jack.

Barely registering the bartender dialing a number, living in the ignorance alcohol brought, you remained heartbreak of your own making, transformed into an unrecognizable mess by the rejection of a love that still remained in the shadows of your heart.

It was sad, really.

Did you even deserve to cry? When, all along, you knew this waited for you at the end? If Jack loved you—really loved you, in the way you did him—none of this would’ve happened. But the road was of your own paving, the long haul finding its end, straight off a cliff.

The bartender sets your phone down on the table, patting your arm. “Okay, I called your boyfriend to come get you. He said he’d be here soon.”

If your heart was still beating, even barely, you were sure then it absolutely stopped.

Boyfriend.

Boyfriend?

Only one contact in my favorites was a man. One currently preoccupied by his not-girlfriend girlfriend. No…

Jack absolutely could not come here. He couldn’t see you like—this. Rended down the middle by a melancholy he caused, even if unintentionally and unknowingly. Because then questions would come, ones far too difficult for your state of mind and being. All of it would flood out, barriers stolen by inebriation, left vulnerable by sorrow and the heady rush of collapsing love schemes.

Hidden in the darkness in the corner of the bar, you waited, and waited. Each moment felt like a death knell, the call of the executioner, feet carrying you to the gallows.

If he’d come, where was Brooke?

If he’d wanted to talk, why have Brooke over?

If he loved you—

“Jesus Christ.”

Cement laid into the grooves of your spine. And so swung down the executioners axe, severing the last of your strings and truly freeing your heart from its holding in your chest. Head kept down by the terror of facing your own slow-working poison, you stayed slouched, hoping the hole in your body would materialize and suck you straight down.

Too bad you never got what you wanted.

Fingers grab your face, settling on the warm, reddened flesh of your cheek. And so there he was, in all of his devastating beauty that once opened the gates of your heart. Cast into a time-warp, an eerie similarity to similar moments from high school, when one too many drinks left your head swirling and body buzzing—moments Jack would scoop you up and bring you home.

Always the white knight.

Always the hero.

But it wasn’t just for you. It never had been. Those hints you once believed lead to the key to his heart were nothing more than a nicety—the comfort of a friend. Hopeful people saw what they want, and you surely had.

“Hey, look at me,” Jack murmurs, forehead creased in concern. You wanted to tell him to relax—that he’d only give himself wrinkles, but kept a tight lock on your lips. “C’mon. I really don’t want to take you to get your stomach pumped.”

Did he care? Or was it the candied lies of a guilty man, the confessions of a criminal on trial? He had to have known—Brooke likely laughed that you came by, the stupid girl you were, and Jack might’ve laughed, too. Or he’d reddened, like always when he was nervous or panicked, recalling that it was you who was meant to invade his home that night—not his not-girlfriend girlfriend.

Mumbling a string of incoherent annoyances, you shook Jack’s hands off and wriggled away, far as the booth would allow. “No—‘m fine. Go away.”

A sigh rattled Jack’s chest. “You’re clearly not,” he grunts, hand running through his hair. Uninterested in seeing the pity you knew would be in his gaze, you kept your eyes down. “The hell were you thinking, getting this drunk?”

An argument of ‘I’m not drunk’ dies on your lips almost as quickly as it materialized—because, well, he wasn’t wrong. There was no explanation you figured would satisfy his concerned curiosity. None you wanted to give him.

Any route lead to a confession you’d locked in the vault of your heart. One you’d prepared to open to him tonight, only for him to turn away before there was any chance.

Without much thought, you found your legs, wobbling a bit before sending a glare Jack’s way. Blue eyes, ones once so adored by you, seemed a sore comfort now—with the worry swimming in them, one you saw through as a falsity. Conjured slights and fabricated feelings made you bitter. Had he ever cared? Was it a long-con he’d never managed to weasel out of until now? You’d always wondered why he’d kept you around.

Maybe Bianca had been right. Maybe it was a charity case, a memory of childhood that’d dragged on too long, unrecognizable yet unwilling to be shook off, because you hadn’t let go.

But if it was a mutual untethering, then there’d be nothing left. Clinging to a fraying rope only worked for so long; you couldn’t try and pull yourself up anymore without it snapping off completely.

“Whatever,” came your bitter response, walking past Jack on unsteady legs, made weak by heartbreak and other awful emotions. “Just… go. I—I’m fine. I don’t even know why she called you.”

Warm fingers clamp around your wrist. Part of you figured Jack wouldn’t have followed. “What? Are you serious?” Movements halted by a strong tug, Jack whirls you to face him, stood near the entrance of the bar. “Maybe it has to do with the fact that you’re shitfaced. You can barely stand up on your own, and you’re telling me to leave?”

Resisting the urge to stomp your foot like a petulant child, to shout at Jack to drop the facade—it wasn’t needed, not anymore, not with you—you instead resigned to offer a short-lived glare. “I didn’t ask for your help. She called you—not me. And I’m telling you I don’t need your help.”

Once more you darted for the escape. Night met you with the kiss of a cold wind, cars blurring by, headlights momentarily catching you in the light of sorrow. Not many people walked the sidewalk you found yourself down, hoping to escape the lingering emotions Jack carried with him, an unshakable storm cloud.

You didn’t want to be mean. To push him away. But the hurt he’d brought, the strike of a wounded and cornered animal, it was all on him.

“Would you—?” Jack calls, each footstep ringing like church bells before a funeral. “Stop. Jesus—why are you running? What the hell did I—”

His words made any restraint snap. You round on Jack. “What did you do? Oh, let me think,” you hiss. Never once had Jack and I argued—not really. Minuscule things over the years, but never had felt this much anger at him. For his obliviousness. For his failure to see who you could be. “Remember when I texted you, asked to talk? Do you remember what time you told me to come over?”

White bled into Jack’s cheek, a crook who was caught. Any doubt that he didn’t know, any assumption that he’d not intended for you to see Brooke faded into nothing.

Your fingers itched, their desired destination the bloodless flesh of Jack’s cheek.

You should’ve known. Really, it was on you. Beloved, desired Jack Hughes—the face of a franchise, the player ushering in a new era of hockey; and you? A face from his past, self-proclaimed best friend, the lackluster net of his hometown that only served to cage him, where once you thought it comforted.

“Yeah. Thought so.”

Again you made to turn, to run, flee the scene of the crime, where blood splattered over years of friendship and likely left it to die. How could you ever face Jack again, when your heart still held onto the small piece he’d offered you so many years ago?

“Wait, no—” A plea, the desperate call of a forgotten worshipper. “It wasn’t… I didn’t—”

“Save it, Jack,” you interject. Burning tears made home on your lashes, ones you refused to give Jack. He’d laid claim to far too many of your sorrows.

His presence was unfortunately sobering. Chasing away any head rush, instead plaguing you with the bite of reality and understanding that the hatchet was already in the heart of your friendship, what was seemingly a simple misunderstanding on Jack’s part was a monumental discovery on your own.

That your value, your shine—none of it was worth it for him anymore. Not enough to care about making things right over finding pleasure in some other girl.

Maybe that was jealousy, the green-laced words of the part of you that wished Jack could want you in the same way he did other girls, but that was a concept to consider another time.

Steps quickened. Another pair did as well.

“Go home,” you snap, unwilling to cast a glance at the ghost you knew was biting at your heels. Streetlights flickered above head, as if sparked by the tension woven in the air between you two.

Silence met your words.

Perhaps Jack had given up. Finally. Came to an understanding that what he’d done—no matter how small to him—had unmoored your entire concept of our friendship. A body without a heart could only last so long before the rot set in—buried before the flesh had even gone cold.

The part of you, a stark betrayal of your current philosophy, prayed Jack would fight. Raise up his swords and cut down your defenses as he had when you first met, molding you into who you were now.

A simple confirmation that he did still care. No matter how little that spread now.

But his silence wasn’t promising.

If he even was still behind you. No strength came to cast a look—to confirm two very different, yet equally terrible things: that he didn’t care anymore and simply walked away, uninterested in arguing with a girl who refused to be swayed, or that he was still behind you, caring enough to fight but not enough to have remembered a simple time.

Arms curl around your waist mid-step. Corded with muscle, a familiar warmth, familiar strength. A soft yelp escapes your lips, feet unsteadied and dragged back—straight into Jack’s chest.

He heaves. “Stop running away from me,” he mutters, “and let me explain.”

Despite the confirmation that he was trying to fix things, you still writhe—still fight being sewn back together. “Explain what? I thought you broke up with her. Yet there she is, at your apartment, when I’m supposed to—”

Clearly lacking patience, Jack’s hand covered your mouth, his annoyed breaths fanning over your ear. “We did. I broke up with Brooke. For one moment in your life, be quiet, and let me explain.”

The desire to bite his head off made your blood molten, but the desire to hear him out—whatever excuse he’d conjure, was far stronger.

Ceasing your thrashing, you found content in his arms—despite the irritation flooding you, all focused on Jack, he was still, for now, your closest friend. Someone whose neck had been stained with the mark of your tears, whose arms were molded into the shape of your body. Anger, resentment—it could exist, it did, but it didn’t erase the years between the two of you.

You desperately hated that nothing would. That even if this became ash, withered by the flames of rejection and despair, nothing would ever wash the mark Jack had branded into the flesh of your heart.

When assured you wouldn’t fight him, or try to argue, Jack turns you in his arms, chin tilted down to look into your eyes—remnants of tears made marks on your cheeks, painted red under your eyes. A mess of his own making, undone by the simple idea that he didn’t—or couldn’t—love you back like you did him. Sad, embarrassing, but the truth. One you were done running from.

Maybe there was no room in Jack’s life for you anymore. Maybe the past served only as a childhood bedroom he’d outgrown. Maybe Bianca and Brooke were right.

Losing Jack would be losing apart of yourself. For years, so many years, you’d built a fortress around your friendship, the mere idea of it being lost an unfathomable thing that made sickness swell in you. Now, it seemed so definite.

How could you explain your hurt, without telling him you loved him?

Simple answer: you couldn’t.

It was terrifying. Picturing the fall of Jack’s face, a defeated soldier, realizing he’d lost his closest friend to the claws of an unrequited love. A necessary death. One gun, two graves, burial of something you thought would be lifelong.

Jack’s shoulders sag. “I broke up with Brooke,” he restates. “I wasn’t lying. I wouldn’t—I’d never lie to you.”

You wish you could stop your lip from quivering, but you can’t. “So why was she at your apartment?”

“She showed up,” he responds, eyes darting, looking for answers he knew he wouldn’t find in the sorrowful lines of your face. “She—God, I don’t know. Something about grabbing clothes, or whatever, but then she answered the door and—”

Years of knowing Jack, yet you’d never seen him look as devastated as he did now. Not when the Devils got eliminated from the playoffs last year. Not when injuries cut his seasons short.

Somehow, that made it all the worse.

“I had no idea it was you,” he whispers. Cars blur by, capturing Jack momentarily in their headlights, the halo he’d always had—from everyone around us, worshiping at his alter. “If I had known… if I had known…”

Eyes falter a moment. From your watery gaze to your trembling lips. Heat blooms, such an inappropriate time for uncaged moths to eat at the lining of your stomach, but that was just what Jack did. Weathered every defense you had, bullet after bullet, finding the cracks in your armor even you hadn’t seen.

He always saw.

He always saw you.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Jack continues softly, a low sigh leaving him. “I know I did—I know things have been… weird between us lately, and I don’t know why. I—I just want to figure this all out. It feels like… I don’t know. Like I’m losing you.”

If any words could’ve effectively killed any fight left you had, it was those. You wanted to scream it was him—that he’d caused this, opened the rift that set you two across canyons, lit the fire under your bridge and left nothing but an empty ravine between the two of you, but how could he know any of that?

Jack didn’t know you loved him.

He didn’t know being around him wedged the knife deeper. Seeing him in love, devote himself to another in a way you wished he’d worship you, it only made it all the worse.

He deserved an answer. If this really ended it all, this night, unremarkable in every way other than its possible end, then he deserved to know why.

“I…” You stumble over your words a moment, blockade erecting in your throat. “It’s… hard, Jack.”

A lame response, but what more could you give? He’d taken every other piece of you.

Desperate eyes find yours. Hands follow, holding your cheeks with such delicacy you could’ve sobbed. “What is? I… I can’t fix it if you don’t tell me. You know I don’t want to lose this—you. So help me, give me something.”

The dam in my throat doesn’t stop the sob from falling out. “I don’t understand, Jack. Why do you keep trying? You’re different now—you… you’re this NHL golden boy. I’ve never met a person who didn’t like you. I just—I don’t get why I’m still the person you choose. It doesn’t make sense.”

Jack’s eyebrows crinkle. For a moment, he looks lost for words, tongue severed by your pleading blow. You weren’t sure what you wanted from him. To see realization dawn on him as he finally understood that this—this friendship—had overstayed its welcome, or reassurance, confirmation that no matter what happened, he’d never see you as anything less than his best friend.

And unfortunately—what started this whole mess—he’d never see you as more.

“What?” Jack shakes his head. “You don’t understand? You are my best friend. Time, money, whatever—that’s not changing that. Why the hell would I leave you behind because I’m some big-shot now?”

Couldn’t he see?

Something changed. When first he’d brought Brooke to you—when he’d gushed over their perfect first date and her perfect personality and perfect face, it all came to a halt. Because living in a world where Jack was tethered to another wasn’t one you wanted to live in, regardless of how selfish and pathetic and ignorant that made you sound.

You had always been Jack’s. He’d just never been yours.

“That’s—not my point,” you mumble, casting a glance at the stars, given light by the lack of clouds, sharing the sky with the new moon. “I’m sorry… for being distant, and not communicating. I’ve been dealing with… things.”

This conversation was devolving as time went on. You were desperately trying to avoid him digging to the root of this entire problem. Of why you’d been so hurt, of what you’d been dealing with, of why being near him made you want to tear your hair out.

Everyone saw it.

Everyone but him.

“What things?” Jack asks softly, thumb stroking the tear-tracks marred on my cheeks. “You know you can talk to me. About anything.”

You worry your lip between your teeth. Was it better to speak or take the the grave the one thing that you knew could kill any friendship between you? Choose dignity over cowardice? Safety over flames?

A pause, and then, “Why’d you break up with Brooke?”

Something flashes in Jack’s eyes, but he looks away. Hides, like always—Jack never was good with emotions, with vulnerability. He hated being picked apart, being read; but you always managed to.

“She…” he pauses, again finding your gaze. A click of bone accompanies his shifting jaw. “She said some things. About you.”

Not a shock. Brooke, for good reason, hated you since the moment she met you. Competition, another star that shone bright enough to capture attention—there was no reassurance you could ever give.

Still, she’d always seemed smarter than Jack’s other exes. Clearly, she knew of where you ranked in his life, an untouchable position if scraped would lead to consequences. Over the years, you’d seen it all—girlfriends, friends, all severed from his life because of a disparaging comment about you. That was one thing Jack had never tolerated.

Brooke kept her mouth shut about you. Until now, apparently. And it cost her Jack. Sick satisfaction wells in you like a wave, a reminder that you were important to Jack—even if not in the way you wanted.

The unfurling of your assumed truth of the situation gave clarity—but questions remained.

“So I broke up with her,” Jack mutters, the casual tone doing more harm for your delusions than good. Shouldn’t he be more upset? “I’m not going to let people talk about you like that.”

He confessed.

It was your turn.

The possibility of years of friendship toppling because of a single sentence, a confession you’d never intended to make public, it felt like an axe looming above your head, awaiting the words to cut the rope.

You breathed, deeply. Maybe the last time you’d ever share the same air as Jack, heat mingled with his own, a different form of home you’d never again find in a person.

You wouldn’t just be losing your best friend, but a possibility—a what-if, a maybe. Someone who, had the circumstances been different, could’ve given you his heart. But it’d never be yours—a small piece, never fully branded, never fully claimed.

“These past few days, since the dinner, I’ve been… considering some stuff.” Vague, too cryptic, but I couldn’t reveal my hand yet, even if everyone else at the table had already seen it but Jack. “I really care about you. I cherish our friendship more than anything, really, I do… but, I just don’t think it’s—good for me anymore.”

Disbelief paints a desperate picture on Jack’s streetlamp-lit face.

Pain rends you. The words already flew—a perfectly notched arrow sent straight for Jack’s heart. Target struck, perfect aim. Truth laid in your words; it wasn’t good for you, because you loved Jack, and it was ruining your life. You’d never brush love-imbued fingers across his face, never capture his lips, never capture his heart. People before you had—proven it could be done; yet, never did your turn come. Because it was never meant to.

Jack steps back.

“You—” Thrice again he tries to speak, each time words fail him. Fingers graze through his hair, a stress tick. The last thing you wanted was to hurt Jack.

In complete honesty, you hadn’t figured he’d be so… distraught. After all, it seemed a mutual fade away, one everyone figured was coming. Desertion of the past to build a future, tossing away that childhood shirt that no longer fit quite right.

What you forgot? Those people, the ones claiming Jack had outgrown you, they weren’t him.

Because with the way he looked now, the last thing he wanted was to let you walk away.

“Not good for you?” he asks, voice so soft, it barely carries over the wind. Jersey was freezing this time of year, an unfortunate somber sight that fell victim to winter like the leaves and foliage. “Are you—did I do something? Did I hurt you? Is it the whole Brooke thing? If it is I can fix it, I’ll make it up to you—”

“No,” you whisper. “You didn’t, Jack. It’s just…”

Years of loving him.

Years of pining. Of wanting. Of hoping.

Diaries with his name scribbled beside yours. Hopes of returning to your high school reunion, his hand in mine, the whispers of your once-classmates, confirming that everyone knew it would be you and him—the only way it could ever go.

Hands that built those fantasies were, at present, trying to tear them down. You weren’t sure why you felt so destructive, why burning the friendship instead of simply trying to salvage what was left, even if it was little, seemed a better out.

You looked at Jack. Traced the curves of his face and lips with admiration—something you’d always hid, did when he couldn’t possibly catch the gleam of your eyes, but now, you couldn’t find the shame. If this was the end, if your words really did send down the axe, so be it.

At least it wouldn’t be something you’d be buried alongside, taking up your coffin.

“I love you,” it comes out weak, too shaky, too raw. “It’s ruining my life.”

There could only be so many blows before a heart stopped beating.

You expected repulsion.

You expected Jack to flinch back, the force of your words—ones he’d never want to hear from his best friend—would make him turn tail and run, the vulnerability cutting far too deep.

You’d told him you loved him before, under the guise of friendship, nothing more. But you meant it differently now, and he knew that.

What you hadn’t expected was for Jack’s lips to part, contemplatively looking down at you. As if matched with a puzzle he couldn’t quite figure out.

The moment spanned—left uncertainties it its wake. Was he trying to search for a way to let you down easy? To save face, save your feelings, because even if he didn’t love you, he still cared?

It seemed your answer would never come, until it did.

“You love me,” he repeats, tasting the words. A slow smile comes on his face—not conniving, not plotting. Content. “You love me?”

That was all he got from that?

A slow nod.

What was he getting at?

“I—yes?” you murmur, eyebrows furrowing.

Where was the rejection, the one you’d built yourself up for? The pitiful smile of a person who just didn’t feel the same? For better or worse, it was nowhere to be found. Instead, there was that grin, the one that brought soft dimples to his face.

“I—and it’s… ruining your life?” Jack says, keeping his tone low.

In the streetlight’s glow, he almost looks watercolor—made human by hopes, made yours by want. Cars pass, unaware of the scene playing out on some deserted strip of sidewalk outside long-closed shoppes.

If you looked up now, you could almost see the stars wink at you.

“You… you don’t feel the same,” you respond, as if already convinced of some feeling he himself hadn’t disclosed. “And that’s fine. It is, Jack, really. I get it, y’know? I just—don’t want this to be weird between us because it already is and—”

Hands tilt your face—callous, warm, home. The gentle brush of fingers weathered yours cheeks time and time before, yet different now, tender in a way they hadn’t been before. Words died on your tongue, muffled only then by the gentle press of Jack’s lips. A moment to register, one to hold your breath. Cataclysmic—yet contained, no supernova to explode your body. As if coming back from a long war, he kissed you—kept you close, spoke millions of words in a single action.

Perceived slights, idealized rejection—none of it was real. Fabricated in my head like so many things, brought to life by other people’s words, people who couldn’t have ever known the depth Jack cared for you.

Childhood wasn’t a burden. It wasn’t something to outgrow. Neither were you.

He’d never outgrown you. He’s grown with you, side by side, rooted in the same crack of concrete. Even with the years, the diverging paths that kept your lives on different sides, Jack never let you go—because he’d never wanted to.

It wasn’t a matter of pity. Of concern on how to let you down easy.

Together, you’d navigated childhood. High school. Adult life. And now… it seemed, love.

Finally, Jack pulls away. Lips painted in his saliva, you look up at him, wide-eyed, made once more that schoolgirl who foolishly vied for his attention, that couldn’t understand why he was her friend. Now, you couldn’t understand why he kissed you.

“Well, it’ll definitely be weird now,” he laughs softly. Even now, he could joke—with pink cheeks and wet lips and hazy eyes. “Because I don’t think I can be your friend either.”

Thumbs brush your cheeks. Red rises in their wake.

You were a fool—but not for the reasons you’d presumed earlier. Not because you’d loved someone who didn’t love you back, because you assumed he never could. No… now you were a fool for ever thinking he didn’t. That other people knew Jack better than you.

His forehead finds yours.

A heat that’d always been him. Jack. Your best friend. Your home.

“I love you,” he whispers back, a promise, one years in the making, imbued with the comfort of distant memories and fantasies that once only lived in my dreamscapes.

A chuckle slips from Jack. Held in his arms, in the middle of the sidewalk, full view of prying eyes and listening ears—yet all you cared about were his words. His oaths, that once felt impossible to comprehend.

Love that wasn’t platonic.

Touches that didn’t spell friendship.

“You’re ruining my life, too,” he says, a kiss pressing to the top of your head, crowning you with a love you’d reached for endlessly. “But for very different reasons.”

Sometimes, love isn’t unrequited.

It’s just unsaid.

Keys fumbling in your fingers, you managed to slip into your car, prayed to God that Brooke hadn’t mentioned your embarrassing arrival at his front doorstep, with hopeful eyes and a foolish heart that worked too slowly for its own good.

There did exist a small part of you, beaten down and ignored, that wished to see Jack’s figure silhouetted in your rear view mirror, frantically running, trying desperately to explain, or get you to stop, or anything.

But he wasn’t there. Just the lonely road, cast in the melancholic gloom of the moon.

Traffic lights and the shine of other cars blurred behind a wall of tears, crystallizing at your waterline. Heartbeat thundering like a racehorse, fingertips trembling with such force you had to white-knuckle the steering wheel to avoid crashing—you weren’t sure if anything had ever hurt this badly, not when Jack had tried to teach you to skate, which left you with a twisted ankle and him with heaps of guilt. Not even when Jack had forgone your years-long plan of boycotting senior prom in favor of taking Kaylee Hills.

It was funny, retrospectively; every hurt, every wound, every moment you looked back on to compare this pain to was tied ineffably to Jack.

Just as you were.

It wasn’t seeing Brooke, hair messed and eyes blown that cleaved your chest in two. No. It was the fact that Jack had asked you there, set a time, and forgot? Lied? Which was worse? Both equally managed to reach in and sink claws into your barely working heart, both conveyed the inexcusable message that Jack Hughes did not care about you, or your feelings.

Yellow shifted red. Feet working, brakes squealing, you barely managed to stop your car at the line. A part of you knew you shouldn’t have been driving in this condition, knew it could lead to a crushed car and broken bones—maybe even death, but right now, with a mind void of rationality, you didn’t care.

Had he done it purposefully? Your reeling mind flashed back to the night that crumbled the last bit of stability out from under you, when you’d overheard Brooke complaining to Bianca—maybe finally she’d gotten the exact same message to Jack, and maybe this was his way of severing all ties, even if it was the coward’s way out.

Flashing lights of a bar’s sign caught your watery eyes. Everything told you to ignore, ignore, ignore—speed back to your dorm and cry all night in Kaylen’s arms.

But you were mad, heartbroken, and in desperate need of something to distract you; something that would balm the burn traveling its way to the center of your heart. It made for a detrimental coalition—one you’d regret in the morning, when your mind dusted off the layer of rage and betrayal that currently chased away any semblance of reason.

But right now, it hadn’t dissipated. And right now, you needed a drink.

Eyes feathered to you. Neon lights of old-timey signs lit up your face, branded with the remnants of tears and ruined mascara. Normally, the attention would’ve rendered you self-conscious, made you think twice and just leave. Not tonight. Tonight wasn’t about having fun, or finding some boy that looked suspiciously like Jack to hook up with. It was about forgetting, and you weren’t doing a very good job at it right now.

Sliding onto one of the bar chairs, you saw the look of the bartender—a kindly middle-aged women with one too many tattoos on her left arm. Hair likely disheveled, face marred with the evidence of a breakdown, you knew you weren’t winning any beauty competitions.

Wiping your cheeks, you leant yourself on the bar top and sighed. “Um—just a gin and tonic, please.”

Had her gaze lingered any longer, you would’ve been able to see the pity, the foreknowledge only people who had lived possessed; you didn’t want any pity. The woman nods, setting down the bar glass she was wiping before going to make your drink.

Questions cleaved a cavern in your chest—one you were afraid couldn’t ever be closed, not by your desperate hands, the blood already pooling at your feet, drowning you.

Why?

That was the main one. Why had Jack invited you over if Brooke was there? To rub it in your face? A white flag of surrender he’d never waved, never keen enough to read into your hopeful looks and wanting touches; perhaps the realization had come, and with it, the itching desire to peel away the old blanket of childhood and finally toss it. Love always existed between Jack and yourself—but it wasn’t the same. Never had been. Foolish hearts plead otherwise, bent at your knees hoping for a miracle, anything that could bring you the heart of the boy I’d kept in your mind for all your life.

To Jack, you was the comfort of an old film—unchanging, seen over and over that the lines branded into his mind, jokes lost their luster. You should’ve given up when his heart fell into the claws of another, but, of course, you was nothing if not wishful. Something that was biting you in the ass at current.

Music blurred into a track of static in your head. Bodies came and went at the barstools beside you, ghosts, likely wondering about the girl hunched over the bar, halfway in the grave. The soft burn of liquor became nothing compared to the sear of heartbreak—such a visceral feeling you understood why now people claimed to die of a broken heart. Every heartstring felt a moment away from snapping, sending your barely-beating life-force into the abyss Jack had cracked inside of you.

Fraying memories, once the softest comfort, a reminder that you mattered enough to hold a place in Jack’s life became soured by the burn of new perspectives. Nights spent in his room, the glow of his TV playing some movie we weren’t paying attention to, rather captured by the conversations we’d rehashed a million times. Yet, somehow, they never got old. You thought that you’d cemented my place in Jack’s world, erected an effigy of your relationship that could never be struck down.

Regimes don’t last forever. His heart was conquered by another. And here you were, standing on the outskirts of a kingdom you’d been exiled from.

Lights smeared into multicolor, suffocating fog rolling into your headspace—it’s then the bartender ceased giving you drinks, when already you’d lost any shred of self-decency that remained in your unfortunately still-alive body. Hands on your shoulders made you start, before the kind voice of the bartender rings in your ears.

When had she come to you?

“Alright, honey,” she murmurs, helping you off the barstool and over to a booth hidden in some alcove, shielded slightly from the music and people—a migraine was already splitting open your skull. “You’ve had enough, yeah? Let’s take a seat.”

In no condition to argue, you obliged. How had I even ended up here, stood at the funeral of a love that’d never even been realized? Mourning the loss of something you’d never even had? Pathetic, obsessive—yearning for the best yet always handed the worst. Your cards were long shown, hand folded; you’d given up the game long ago, yet couldn’t escape the table, forced to watch it go on, to see the winners cheer and take home the prize.

Losing Jack’s friendship was unfathomable. Your safety net since high school, since before everything. How had one girl toppled the castle you’d built, brick by brick, lain into the framework of your heart?

Unrequited love wasn’t kind. No prisoners would be taken—killed on sight by the deadly blow of rejecting words. Jack didn’t even know. You’d never even had the chance to tell him what happened, why you’d phased from his life like a forgotten memory. Maybe that was for the best.

Maybe that was my closure.

“Okay, sweetheart—do you have anyone who could come get you? Emergency contacts?”

Jack.

Traitorous mind. Hopeful heart. He wouldn’t come, not when hooks held him back, ones he’d willingly sunk into his flesh.

You groaned, offering the bartender your phone. Only a few contacts were favorited—close friends, some family. Jack.

Barely registering the bartender dialing a number, living in the ignorance alcohol brought, you remained heartbreak of your own making, transformed into an unrecognizable mess by the rejection of a love that still remained in the shadows of your heart.

It was sad, really.

Did you even deserve to cry? When, all along, you knew this waited for you at the end? If Jack loved you—really loved you, in the way you did him—none of this would’ve happened. But the road was of your own paving, the long haul finding its end, straight off a cliff.

The bartender sets your phone down on the table, patting your arm. “Okay, I called your boyfriend to come get you. He said he’d be here soon.”

If your heart was still beating, even barely, you were sure then it absolutely stopped.

Boyfriend.

Boyfriend?

Only one contact in my favorites was a man. One currently preoccupied by his not-girlfriend girlfriend. No…

Jack absolutely could not come here. He couldn’t see you like—this. Rended down the middle by a melancholy he caused, even if unintentionally and unknowingly. Because then questions would come, ones far too difficult for your state of mind and being. All of it would flood out, barriers stolen by inebriation, left vulnerable by sorrow and the heady rush of collapsing love schemes.

Hidden in the darkness in the corner of the bar, you waited, and waited. Each moment felt like a death knell, the call of the executioner, feet carrying you to the gallows.

If he’d come, where was Brooke?

If he’d wanted to talk, why have Brooke over?

If he loved you—

“Jesus Christ.”

Cement laid into the grooves of your spine. And so swung down the executioners axe, severing the last of your strings and truly freeing your heart from its holding in your chest. Head kept down by the terror of facing your own slow-working poison, you stayed slouched, hoping the hole in your body would materialize and suck you straight down.

Too bad you never got what you wanted.

Fingers grab your face, settling on the warm, reddened flesh of your cheek. And so there he was, in all of his devastating beauty that once opened the gates of your heart. Cast into a time-warp, an eerie similarity to similar moments from high school, when one too many drinks left your head swirling and body buzzing—moments Jack would scoop you up and bring you home.

Always the white knight.

Always the hero.

But it wasn’t just for you. It never had been. Those hints you once believed lead to the key to his heart were nothing more than a nicety—the comfort of a friend. Hopeful people saw what they want, and you surely had.

“Hey, look at me,” Jack murmurs, forehead creased in concern. You wanted to tell him to relax—that he’d only give himself wrinkles, but kept a tight lock on your lips. “C’mon. I really don’t want to take you to get your stomach pumped.”

Did he care? Or was it the candied lies of a guilty man, the confessions of a criminal on trial? He had to have known—Brooke likely laughed that you came by, the stupid girl you were, and Jack might’ve laughed, too. Or he’d reddened, like always when he was nervous or panicked, recalling that it was you who was meant to invade his home that night—not his not-girlfriend girlfriend.

Mumbling a string of incoherent annoyances, you shook Jack’s hands off and wriggled away, far as the booth would allow. “No—‘m fine. Go away.”

A sigh rattled Jack’s chest. “You’re clearly not,” he grunts, hand running through his hair. Uninterested in seeing the pity you knew would be in his gaze, you kept your eyes down. “The hell were you thinking, getting this drunk?”

An argument of ‘I’m not drunk’ dies on your lips almost as quickly as it materialized—because, well, he wasn’t wrong. There was no explanation you figured would satisfy his concerned curiosity. None you wanted to give him.

Any route lead to a confession you’d locked in the vault of your heart. One you’d prepared to open to him tonight, only for him to turn away before there was any chance.

Without much thought, you found your legs, wobbling a bit before sending a glare Jack’s way. Blue eyes, ones once so adored by you, seemed a sore comfort now—with the worry swimming in them, one you saw through as a falsity. Conjured slights and fabricated feelings made you bitter. Had he ever cared? Was it a long-con he’d never managed to weasel out of until now? You’d always wondered why he’d kept you around.

Maybe Bianca had been right. Maybe it was a charity case, a memory of childhood that’d dragged on too long, unrecognizable yet unwilling to be shook off, because you hadn’t let go.

But if it was a mutual untethering, then there’d be nothing left. Clinging to a fraying rope only worked for so long; you couldn’t try and pull yourself up anymore without it snapping off completely.

“Whatever,” came your bitter response, walking past Jack on unsteady legs, made weak by heartbreak and other awful emotions. “Just… go. I—I’m fine. I don’t even know why she called you.”

Warm fingers clamp around your wrist. Part of you figured Jack wouldn’t have followed. “What? Are you serious?” Movements halted by a strong tug, Jack whirls you to face him, stood near the entrance of the bar. “Maybe it has to do with the fact that you’re shitfaced. You can barely stand up on your own, and you’re telling me to leave?”

Resisting the urge to stomp your foot like a petulant child, to shout at Jack to drop the facade—it wasn’t needed, not anymore, not with you—you instead resigned to offer a short-lived glare. “I didn’t ask for your help. She called you—not me. And I’m telling you I don’t need your help.”

Once more you darted for the escape. Night met you with the kiss of a cold wind, cars blurring by, headlights momentarily catching you in the light of sorrow. Not many people walked the sidewalk you found yourself down, hoping to escape the lingering emotions Jack carried with him, an unshakable storm cloud.

You didn’t want to be mean. To push him away. But the hurt he’d brought, the strike of a wounded and cornered animal, it was all on him.

“Would you—?” Jack calls, each footstep ringing like church bells before a funeral. “Stop. Jesus—why are you running? What the hell did I—”

His words made any restraint snap. You round on Jack. “What did you do? Oh, let me think,” you hiss. Never once had Jack and I argued—not really. Minuscule things over the years, but never had felt this much anger at him. For his obliviousness. For his failure to see who you could be. “Remember when I texted you, asked to talk? Do you remember what time you told me to come over?”

White bled into Jack’s cheek, a crook who was caught. Any doubt that he didn’t know, any assumption that he’d not intended for you to see Brooke faded into nothing.

Your fingers itched, their desired destination the bloodless flesh of Jack’s cheek.

You should’ve known. Really, it was on you. Beloved, desired Jack Hughes—the face of a franchise, the player ushering in a new era of hockey; and you? A face from his past, self-proclaimed best friend, the lackluster net of his hometown that only served to cage him, where once you thought it comforted.

“Yeah. Thought so.”

Again you made to turn, to run, flee the scene of the crime, where blood splattered over years of friendship and likely left it to die. How could you ever face Jack again, when your heart still held onto the small piece he’d offered you so many years ago?

“Wait, no—” A plea, the desperate call of a forgotten worshipper. “It wasn’t… I didn’t—”

“Save it, Jack,” you interject. Burning tears made home on your lashes, ones you refused to give Jack. He’d laid claim to far too many of your sorrows.

His presence was unfortunately sobering. Chasing away any head rush, instead plaguing you with the bite of reality and understanding that the hatchet was already in the heart of your friendship, what was seemingly a simple misunderstanding on Jack’s part was a monumental discovery on your own.

That your value, your shine—none of it was worth it for him anymore. Not enough to care about making things right over finding pleasure in some other girl.

Maybe that was jealousy, the green-laced words of the part of you that wished Jack could want you in the same way he did other girls, but that was a concept to consider another time.

Steps quickened. Another pair did as well.

“Go home,” you snap, unwilling to cast a glance at the ghost you knew was biting at your heels. Streetlights flickered above head, as if sparked by the tension woven in the air between you two.

Silence met your words.

Perhaps Jack had given up. Finally. Came to an understanding that what he’d done—no matter how small to him—had unmoored your entire concept of our friendship. A body without a heart could only last so long before the rot set in—buried before the flesh had even gone cold.

The part of you, a stark betrayal of your current philosophy, prayed Jack would fight. Raise up his swords and cut down your defenses as he had when you first met, molding you into who you were now.

A simple confirmation that he did still care. No matter how little that spread now.

But his silence wasn’t promising.

If he even was still behind you. No strength came to cast a look—to confirm two very different, yet equally terrible things: that he didn’t care anymore and simply walked away, uninterested in arguing with a girl who refused to be swayed, or that he was still behind you, caring enough to fight but not enough to have remembered a simple time.

Arms curl around your waist mid-step. Corded with muscle, a familiar warmth, familiar strength. A soft yelp escapes your lips, feet unsteadied and dragged back—straight into Jack’s chest.

He heaves. “Stop running away from me,” he mutters, “and let me explain.”

Despite the confirmation that he was trying to fix things, you still writhe—still fight being sewn back together. “Explain what? I thought you broke up with her. Yet there she is, at your apartment, when I’m supposed to—”

Clearly lacking patience, Jack’s hand covered your mouth, his annoyed breaths fanning over your ear. “We did. I broke up with Brooke. For one moment in your life, be quiet, and let me explain.”

The desire to bite his head off made your blood molten, but the desire to hear him out—whatever excuse he’d conjure, was far stronger.

Ceasing your thrashing, you found content in his arms—despite the irritation flooding you, all focused on Jack, he was still, for now, your closest friend. Someone whose neck had been stained with the mark of your tears, whose arms were molded into the shape of your body. Anger, resentment—it could exist, it did, but it didn’t erase the years between the two of you.

You desperately hated that nothing would. That even if this became ash, withered by the flames of rejection and despair, nothing would ever wash the mark Jack had branded into the flesh of your heart.

When assured you wouldn’t fight him, or try to argue, Jack turns you in his arms, chin tilted down to look into your eyes—remnants of tears made marks on your cheeks, painted red under your eyes. A mess of his own making, undone by the simple idea that he didn’t—or couldn’t—love you back like you did him. Sad, embarrassing, but the truth. One you were done running from.

Maybe there was no room in Jack’s life for you anymore. Maybe the past served only as a childhood bedroom he’d outgrown. Maybe Bianca and Brooke were right.

Losing Jack would be losing apart of yourself. For years, so many years, you’d built a fortress around your friendship, the mere idea of it being lost an unfathomable thing that made sickness swell in you. Now, it seemed so definite.

How could you explain your hurt, without telling him you loved him?

Simple answer: you couldn’t.

It was terrifying. Picturing the fall of Jack’s face, a defeated soldier, realizing he’d lost his closest friend to the claws of an unrequited love. A necessary death. One gun, two graves, burial of something you thought would be lifelong.

Jack’s shoulders sag. “I broke up with Brooke,” he restates. “I wasn’t lying. I wouldn’t—I’d never lie to you.”

You wish you could stop your lip from quivering, but you can’t. “So why was she at your apartment?”

“She showed up,” he responds, eyes darting, looking for answers he knew he wouldn’t find in the sorrowful lines of your face. “She—God, I don’t know. Something about grabbing clothes, or whatever, but then she answered the door and—”

Years of knowing Jack, yet you’d never seen him look as devastated as he did now. Not when the Devils got eliminated from the playoffs last year. Not when injuries cut his seasons short.

Somehow, that made it all the worse.

“I had no idea it was you,” he whispers. Cars blur by, capturing Jack momentarily in their headlights, the halo he’d always had—from everyone around us, worshiping at his alter. “If I had known… if I had known…”

Eyes falter a moment. From your watery gaze to your trembling lips. Heat blooms, such an inappropriate time for uncaged moths to eat at the lining of your stomach, but that was just what Jack did. Weathered every defense you had, bullet after bullet, finding the cracks in your armor even you hadn’t seen.

He always saw.

He always saw you.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Jack continues softly, a low sigh leaving him. “I know I did—I know things have been… weird between us lately, and I don’t know why. I—I just want to figure this all out. It feels like… I don’t know. Like I’m losing you.”

If any words could’ve effectively killed any fight left you had, it was those. You wanted to scream it was him—that he’d caused this, opened the rift that set you two across canyons, lit the fire under your bridge and left nothing but an empty ravine between the two of you, but how could he know any of that?

Jack didn’t know you loved him.

He didn’t know being around him wedged the knife deeper. Seeing him in love, devote himself to another in a way you wished he’d worship you, it only made it all the worse.

He deserved an answer. If this really ended it all, this night, unremarkable in every way other than its possible end, then he deserved to know why.

“I…” You stumble over your words a moment, blockade erecting in your throat. “It’s… hard, Jack.”

A lame response, but what more could you give? He’d taken every other piece of you.

Desperate eyes find yours. Hands follow, holding your cheeks with such delicacy you could’ve sobbed. “What is? I… I can’t fix it if you don’t tell me. You know I don’t want to lose this—you. So help me, give me something.”

The dam in my throat doesn’t stop the sob from falling out. “I don’t understand, Jack. Why do you keep trying? You’re different now—you… you’re this NHL golden boy. I’ve never met a person who didn’t like you. I just—I don’t get why I’m still the person you choose. It doesn’t make sense.”

Jack’s eyebrows crinkle. For a moment, he looks lost for words, tongue severed by your pleading blow. You weren’t sure what you wanted from him. To see realization dawn on him as he finally understood that this—this friendship—had overstayed its welcome, or reassurance, confirmation that no matter what happened, he’d never see you as anything less than his best friend.

And unfortunately—what started this whole mess—he’d never see you as more.

“What?” Jack shakes his head. “You don’t understand? You are my best friend. Time, money, whatever—that’s not changing that. Why the hell would I leave you behind because I’m some big-shot now?”

Couldn’t he see?

Something changed. When first he’d brought Brooke to you—when he’d gushed over their perfect first date and her perfect personality and perfect face, it all came to a halt. Because living in a world where Jack was tethered to another wasn’t one you wanted to live in, regardless of how selfish and pathetic and ignorant that made you sound.

You had always been Jack’s. He’d just never been yours.

“That’s—not my point,” you mumble, casting a glance at the stars, given light by the lack of clouds, sharing the sky with the new moon. “I’m sorry… for being distant, and not communicating. I’ve been dealing with… things.”

This conversation was devolving as time went on. You were desperately trying to avoid him digging to the root of this entire problem. Of why you’d been so hurt, of what you’d been dealing with, of why being near him made you want to tear your hair out.

Everyone saw it.

Everyone but him.

“What things?” Jack asks softly, thumb stroking the tear-tracks marred on my cheeks. “You know you can talk to me. About anything.”

You worry your lip between your teeth. Was it better to speak or take the the grave the one thing that you knew could kill any friendship between you? Choose dignity over cowardice? Safety over flames?

A pause, and then, “Why’d you break up with Brooke?”

Something flashes in Jack’s eyes, but he looks away. Hides, like always—Jack never was good with emotions, with vulnerability. He hated being picked apart, being read; but you always managed to.

“She…” he pauses, again finding your gaze. A click of bone accompanies his shifting jaw. “She said some things. About you.”

Not a shock. Brooke, for good reason, hated you since the moment she met you. Competition, another star that shone bright enough to capture attention—there was no reassurance you could ever give.

Still, she’d always seemed smarter than Jack’s other exes. Clearly, she knew of where you ranked in his life, an untouchable position if scraped would lead to consequences. Over the years, you’d seen it all—girlfriends, friends, all severed from his life because of a disparaging comment about you. That was one thing Jack had never tolerated.

Brooke kept her mouth shut about you. Until now, apparently. And it cost her Jack. Sick satisfaction wells in you like a wave, a reminder that you were important to Jack—even if not in the way you wanted.

The unfurling of your assumed truth of the situation gave clarity—but questions remained.

“So I broke up with her,” Jack mutters, the casual tone doing more harm for your delusions than good. Shouldn’t he be more upset? “I’m not going to let people talk about you like that.”

He confessed.

It was your turn.

The possibility of years of friendship toppling because of a single sentence, a confession you’d never intended to make public, it felt like an axe looming above your head, awaiting the words to cut the rope.

You breathed, deeply. Maybe the last time you’d ever share the same air as Jack, heat mingled with his own, a different form of home you’d never again find in a person.

You wouldn’t just be losing your best friend, but a possibility—a what-if, a maybe. Someone who, had the circumstances been different, could’ve given you his heart. But it’d never be yours—a small piece, never fully branded, never fully claimed.

“These past few days, since the dinner, I’ve been… considering some stuff.” Vague, too cryptic, but I couldn’t reveal my hand yet, even if everyone else at the table had already seen it but Jack. “I really care about you. I cherish our friendship more than anything, really, I do… but, I just don’t think it’s—good for me anymore.”

Disbelief paints a desperate picture on Jack’s streetlamp-lit face.

Pain rends you. The words already flew—a perfectly notched arrow sent straight for Jack’s heart. Target struck, perfect aim. Truth laid in your words; it wasn’t good for you, because you loved Jack, and it was ruining your life. You’d never brush love-imbued fingers across his face, never capture his lips, never capture his heart. People before you had—proven it could be done; yet, never did your turn come. Because it was never meant to.

Jack steps back.

“You—” Thrice again he tries to speak, each time words fail him. Fingers graze through his hair, a stress tick. The last thing you wanted was to hurt Jack.

In complete honesty, you hadn’t figured he’d be so… distraught. After all, it seemed a mutual fade away, one everyone figured was coming. Desertion of the past to build a future, tossing away that childhood shirt that no longer fit quite right.

What you forgot? Those people, the ones claiming Jack had outgrown you, they weren’t him.

Because with the way he looked now, the last thing he wanted was to let you walk away.

“Not good for you?” he asks, voice so soft, it barely carries over the wind. Jersey was freezing this time of year, an unfortunate somber sight that fell victim to winter like the leaves and foliage. “Are you—did I do something? Did I hurt you? Is it the whole Brooke thing? If it is I can fix it, I’ll make it up to you—”

“No,” you whisper. “You didn’t, Jack. It’s just…”

Years of loving him.

Years of pining. Of wanting. Of hoping.

Diaries with his name scribbled beside yours. Hopes of returning to your high school reunion, his hand in mine, the whispers of your once-classmates, confirming that everyone knew it would be you and him—the only way it could ever go.

Hands that built those fantasies were, at present, trying to tear them down. You weren’t sure why you felt so destructive, why burning the friendship instead of simply trying to salvage what was left, even if it was little, seemed a better out.

You looked at Jack. Traced the curves of his face and lips with admiration—something you’d always hid, did when he couldn’t possibly catch the gleam of your eyes, but now, you couldn’t find the shame. If this was the end, if your words really did send down the axe, so be it.

At least it wouldn’t be something you’d be buried alongside, taking up your coffin.

“I love you,” it comes out weak, too shaky, too raw. “It’s ruining my life.”

There could only be so many blows before a heart stopped beating.

You expected repulsion.

You expected Jack to flinch back, the force of your words—ones he’d never want to hear from his best friend—would make him turn tail and run, the vulnerability cutting far too deep.

You’d told him you loved him before, under the guise of friendship, nothing more. But you meant it differently now, and he knew that.

What you hadn’t expected was for Jack’s lips to part, contemplatively looking down at you. As if matched with a puzzle he couldn’t quite figure out.

The moment spanned—left uncertainties it its wake. Was he trying to search for a way to let you down easy? To save face, save your feelings, because even if he didn’t love you, he still cared?

It seemed your answer would never come, until it did.

“You love me,” he repeats, tasting the words. A slow smile comes on his face—not conniving, not plotting. Content. “You love me?”

That was all he got from that?

A slow nod.

What was he getting at?

“I—yes?” you murmur, eyebrows furrowing.

Where was the rejection, the one you’d built yourself up for? The pitiful smile of a person who just didn’t feel the same? For better or worse, it was nowhere to be found. Instead, there was that grin, the one that brought soft dimples to his face.

“I—and it’s… ruining your life?” Jack says, keeping his tone low.

In the streetlight’s glow, he almost looks watercolor—made human by hopes, made yours by want. Cars pass, unaware of the scene playing out on some deserted strip of sidewalk outside long-closed shoppes.

If you looked up now, you could almost see the stars wink at you.

“You… you don’t feel the same,” you respond, as if already convinced of some feeling he himself hadn’t disclosed. “And that’s fine. It is, Jack, really. I get it, y’know? I just—don’t want this to be weird between us because it already is and—”

Hands tilt your face—callous, warm, home. The gentle brush of fingers weathered yours cheeks time and time before, yet different now, tender in a way they hadn’t been before. Words died on your tongue, muffled only then by the gentle press of Jack’s lips. A moment to register, one to hold your breath. Cataclysmic—yet contained, no supernova to explode your body. As if coming back from a long war, he kissed you—kept you close, spoke millions of words in a single action.

Perceived slights, idealized rejection—none of it was real. Fabricated in my head like so many things, brought to life by other people’s words, people who couldn’t have ever known the depth Jack cared for you.

Childhood wasn’t a burden. It wasn’t something to outgrow. Neither were you.

He’d never outgrown you. He’s grown with you, side by side, rooted in the same crack of concrete. Even with the years, the diverging paths that kept your lives on different sides, Jack never let you go—because he’d never wanted to.

It wasn’t a matter of pity. Of concern on how to let you down easy.

Together, you’d navigated childhood. High school. Adult life. And now… it seemed, love.

Finally, Jack pulls away. Lips painted in his saliva, you look up at him, wide-eyed, made once more that schoolgirl who foolishly vied for his attention, that couldn’t understand why he was her friend. Now, you couldn’t understand why he kissed you.

“Well, it’ll definitely be weird now,” he laughs softly. Even now, he could joke—with pink cheeks and wet lips and hazy eyes. “Because I don’t think I can be your friend either.”

Thumbs brush your cheeks. Red rises in their wake.

You were a fool—but not for the reasons you’d presumed earlier. Not because you’d loved someone who didn’t love you back, because you assumed he never could. No… now you were a fool for ever thinking he didn’t. That other people knew Jack better than you.

His forehead finds yours.

A heat that’d always been him. Jack. Your best friend. Your home.

“I love you,” he whispers back, a promise, one years in the making, imbued with the comfort of distant memories and fantasies that once only lived in my dreamscapes.

A chuckle slips from Jack. Held in his arms, in the middle of the sidewalk, full view of prying eyes and listening ears—yet all you cared about were his words. His oaths, that once felt impossible to comprehend.

Love that wasn’t platonic.

Touches that didn’t spell friendship.

“You’re ruining my life, too,” he says, a kiss pressing to the top of your head, crowning you with a love you’d reached for endlessly. “But for very different reasons.”

Sometimes, love isn’t unrequited.

It’s just unsaid.