#sturnsat

The thing about being sick is that it gives you permission to disappear. Those first three days, the flu was real. Body aches that made your bones feel like they'd been replaced with glass, a cough that rattled around your chest, fever dreams that blurred the edges of wakefulness. You couldn't have answered your phone if you'd wanted to. But the last two days? Those were something else. Something heavier. The physical sickness had burned itself out, leaving behind only the emotional exhaustion, the kind that made getting out of bed feel like climbing a mountain.

So you stayed under the covers. True crime documentaries played on a loop, Forensic Files, Unsolved Mysteries, anything where the bodies dropped and nobody fell in love. You curated your Netflix queue with surgical precision. No rom-coms. No period dramas. No couples gazing at each other across candlelit dinners. Just grit. Just terrible stuff. Just the cold, clinical distance of narrators describing crime scenes.

It helped, mostly.

Except when it didn't. Except when you'd be staring at a reenactment of a convenience store robbery and suddenly you'd feel it, the phantom press of his mouth on your neck, the way his fingers had curled around your waist under the shower spray. The memory would hit like a gut punch, visceral and unwanted, and you'd have to physically shake your head to dislodge it. No. Stop. We're not doing this right now. You'd press play again, crank the volume, let some forensic expert explain blood spatter patterns until your brain quieted down.

By day five, you're done.

Not healed. Not okay. But done rotting in your own filth. You strip the bed with methodical fury, sheets balled up and shoved into the laundry basket, pillowcases peeled off, the whole room aired out with windows thrown wide to the afternoon breeze. You find an old candle shoved in the back of your closet, something vanilla-scented you bought on impulse at Target, and light it. The flame flickers, then steadies. The air shifts from stale-sick to something softer.

The box. You almost forgot.

Your hands find it before your brain catches up, muscle memory guiding you to the closet's darkest corner where it sits beneath an old folded blanket. You don't open it. You can't. Instead you push it deeper—behind a stack of board games, behind a forgotten duffel bag, behind everything you won't need for a long, long time. If you can't see it, it doesn't exist. That's the logic you're working with.

The shower is scalding. You stand under the spray until the hot water runs out, scrubbing your skin raw, washing five days of sickness off your body. When you step out, the mirror is fogged completely white. You don't wipe it clean. You don't want to see your own face right now.

You pull on the first thing you find, a massive, oversized t-shirt that hangs past your thighs, the fabric soft and faded from years of washing. Black boyshorts underneath. That's it. You don't bother with real clothes. There's no one to see you.

Headphones in. Lorde's Pure Heroine floods your ears, the track "Ribs" hitting exactly the way it always does, that ache of growing up, of feeling everything too much, of wanting to go back to a time before you knew what it felt like to be touched by someone who doesn't love you back. You flop onto your freshly-made bed, stomach down, arms tucked under the pillow. The bass thrums through your skull. You close your eyes.

This is fine. This is surviving. This is—

A sliver of light cuts across your eyelids.

You open one eye. The bedroom door is cracked open, your mom's face hovering in the gap. She's got that look—the one that means don't be mad, I did something you're going to hate. You slide the headphones down around your neck, Lorde still shrilly and distant through the speakers.

"You're feeling better?" your mom asks, her voice carrying that particular maternal mix of relief and scrutiny. "And you're decent?"

You nod against the pillow. "Yeah. What's up?"

She doesn't answer. She just smiles, too bright, too innocent. Then she swings the door fully open.

Nick walks through first. Then Chris, already spinning toward your computer chair like it's been assigned to him since birth. And behind them, framed in the doorway like a photograph you didn't ask to take—

Matt.

Your stomach drops. Then tightens. Then drops again, a sick elevator sensation that makes your fingers curl into the bedsheets.

He's let his beard grow. That's the first thing you notice. It's not long, just enough to darken his jaw, to make him look older, rougher, like he's been sleeping as badly as you have. He's wearing a simple black t-shirt and jeans, hands shoved in his pockets, shoulders slightly hunched. He still looks achingly handsome. His eyes find yours immediately. They don't look away.

You sit up too fast. The room spins for half a second. You tug the hem of the t-shirt down, hyper-aware of how little you're wearing, of the bare skin of your thighs against the comforter.

Nick settles onto the mattress beside you, casual as anything, like this is a normal visit and not an ambush. Chris claims the computer chair, spinning it once before planting his feet. Matt doesn't move from the doorway. He leans against the frame, arms crossed, watching.

"What's up girl," Nick says. No preamble. Just the words, flat and pointed.

"We called your mom," Chris adds, swiveling the chair slightly. "You know, like concerned citizens. She told us you were actually sick, so we came straight over."

"I'm fine," you say. The words come out scratchy. You clear your throat. "Just recovering. It was just a flu."

"A flu that makes you ignore seventeen texts?" Chris raises an eyebrow. "Is that a symptom now? Textphobia? Because I feel like that's not in the CDC guidelines."

"I read somewhere that being on your phone while you're sick makes you sicker."

The lie falls out of your mouth before you can stop it, flimsy and transparent. Nick stares at you. Chris stares at you. Then they both crack up, Nick's laugh a sharp bark, Chris doubling over in the chair so hard it squeaks.

"That's—" Nick wheezes, "that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard."

"Literal nonsense," Chris agrees, wiping his eyes. "Medical misinformation. I'm reporting you to the FDA."

"It's true," you insist, but you're almost smiling now, the familiar rhythm of their teasing pulling you out of your own head. "It's like... the blue light. And the radiation. Or something."

"The radiation," Nick repeats, deadpan. He turns to Chris. "She's been watching too many conspiracy documentaries."

"I've been watching true crime," you correct. "Completely different genre."

"Oh, well, that's fine then. Nothing mentally damaging about five days of murder." Nick bumps your shoulder with his. "You sure you're okay now? For real?"

"Fully recovered. Today's the first day I actually feel human."

Chris gestures grandly at the room. "Good thing, too. Another day and we would've had to break down the door. You could've died and we wouldn't have even known."

"You would've known eventually. The smell would've tipped you off."

Nick snorts. Chris grins. The three of you fall into the old rhythm—that easy back-and-forth, the call-and-response of inside jokes and comfortable silences. Nick tells you about the video they filmed yesterday, some chaotic challenge that ended with Chris accidentally breaking a lamp. Chris defends himself loudly, blaming the lamp's "structural integrity" and Nick's "aggressive energy." You laugh. It feels rusty. It feels good.

Through all of it, Matt says nothing.

He's still by the door. Still watching. His eyes track the conversation like he's observing something through glass, present but removed, a satellite orbiting the room. Every now and then your gaze flicks toward him, involuntary, magnetic. And every time he's already looking at you. The silence between you is a living thing, breathing in the corner, waiting.

Nick stands, stretching his arms above his head. "We should probably go. Let you get more rest."

"Yeah, yeah." You wave a hand. "I'll be back to normal by tomorrow. Promise."

"Define normal," Chris says, rising from the chair. "Because your normal was already questionable."

"Get out of my house."

"Wow. Rude."

They're moving toward the door, Nick reaching for the handle, when Matt's voice cuts through.

"You guys go ahead."

The words are quiet. Steady. They land in the center of the room and everything stops.

Matt pushes off the doorframe, finally stepping fully inside. "I'm gonna stay for a bit. Make sure she's okay."

Nick and Chris exchange a look. It's quick, barely a flicker, but you catch it. Nick's eyebrows lift a fraction. Chris's mouth twists into something that's almost a smirk but not quite. They know something. Or they suspect something. Or they're just confused, and confusion on their faces looks suspicious by default.

"Sure," Nick says, drawing the word out. "Yeah. Cool. We'll, uh. See you at home."

"Text us," Chris adds, pointing at you. "Or I'm calling your mom again."

They leave. The door clicks shut.

You're sitting on the edge of the bed, back to the door, facing the window. The afternoon light is starting to turn golden, that pre-sunset glow that makes everything look softer than it is. You don't turn around. You can't. If you look at him right now, something inside you will crack.

Behind you, the rustle of sheets. The mattress dips. He's climbing onto the bed from the opposite side, moving slow, deliberate, like he's approaching something that might bolt. You feel him settle behind you, his body a wall of warmth at your back, and then his legs are spreading wide to frame your hips and his arms are wrapping around your waist.

Tight. Secure. His chest presses against your spine. His chin drops onto your shoulder, the weight of it heavy and familiar, and the first thing you register is the scratch of his beard against the sensitive skin of your neck. The second thing is his breath. Warm, steady, ghosting across your collarbone.

Your entire body locks up. Every muscle. Every nerve. You're a statue in his arms, rigid and unbreathing.

"You look cute in my shirt," he murmurs.

The words are soft, almost teasing, but there's an undercurrent to them. Something heavier. You glance down at the faded fabric stretched across your thighs and the realization hits you all over again. His shirt. You've had this shirt for a while now. It smells like your detergent now, not his cologne, but it's still his. The logo on the chest, some band you've never listened to, is cracked and peeling.

You don't answer. You can't find your voice.

Silence stretches. The kind that's too thick, too loaded, threatening to suffocate. His thumb moves against your waist, a small absent-minded circle, and the touch burns through the thin cotton.

"I'm sorry," he says.

Two words. Simple. They hang in the air between you like a held breath.

Your mind goes into overdrive, spiraling in a dozen directions at once. Sorry for what? For the shower? Sorry for what? Does he know you were jealous? Does he know how badly it broke you that he went to hang out with the girl he likes right after taking you in his bathroom? Does he know? Does he know about the box under the blankets in the closet? Does he know about the letters, the notes, the tear-stained notebook page?

Your voice comes out steadier than you feel. "Sorry for what?"

He shifts behind you. His arms tighten fractionally.

"First," he says, low and careful, "for getting you sick. We shouldn't have stood out there in the rain for so long. That was stupid."

The knot in your chest loosens slightly. You swallow. "It wasn't your fault."

Another pause. Longer this time. You feel him take a breath, his chest expanding against your back, and when he speaks again his voice is different. Cracked at the edges. Raw.

"And... I'm sorry for what happened."

The knot retightens. Harder.

"I didn't know how," he continues, stumbling over the words. "It just... it felt right. At the moment. In the moment. I don't know." His chin presses deeper into your shoulder, his lips brushing the curve of your neck. "I'm sorry if I took advantage of our friendship. You're my best friend, and I crossed a boundary, and I—"

His voice breaks. You feel it vibrate against your skin.

"I'm sorry if I wasn't able to control myself."

Your eyes sting. The anger is still there, the fury from the notebook, the desperate scrawl of I'm done that's buried somewhere in your desk drawer, but it's muffled now, smothered under the weight of him. Under the exhaustion of being sick and sad and furious for days. Under the heat of his arms wrapped around your waist like you're something precious he's afraid of losing.

You let your head fall back against his shoulder. The fight drains out of you in a single exhale.

"Matt," you whisper. A warning. A plea. You're not even sure which.

He doesn't answer with words. His arms tighten, pulling you closer, and then his face is burying into the crook of your neck and his lips are pressing against the spot just above your collarbone. A kiss. Soft. Lingering. His beard rasps against your skin and you shiver, involuntary, your hands coming up to grip his forearms.

"I am sorry," he murmurs against your throat, "but I don't regret anything."

Your heart stops. Starts again. Double time.

His hand moves from your hip, sliding up, cupping the side of your face. His palm is warm, the same hand that pulled you out of the pool and fixed your collar and held yours in the rain. He turns your face toward him, gentle but insistent, and then you're looking at each other.

His eyes are dark. Close. There's a vulnerability in them you've never seen before, something unguarded, almost frightened, like he's standing on the edge of something and doesn't know if there's water below.

You kiss him.

Or maybe he kisses you. It doesn't matter. What matters is his mouth on yours, the way his lips part and yours answer, the familiar taste of him flooding your senses. It's slower than the rain kiss. Deeper. There's no storm to blame this time, no adrenaline, no excuse. Just the two of you on your bed, his hand still cupping your face, his other arm still wrapped around your waist.

This is happening again. How is this happening again.

Your mind screams the question but your body doesn't care. Your body is arching into him, your hand reaching back to tangle in his hair, your mouth opening under his with a sigh that sounds embarrassingly like surrender.

His hands move. He was under your shirt. Fingers splaying across your stomach, sliding up, up, until he's cupping your breasts. His palms are hot, his thumbs finding your nipples and brushing across them in slow, deliberate circles. They stiffen under his touch, pebbling against his skin, and you gasp into his mouth. He swallows the sound.

His tongue traces your bottom lip. You press back against him, your spine curving, and that's when you feel it—the hard length of him through his jeans, pressing against your lower back. He groans, low and rough, the sound vibrating against your throat.

Your hand reaches back. Finds him. Your fingers curl around the shape of him through the denim and he jerks, his hips pressing forward into your touch. He's breathing harder now, his lips leaving yours to trail down your jaw, your neck, his beard leaving a burning trail in its wake.

His other hand slides down. Past your ribs. Past your navel. He is so close to finding out how wet you actually already is. His fingers now brushing the waistband of your boyshorts, teasing the elastic, dipping just beneath—

"Sweetheart!"

Your mother's voice shatters the room like a stone through glass.

"Food's ready for you guys! Come down!"

You jump. Actually jump, your body separating from his like opposite ends of a magnet, and suddenly you're standing at the foot of the bed with your heart slamming against your ribs and your shirt rucked up around your hips. Your face is on fire. Your lips are swollen. You can still feel the pressure of his hands on your breasts.

Matt is still on the bed. He's propped up on his elbows, looking at you with an expression that's half amusement and half something darker, something that makes your stomach flip.

He's smiling.

"We should probably go down," you manage, your voice high and breathless.

He swings his legs off the bed. Stands. Adjusts his jeans in a way that makes your eyes look away. "Yeah," he says, and there's a laugh hiding in the word. "Probably."

Downstairs, you are surprised to see Nick and Chris are already at the table. They're still here. Your mom is setting out plates of something that smells like garlic and comfort. Nick looks up when you enter, his mouth curving into a smirk. "There they are."

"Your mom told us she was making food, so we stayed," Chris explains, already reaching for a bread roll. He glances between you and Matt, and his expression shifts. Calculating. "You two are weirdos, though. Who just hangs out in the quiet?"

Matt claps him on the back harder than necessary. "Shut up and eat."

You slide into a chair, still trembling, still tasting him on your tongue. Your mom asks if you're feeling better. You nod. You smile. You perform normalcy with every ounce of acting ability you possess.

And Matt sits across from you, eating your mother's cooking, laughing at Chris's jokes, and every now and then his eyes find yours across the table and your chest seizes all over again.

An hour later, the front door closes behind them.

You stand in the entryway for a long moment, staring at the wood grain, your bare feet cold against the floor. The house is quiet again. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that lets your thoughts get loud.

You walk back to your room on autopilot. Close the door. Turn the lock, the same lock he turned earlier, the click of it still echoing somewhere in the back of your mind. Your study desk is waiting for you like it knows.

You sit down. Grab the pen. Start writing.

Matt, My heart was beating so hard against my ribs I was terrified you'd feel it through my shirt.

The words come faster now, your handwriting messy and urgent, the pen scratching across the paper like it's trying to keep up with something that's sprinting ahead.

When my mom called us from downstairs and you just sat there smiling at me, your lips still swollen from kissing me, your beard scratching my skin. I wanted to scream. Chris called us weirdos for sitting up here in the quiet, but they have no idea. Nobody has any idea that the entire room still smelled like you.

You pause. Breathe. The pen hovers.

They don't know that my skin was burning exactly where your hands had just crawled under my shirt. We sat at the table and shared the food my mom made, acting like normal, while my body was still trembling from the way you squeezed me.

You said you don't regret anything. You looked me right in the eyes and said it like it was that simple. But it isn't simple for me.

Your hand is shaking. You keep writing.

Best friends don't do that, Matt. Best friends don't lock bedroom doors. They don't frame your body with theirs, or press against you until you can feel how hard they are, or make you reach for them in the dark. They don't fuck and shower together.

I'm terrified that I'm going to regret this. I'm terrified that if we keep blurring these lines, I'm going to lose you completely, and the friendship we've built for years will just turn into a mistake we try to forget. And the worst part—the absolute scariest part—is that even knowing how badly this could end, when you tilted my face up... I didn't want you to stop.

The pen presses so hard the ink bleeds.

I let myself be fragile. I let you get away with it, and I'd probably let you do it again right now.

❤️ Little Miss Fragile

You set the pen down.

The letter sits on the desk, ink still glossy, words still hanging in the air like a confession you'll never make. Outside the window, the sky is deepening to purple, the first stars pricking through the dusk. Somewhere across the neighborhood, Matt is walking into his house with his brothers, probably already fielding questions from Nick, probably already deflecting.

And you are here. Alone. Again.

The box is still in the closet, buried under everything you used to hide it. You'll add this letter to it later, fold it carefully, tuck it in with the napkins and the notebook pages and the years of things you've never said. For now, you just sit at your desk, the silence pressing in, your lips still swollen, your skin still burning.

You don't cry.

You don't do anything at all.

-----

You freeze.

He's reading. His eyes move across the page of the letter in his hands, crumpled notebook paper, the ink slightly smeared where your hand dragged through it years ago, and his voice carries the words into the dark like a confession.

"You didn't even notice me across the room. You were too busy watching her. And I was too busy watching you watch her, memorizing the way your smile crinkled your eyes, the way your thumb rubbed the edge of your glass, the way you leaned into her space like gravity had shifted and she was the new center of your universe."

The letter. You know which one it is. The night of Chris's birthday party, two years ago, when Matt spent the whole evening with a girl with jet black hair and a laugh like wind chimes. You'd worn a blue dress, the only nice thing you owned at the time, and he'd said "You look nice" without ever really looking. You went home and wrote seven pages. Seven. Front and back. The ink had bled through to the other side.

Matt reads the last line aloud, his voice cracking on the final syllable.

"I keep telling myself that someday you'll see the girl in front of you. But I've been saying that for years, and I'm starting to think I'm invisible."

The letter drops.

His fingers release the page like it's burned him. It flutters to the floor, landing among the others, and his hands come up to cover his face. His shoulders hitch. The amber light catches the tear tracks glittering on his cheeks, the wetness in his beard, the way his jaw clenches and unclenches like he's trying to chew through something too big for his mouth.

He doesn't look angry.

That's the worst part. Anger you could handle. You could deflect anger, match it, throw it back at him like a weapon. But this, the devastation carved into every line of his face, the guilt that seems to be physically crushing him into the floorboards, this you don't know what to do with.

"I was just looking for a blanket."

His voice is barely a whisper. His hands drop from his face, and his eyes finally lift to meet yours. The contact is a physical blow. Your stomach knots.

"You were shivering." He says it like an apology. Like an explanation. Like a defense he's already given up on. "In your sleep. You were shivering, and I didn't want to wake you, so I got up to find another blanket. In the closet. The top shelf. I wasn't—" His voice breaks. He swallows. "I wasn't snooping. I wasn't trying to find anything. My hand just caught on the corner of the box when I reached for the shelf and it all came down and I saw my name and I—"

He stops. Breathes. His hands are trembling again.

"I'm sorry."

The words hang in the air. Small. Inadequate. A pebble thrown into an ocean.

You can't speak. Your throat is locked. Your tongue is a dead weight in your mouth. You're frozen in the bed, the sheets pulled up to your chest, your bare shoulders exposed to the cool air, and all you can do is stare at him—at the wreckage of him—and try to remember how to form words.

He doesn't wait for your response.

His hands move. Slow at first, then faster. He gathers the scattered letters, stacking them with a care that seems almost reverent. The one he dropped—the one with seven pages and smeared ink—gets folded along its original creases. Another, the angry scrawl from the night he left your room after the flu, gets tucked into its own creased folds. One by one, he places them back into the box.

You watch.

You can't do anything else.

"This." His voice comes out strangled. "All of this. All these years. You were—" He can't finish. His hands pause over the box, trembling. "You helped me. Every time. Every girl. You proofread my messages. You told me what to say. You smiled and hyped me up while I was—" A sound tears from his throat. Not quite a sob. Something sharper. "While I was destroying you."

Your lips part. Nothing comes out.

"I don't—" He shakes his head. His hands resume their work, placing the last of the letters into the box, closing the lid with careful, deliberate pressure. "I don't know how to fix this. I don't know if I can."

He stands.

The movement is shaky, unsteady, his legs clearly stiff from being sat on the floor. He's still wearing only his boxers, his chest bare, the skin you'd clawed hours ago now marked with faint red lines. The lamplight catches the curve of his shoulder, the dip of his waist, the vulnerability he never shows anyone.

He crosses to the nightstand.

The heavy metal spare key. The one your mom gave the triplets years ago. It's been sitting there since he let himself in, a silent accusation. He picks it up. The metal clinks against the wood.

And then he sets it down. Deliberately. Carefully. Right beside the lamp, so you'll see it the moment you wake.

So you'll know.

"I'm sorry," he says again, his voice scraping through the quiet room as he bends down to scoop his shirt from the floor. He jerks it over his head, the movement tight and stiff. "For everything. For tonight. For what we—for what I—"

Another swallow. Another crack. He reaches for his pants, shoving his legs into it with a rough, defensive finality.

"You were vulnerable. You were upset," he continues, his voice steadier now. Emptier. He doesn’t look at you as he picks up his jacket, his fingers trembling against the sleeves. "And I just—I came in here and I—"

He can't say it. Can't put words to what happened hours ago—the confrontation, the confession, the frantic sex that followed. He hooks the heavy metal spare key from the nightstand and sets it down flat with a soft, definitive click, relinquishing his access to your space.

"I shouldn't have," he whispers, grabbing his sneakers and backing toward the door. "Not after reading those. Not after knowing. I should've just left."

He stops. His hand drops from the key. He doesn't look at you.

"Take the key. It's yours. I don't deserve it."

And then he leaves.

The door doesn't slam. It clicks shut, soft and final, and then there's just the sound of his footsteps in the hallway. The front door opening. Closing. The distant rumble of an engine turning over.

Then silence.

Pure, absolute silence.

You don't sleep.

You don't move. For hours, you don't move. You lie in the tangled sheets, staring at the ceiling, your body a foreign thing that someone else inhabited hours ago. The letters. The box. The key on the nightstand, gleaming in the lamplight like a dare.

He knows. He knows everything. Every thought, every fantasy, every pathetic, desperate admission you've ever scribbled onto paper. The anger, the want, the jealousy, the hope. The letter from the night after the rainstorm, the one that ended with I'm done, the tear that smeared the ink. The letter from the night of the villa, I hope my face is the only thing you see in the dark. All of it.

He knows.

And he left.

The sun rises pale and gray through the half-drawn curtains. You watch the light change, watch the shadows shift across the floor, watch the empty space beside you remain stubbornly, impossibly empty. Your phone lies on the nightstand, face-down. You don't check it. You can't.

When you finally drag yourself out of bed, it's nearly noon.

The box is still there. On the floor by the closet. Closed now, the lid pressed down, everything neatly tucked away. Matt did that. Even in his devastation, he was careful with your secrets. He put them back exactly where they belonged.

Your body moves on autopilot. Shower. Clothes—an old hoodie, the softest one you own, the one that smells like nothing but laundry detergent and loneliness. You don't brush your hair. You don't look in the mirror. You shuffle to the kitchen, pour a glass of water you don't drink, and stand at the counter staring at nothing.

Your phone stays face-down.

The first text comes at 1:07 PM.

Chelsea: You alive? Gus said you were radio silent. Brunch was epic tho. Call me when you're conscious.

You stare at the screen. The words blur. You type back something brief, something meaningless—I'm fine, just tired, talk later—and then you turn the phone over again.

The second text comes at 2:43 PM.

August: Hey. Just checking in. Chelsea's worried. I'm worried. You good?

You don't answer.

The third text comes at 3:15 PM. It's not from Chelsea or August.

Chris: yo you alive?? matt's been a nightmare all morning. locked himself in his room. won't talk to anyone. we were supposed to film today. did something happen at the party??

The phone slips from your fingers. Lands on the couch cushion. You stare at the screen until it goes dark.

He's locked himself in his room. Refusing to talk. Being a nightmare.

The words circle your brain like vultures. He's not ignoring you out of anger. He's not pretending nothing happened. He's hiding. Just like you. Just like you've both always hidden, from each other, from yourselves, from whatever this thing is that's been burning between you for years.

You think about calling him. You think about texting. Your thumb hovers over his name—Matt—and you can see the last messages from before all of this, before the rainstorm and the villa and the letters, when you were still his safe, comfortable friend who gave him advice about other girls.

You can't do it.

The day stretches on. Gray afternoon light bleeds into gray evening light. Your mom comes home from her weekly grocery run, calls out a greeting, and you respond with something automatic. She doesn't notice the cracks. She never does.

You eat dinner. Or you sit at the table while food is in front of you. Same thing.

The phone stays silent. No texts from Matt. No calls. Nothing.

You go to bed. The sheets are cold. The pillow still smells faintly of him.

You don't sleep.

Monday morning. Sunlight. The ceiling. Dust motes floating in the golden beam cutting through the curtains. Your body feels like it's been hollowed out and filled with lead. Every movement takes deliberate effort. Every thought is a weight you have to drag behind you.

The key is still on the nightstand.

Your phone is still empty of him.

Another text from Chris. Seriously what is going ON. Matt's like a zombie. Nick won't tell me anything. Are you guys fighting???

You type back: I don't know.

It's the most honest thing you've said in days.

Tuesday passes in the same gray haze. You don't leave the house. You don't answer calls. Chelsea leaves a voicemail—"Okay, seriously, you're scaring me. Call me back or I'm sending August over there with snacks and questions"—and you text her some excuse about a migraine. August sends a string of emojis that you assume are meant to be supportive.

Nothing from Matt.

Nothing from Nick, either, which is almost worse. Nick always knows. Nick notices everything. The fact that he's been silent means he's either respecting your privacy or completely in the dark about what happened, and you're not sure which option is more terrifying.

Wednesday morning.

You wake up and something has shifted. The numbness has curdled into something sharper. Not anger, not yet, but a desperate, clawing need to fix this. To bridge the gap before it becomes a canyon. To salvage whatever scraps of your friendship might still be intact.

You reach for your phone. For a long moment, you stare at his name. Matt.

Your thumb presses the call button before you can stop yourself. It rings. Once. Twice. Three times.

Voicemail.

You hang up.

The terror that floods your system is immediate and paralyzing. He's avoiding you. He saw your name on the screen and let it ring. He doesn't want to talk to you. He's done. He's completely done. You've lost him. You've lost everything.

Your fingers are shaking as you scroll through your contacts. You need to talk to someone. You need to tell someone. You can't carry this alone anymore, can't keep it locked in your chest like another unsent letter, another secret burning a hole through your ribs.

Nick.

He picks up on the first ring.

"Hey." His voice is cautious. Curious. Not surprised, exactly, but guarded. "Everything okay?"

"No." The word cracks down the middle. "No, Nick. Everything is not okay. I need—can you—are you busy? Can you come over? Please? I need to—I have to tell someone—"

"Whoa. Hey. Slow down." The caution in his voice shifts to something firmer. Something protective. "I'm not busy. I'll be there in ten minutes. Just breathe."

He hangs up before you can thank him.

Nine minutes later—you count—the doorbell rings.

Nick is standing on your porch in his usual effortless uniform: dark jeans, a crisp t-shirt, his hair perfectly tousled like he just rolled out of bed looking like a magazine spread. But his eyes are serious. Focused. The way they get when something actually matters.

"Hey," he says again. Softer this time.

"Hey." You step aside to let him in.

The room is a mess. Blankets draped over the floor. Empty water glasses on the bedside table. The remnants of three days of barely functioning. Nick doesn't comment on it. He just sits on the bed, rests his elbows on his knees, and waits.

You sit opposite him. For a long moment, neither of you speaks.

"He found the letters."

The words fall out of you. Simple. Direct. No preamble.

Nick's eyebrows lift. "Letters?"

"The box." Your voice is steadier than you expected. "The box on my closet. The one with—" A breath. "With years of letters. To him. Unsent. Every thought, every feeling, every pathetic fantasy I've ever had about him. All of it. He found it."

Nick doesn't say anything. His expression doesn't change. But his eyes—those sharp, calculating eyes—are working overtime.

"When?" he asks.

"After the party. After I came home with August. He was here." You swallow. "He'd let himself in with the spare key. He saw me with August and he—he lost it. We fought. We yelled. He said—" You can't repeat it. You're mine. It feels too raw, too private, too precious. "And then we—"

"Okay." Nick holds up a hand. "I don't need the details of that part."

"Nothing happened." The lie is automatic. "I mean—nothing that—we just—" You stop. Take a breath. "He found the box while I was asleep. He read them. All of them maybe, I'm not really sure. And then he left. He hasn't spoken to me since. He won't answer my calls. Chris says he's locked himself in his room and won't talk to anyone."

The silence stretches.

Nick leans back against the headboard of your bed. His gaze drifts toward the window, toward the gray morning light filtering through the curtains. When he speaks again, his voice is quieter.

"God, that explains why he's been so incredibly cranky the past few days. He's been locked in his room since the party. Refusing to talk. Refusing to eat. Chris tried to drag him out for a video shoot and he just—" Nick shakes his head. "Nothing. Wouldn't even open the door."

"He hates me."

"He doesn't hate you." Nick's response is immediate. Certain. "He's terrified. There's a difference."

"Terrified of what?"

"Of losing you. Of what he did. Of what you wrote in those letters, probably." Nick's eyes find yours again. "How long?"

You blink. "How long what?"

"How long have you been in love with him?"

The question lands somewhere in your chest. It's the first time anyone has said it out loud. The first time the word love has been spoken in relation to you and Matt by anyone other than yourself, scribbled frantically onto paper in the dark.

"Years," you whisper. "Since the beginning. I liked him since I can remember. I don't even know when it started. It just—was. It's always been there."

Nick nods. Slow. Thoughtful. "And you never told him."

"Every time I tried, he'd show me someone new. Some girl he was into. Some dream girl he was too scared to DM. And I'd look at them—polished, confident, everything I'm not—and I'd think, what's the point? He doesn't see me like that. I'm just—" Your voice catches. "I'm just the safe one. The comfortable one. The best friend who helps him write messages to other girls."

"Until the villa."

"Until the villa."

Nick is quiet for a moment. Then he leans forward, elbows on his knees, and fixes you with a look that's softer than his usual sharp assessment.

"For what it's worth," he says, "I've never seen him look at anyone the way he looks at you. Not ever. Not even close."

Your throat tightens. "Then why did he leave?"

"Because he's an idiot. Because he feels guilty. Because he just found out that the person he cares about most in the world has been silently breaking her own heart for years because of him." Nick's voice is gentle but firm. "That's a lot to process."

"Or maybe he's just done. Maybe he realized this isn't worth it. The drama. The letters. Whatever this is." You gesture vaguely between yourself and the empty air where Matt should be. "Maybe he decided the friendship isn't worth saving."

Nick doesn't answer right away. He looks at you. Studies you. Then he says, quietly, "Do you want to save it?"

"Yes." The word is immediate. Raw. "More than anything. That's all I want. I don't care if he never—if we never—I just want my best friend back. I can't do this. I can't live in this silence. It's killing me."

"Then tell him that."

"I tried. He won't answer."

"Then try differently."

The words hang in the air. Try differently. You think about the box. The years of letters. The secrets you've been keeping. Every confession you've ever made has been on paper. Every truth you've ever told him has been with ink instead of your voice.

Maybe that's the problem.

You stand up.

"Where are you going?" Nick asks.

"I need to write something."

The desk in your room is exactly as you left it. The notebook. The pen. The vanilla candle burned down to nothing. You sit. You pull out a fresh sheet of paper. For a long moment, you just stare at the blank white space.

This isn't like the other letters. The other letters were secrets. Confessions meant for no one but yourself. This one—this one has to be different. This one has to bridge the gap.

The pen touches paper.

Matt,

I'm sorry. I'm so incredibly sorry for being a coward.

The words come slowly at first, then faster. The pen scratches across the page, and you don't stop to think, don't stop to edit, don't stop to second-guess.

I should have spoken the words aloud years ago instead of hiding behind ink and paper, leaving you to piece together a puzzle you didn't even know you were playing. I locked those letters away because I knew the truth: I am so very far away from your type. I watched the girls you chose, the girls you fell for, and I knew I could never compete with that. So I stayed in the dark, choosing to be your safe, comfortable backup rather than risking losing you entirely.

But please, if you can find it in yourself, just forget about the letters. Pretend you never found the box. Pretend you never read a single line. And please... let's just forget about everything else that happened in my room. The things we did, the lines we crossed—the things best friends should never have done. Let's push it all away.

I don't want to destroy what we have. More than anything, I just want to save our friendship. Please don't let my cowardice cost me my best friend.

You don't sign it. You don't need to. He'll know.

The pen clatters to the desk. Your hands are shaking. But this time, the shaking isn't from fear. It's from something else. Something that feels almost like hope.

You fold the paper. Once. Twice. Your fingers are steady now. Deliberate.

When you turn back toward the bed, Nick is still leaning against the headboard. He looks up as you step closer, his eyes dropping immediately to the folded paper in your hand.

"This one you're sending," he says. Not a question.

"This one I'm sending." You hold it out to him. "Can you—will you give it to him? Please? I can't—he won't—"

Nick takes the letter. His fingers brush yours. "Of course."

"Don't read it."

"I wouldn't." He tucks it carefully into his jacket pocket. "I'll make sure he gets it. Today."

"Thank you."

He stands. Crosses to where you're standing. For a moment, he just looks at you, those sharp eyes softening into something gentler than you've ever seen from him. Then he pulls you into a hug. Quick. Firm. Brotherly.

"Whatever happens," he murmurs, "you're family. You know that, right? No matter what."

The tears you've been holding back for three days finally spill over. You bury your face in his shoulder, just for a moment, just long enough to let yourself break. Then you pull back, wipe your eyes, and nod.

"Go," you say. "Before I lose my nerve."

Nick squeezes your shoulder once. Then he's gone, the front door clicking shut behind him, the letter tucked safely against his chest.

You stand in the living room. In the silence. In the gray morning light.

And you wait.

-----

The villa is all white stucco and infinity pool and string lights draped between olive trees. Chris is doing a handstand in the shallow end. Nick is holding a flamingo float and someone’s yapping chihuahua. And there, in the background of a panoramic shot posted by the birthday girl herself, is Matt. With the Instagram girl tucked under his arm.

Not just standing next to him. Tucked. Her shoulder pressed to his ribs, her hand flat on his chest, her face tilted up toward his like she’s in the middle of laughing at something clever he just said. The next story is a boomerang: her leaning across his lap to grab a drink, his arm draped along the back of the pool lounger behind her, his fingertips grazing her bare shoulder. The loop plays forward and backward, forward and backward, a little metronome of misery.

Your thumb hovers over the screen. Your chest is doing something strange, expanding and contracting at the same time, as if your lungs can’t decide whether to hyperventilate or shut down entirely.

He’s living his life. He’s with the girl he actually wants. Everything that happened in your bed was just… what? A moment of weakness? A warm body? A secret he could lock behind a door and then walk away from?

The questions don’t have answers. You’ve been asking them for a week, and all you’ve gotten back is radio silence and polite texts you responded to with one-word answers. Fine. Yeah. Busy. You’ve been protecting yourself. Limiting contact, letting the distance solidify into something resembling armor, but it doesn’t matter. One glimpse of her hand on his chest and the armor shatters like it was never there.

The grief hits first. A cold, sinking weight in your stomach. Then the anger catches up, hot and fast, flooding your limbs with a prickling heat that makes your fingers curl against your phone case.

No. Absolutely not. I am not going to sit in this bedroom and rot while he plays couple’s retreat with someone he met two months ago. I am not going to be the sad girl in the oversized hoodie, scribbling her feelings onto paper like a Victorian ghost.

You yank open your contacts before you can talk yourself out of it.

August picks up on the second ring, which is a miracle given that he’s probably buried in textbooks or at the gym or doing whatever pre-law students do on a Saturday afternoon.

“Yo.” His voice is warm, familiar, the auditory equivalent of a fleece blanket. “To what do I owe the pleasure? You’ve been MIA for weeks.”

“Gus.” Your voice cracks on his name. You clear your throat. “I need to tell you something. Everything. And I need a favor. A big one.”

There’s a pause. The sound of a chair creaking, a door closing. When he speaks again, the teasing edge is gone. “I’m listening.”

So you tell him. All of it. The rainstorm and the kiss and the shower. You say that part fast, face burning, skipping the explicit details. You continue to tell him about the locked bedroom door and the “no regrets” confession and the Instagram girl’s voice on the phone and the five days of flu and the miserable dinner where you had to pretend you weren’t breaking apart. You contemplated on telling him about the letters but you ended up keeping the secret to yourself.

August doesn’t interrupt. He lets you spill until you’re empty, until the words run out and you’re just breathing into the phone, shaky and exposed.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay.” Another pause. “What do you need from me?”

“There’s a birthday party. Today. A villa outside the city. He is there, with her. And I can’t—” Your voice catches. “I can’t walk in there alone, Gus. I can’t be the pathetic best friend who shows up by herself and watches him play boyfriend with someone else.”

“Say no more.” The firmness in his tone makes your eyes sting. “I’m there. What’s my role? Boyfriend? Date? Childhood friend who looks like he could bench-press Matt into next week?”

A wet laugh escapes you. “Childhood friend. Protective. Maybe a little flirty. Enough to make a point. I'll ask Chelsea too.”

“Excellent. I’m an excellent flirt. Ask anyone.” You can hear the grin in his voice. “Now go get dressed up. The good outfit. The one that makes you feel like you could set a building on fire just by walking past it. I’ll pick you up at five. Don't worry about Chelz.”

“Gus?” you say, just before he hangs up. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet. Thank me when the guy’s face turns purple.”

The dress is black. Simple, sleeveless, cut high on the thigh and low in the back. You bought it months ago on a whim, shoved it to the back of your closet because you never had the right occasion, and tonight it feels like armor forged specifically for this battle. You twist your hair up, letting a few pieces fall loose around your jaw. Eyeliner sharp enough to cut glass. A spritz of perfume—the one you never wear, the one that smells like amber and dark fruit and bad decisions.

When August pulls up, he lets out a low whistle through the open car window.

“Damn,” he says. “I said a building. You look like you could take out a city block.”

You slide into the passenger seat and immediately lean over to hug him, careful not to wrinkle the dress. He’s cleaned up too, a dark button-up, sleeves rolled to the elbows, that easy posture that makes him look like he belongs on a yacht somewhere. He smells like breathmints and something clean.

“You ready?” he asks, one hand on the gear shift.

“No.” You exhale. “But let’s go anyway.”

The villa appears at the end of a winding driveway lined with cypress trees, its windows spilling golden light into the deepening dusk. Bass thrums from somewhere around the back. Voices and laughter drift on the evening air. August parks the car between a Jeep and a Tesla, then turns to you.

“Ground rules,” he says. “One: I’m touching you. Not creepy, just… present. Hand on the back, arm around the waist, all that. That cool?”

You nod.

“Two: if you need to leave, you squeeze my arm twice and we’re gone. No questions, no apologies. Three: you’re the most stunning person here tonight. Walk like it.”

You step out of the car. The night air is warm, scented with jasmine and chlorine and the faint charcoal tang of a grill. August offers his arm. You loop yours through it, your fingers curling around the solid muscle of his bicep, and together you walk through the side gate into the dinner party.

Being with August makes you feel extra confident. He is standing a little over six feet, fit and effortlessly attractive, he was the kind of guy who commanded a room without trying. Most people at this party wouldn't have a clue who he was. Nick, Chris, and Matt only knew him from the endless stories you’d told over the years, but they’d never met him in person because his college schedule kept him completely buried.

He was the perfect ghost from your past. And tonight, he was exactly the armor you needed.

The patio is a postcard. A long wooden table set with candles and glasses, everyone seated around it mid-meal, the pool shimmering turquoise just beyond. The birthday girl spots you first.

“Oh my god!” She’s on her feet, napkin fluttering to the ground. “You came!”

Every single head turns.

You feel the gaze of thirty people land on you like a spotlight. Chris’s fork clatters against his plate. Nick’s wine glass pauses halfway to his lips. A few people you know from group outings gasp or grin or elbow their neighbors.

But you only care about one reaction.

Matt is sitting directly across the table, near the far end. The girl is next to him, her chair angled toward his, her arm resting on the table so her fingers brush his forearm. He’s mid-bite, or was, a second ago. Now he’s frozen, fork suspended, dark eyes locked on you with an intensity that feels like a physical blow.

His jaw tightens. You see it happen. The muscle beneath his beard flexes, hard, and his grip on his fork shifts until his knuckles go pale. His eyes drop. Not to your face, lower. To the dress. To the bare line of your shoulder, the curve of your hip, the way August’s hand rests at the small of your back. They track the point of contact like he’s watching a wound being made.

The girl leans over to whisper something in his ear. He doesn’t react. Doesn’t even blink. She pulls back, her expression flickering, and you catch the exact moment she realizes she’s lost his attention entirely.

“Sorry we’re late,” you say, aiming your brightest smile at the birthday girl. “Traffic was insane. Happy birthday.”

“You’re here! And you brought—” She gestures at August, eyes widening.

“August,” he supplies, extending a hand with easy charm. “An old friend. She promised me a good party.”

Chris recovers first. “You miraculously resurrected from the flu! We thought you were dead!”

“Death was boring,” you say, sliding into one of the two empty chairs August has already pulled out for you. His hand lingers on your lower back as you settle. Across the table, Matt’s chair scrapes against the stone, a harsh, involuntary sound, and he reaches for his wine glass like it might save him.

Nick tilts his head, that calculating gaze of his flicking between you, August, Matt, and back again. His eyebrows lift a millimeter. He says nothing. He doesn’t have to. The man could probably write a dissertation on what he just deduced in four seconds.

The girl turns toward you, and for the first time you’re face-to-face with her. Bright, confident eyes. A killer smile. Polished and put-together in a sleek white dress that looks expensive as fuck. She extends a hand.

“Hi! I’m—” she says her name, and you’ve heard it so many times from Matt’s lips that it clangs inside your skull. “I’ve been wanting to meet Matt's best friend properly. Matt talks about you all the time.”

Of course he does. You take her hand. Firm grip. Cool fingers. “Nice to meet you. He talks about you too.” The lie slips out smooth as silk.

Her smile widens, genuine and unsuspecting, and for a moment you feel a strange, unwelcome pang of sympathy. She doesn’t know. She’s just a girl who likes a guy, and the guy apparently can’t keep his eyes off someone else.

August seamlessly inserts himself into the conversation, asking Chris about some video project, trading jokes with Nick about candle scents, charming the entire table with the kind of effortless social grace that comes from years of debate club and large family gatherings. You laugh when he laughs, lean into his shoulder when he speaks, let your fingers brush his wrist when reaching for the salt. Every gesture is a performance. Every performance is aimed across the table.

Matt hasn’t eaten another bite. His wine glass, refilled three times, is already empty again. He sits like a statue carved from something hard and dark and volcanic, his gaze a physical weight you feel on your throat, your collarbone, the exposed skin of your shoulders. When August leans close to murmur something in your ear, bathroom’s to the left if you need an escape, Matt’s hand clenches around his napkin so tightly the fabric twists into a knot.

The girl tries again. She rests her palm on his forearm, fingers curling, and says something you can’t hear over the music. Matt nods. That’s it. A single, mechanical dip of his chin. He doesn’t look at her. His eyes are still on you.

You take a long sip of water to hide the tremor in your hand.

Dinner ends in a blur of cleared plates and refilled drinks. The patio lights shift from warm amber to neon violet, and someone cranks the playlist until the bass vibrates in your chest. The crowd migrates toward the pool deck, where the stone tiles become an impromptu dance floor under the string lights.

August catches your hand. “We’re dancing.”

“We are?”

“We are.” He pulls you up before you can protest, and then you’re moving. The music is heavy, driving, the kind of beat that demands your hips, your shoulders, the sway of your spine. August matches you effortlessly.

The bass drops and your hips answer before your brain catches up.

August spins you once, twice, his hand finding the curve of your waist with the ease of someone who's danced with you at a dozen weddings and house parties over the years. His smile is wide, genuine, the kind that crinkles the corners of his eyes. "There she is," he murmurs, low enough that only you can hear. "I was wondering when you'd let yourself have fun."

"I'm having fun." The words come out breathless, surprised. You realize they're true.

The neon lights shift from violet to gold, catching the sequins on someone's dress, the ripples on the pool's surface. Around you, the dance floor swells with bodies, the birthday girl twirling in the center, Chris doing something ridiculous with his elbows, Nick swaying with a drink still in hand like he's at a cocktail lounge instead of a pool party. The music is heavy synth and driving bass, the kind that makes your ribcage vibrate.

You let your head fall back. The stars are out now, scattered across the black sky like someone threw a handful of salt. The cypress trees frame them perfectly. For the first time in a week, you aren't calculating. You aren't performing. You're just moving. Just breathing. Just existing in a body that doesn't ache with fever or heartbreak or the lingering ghost of his hands.

August catches your eye and mimes taking a drink. You nod, still swaying, and he peels off toward the bar setup near the grill. The bartender in the tight black tank top gives him a nod. You watch August lean against the counter, easy and relaxed, striking up a conversation with the guy like they've known each other for years. That's August. He could charm a brick wall.

You keep dancing. The song shifts into something slower, heavier, and you close your eyes for a moment, letting the music pull you under.

A shadow falls over you, and when you open your eyes, Nick is stepping into your space, matching your rhythm with an easy, casual sway. He leans down, a knowing smirk playing on his lips as his voice cuts through the bass.

"You didn't tell me your Gus was hot as fuck," Nick says, nodding toward the bar where August is laughing with the bartender. Then, his eyes soften slightly, his calculating gaze searching your face. "You okay? For real?"

"Never been better," you say, flashing him a bright, effortless smile.

It was a lie.

When Nick offers a satisfied nod and drifts back toward the crowd, your gaze wanders across the patio, searching. It doesn't take long. Your eyes find the outdoor couches.

Matt is still there.

He's sunk into the cushions like a man attending a funeral. The girl is beside him, angled toward him, her hand resting on his forearm. She's talking, her lips moving, her phone held up to show him something on the screen. A meme, probably. A story. Something she expects him to laugh at.

He doesn't look at it.

His head is turned. Toward the dance floor. Toward you.

The distance between you is maybe thirty feet, but the weight of his stare makes it feel like inches. His jaw is set, the muscle beneath his beard flexing in that rhythm you've come to recognize. His wine glass—another one, or maybe the same one refilled—dangles from his fingers at a dangerous angle. He's not drinking it. He's just holding it. Forgetting it exists.

The girl touches his chin. Actually reaches up and tries to turn his face toward her.

Matt's head moves. An inch. Two. He looks at her for a fraction of a second, and even from across the pool deck you can see the blankness in his expression, the way his eyes don't focus on her at all. Then he's looking back at you.

She drops her hand.

Her shoulders shift. Even from here, you can read the body language. The slight slump. The way she pulls back, reaching for her own drink now, filling the silence with a long sip. She's confused. Hurt, maybe. She has no idea what's happening, why the guy who invited her here, who she spent all afternoon draped across, has suddenly turned into a statue.

What the actual hell are you doing, Matt, you think. You wanted her. You said she was your type. There's no anger in the thought now, just a hollow kind of bewilderment. You don't understand him. You've never understood him. Even when his hands were on your body and his mouth was on your neck, you couldn't figure out what was happening inside his head. And now, sitting next to his "dream girl", he's still staring at you like you're the only person in the villa.

The song ends. Another begins. August returns with two glasses of something cold and sparkling.

"Who's the girl?" he asks, following your gaze.

"His latest crush. His dream girl, he said."

August looks between you and Matt. Takes a sip.

"Yikes," he says. "Dude looks like someone hit his dog."

You laugh. It comes out sharper than you intended.

Later, the party migrates.

Someone produces a deck of cards, and suddenly everyone is gathered around the massive stone fire pit, flames leaping into the night, sparks spiraling up toward the stars. The birthday girl has claimed a throne-like chair near the center, her red hair glowing in the firelight. Chris is already shuffling with the kind of chaotic energy that promises at least three cards will end up in the pool. Nick has produced a citronella candle from somewhere and set it beside his chair, because of course he has.

You and August claim a cushioned bench near the edge of the firelight, close enough to feel the heat, far enough that the shadows soften everything. He drapes his arm along the back of the seat behind you, not quite touching, but present. You lean into the warmth of him without thinking.

"The game is Bullshit," Chris announces, dealing cards with theatrical flair. "Also known as Cheat. Also known as I'm Going to Destroy All of You."

"Also known as Chris is a terrible liar," Nick adds.

"You're a terrible liar."

"I'm an excellent liar. I just choose to use my powers for good."

The game begins. Cards slap down. Voices overlap. Accusations fly. You call Chris's bluff on a pile of supposed fours, and when he flips the cards to reveal two sevens and a nine, the entire circle erupts in groans. He has to snatch up the growing pile, muttering about "rigged shuffling" while Nick smirks into his drink.

August leans close, his breath warm near your ear. "Remember that time at Chelsea's birthday when you tried to bluff with a full house and immediately forgot what you'd put down?"

You swat his arm. "I was nineteen and very drunk."

"You were twenty and completely sober."

"Shut up."

You're both laughing, the kind of easy, bubbling laughter that comes from years of shared history. Your shoulders shake. Your eyes water. August is grinning at you, that familiar, brotherly grin, and for a moment the firelight catches his face and makes him look almost golden.

"Your turn."

The voice cuts through the laughter like a blade.

Matt's voice. Flat. Clipped. The kind of tone that doesn't ask for attention, it demands it.

You look over. He's sitting across the fire pit, the girl still beside him, though she's no longer trying to touch him. Her hands are folded in her lap. Her expression is carefully neutral. Matt is holding his cards like he might snap them in half. The firelight carves shadows under his cheekbones, makes his dark eyes look cavernous.

You play your card. He plays his. The round continues.

Every time it's Matt's turn, his voice is rough. Short. A single word followed by the slap of cardboard on stone. He doesn't joke. Doesn't bluff. Doesn't even try. He just plays his cards with mechanical precision, as if the game is a sentence he's serving.

"Dude." Chris leans forward, squinting at his brother. "You okay over there? You're acting like someone cancelled your Netflix subscription."

Matt doesn't answer. He glares. Actual glares. The kind of look that could wilt houseplants. Then he tosses his remaining cards onto the table, the motion sharp and dismissive, and reaches for his cup.

He doesn't drink from it. He just holds it. Like the wine glass earlier. Like he's forgotten what his hands are for.

Chris exchanges a look with Nick. Nick's eyebrows lift a millimeter. Neither of them says anything. They don't have to. The whole table has noticed. The party, the game, the easy chaos, it all carries on, but there's a pocket of silence around Matt now, a gravitational pull that everyone is politely pretending not to feel.

August's hand finds your shoulder. Squeezes once. A silent check-in. You give him the smallest nod.

Midnight passes. The fire burns lower. The playlist shifts to something ambient, and the crowd thins as people drift off toward the villa's bedrooms. The birthday girl stands, stretches, and makes the announcement.

"Okay, everyone! Bedrooms upstairs are ready. There's like six guest rooms, so pair up, triple up, whatever. Couples get priority on the rooms with king beds." She winks at someone in the crowd. "Everyone else, fight to the death."

People start gathering their things. Nick and Chris are already pointing toward the staircase, debating which room has the better view. The girl beside Matt stands, brushing off her dress, and glances down at him with an expression that's half hope and half exhaustion.

You catch August's eye. Give him the signal. A small tilt of your head, a question in your raised brows. He reads it instantly.

"Actually, guys?" Your voice cuts through the chatter, casual and bright. "We're gonna head out."

The table goes quiet.

Chris turns, his jacket half-draped over one arm. "Wait, what? You're not staying for day two? There's supposed to be a brunch tomorrow. Bottomless mimosas. The whole thing."

You shake your head, already reaching for your bag. "I just wanted to drop by for the birthday dinner. I've got— We've got plans back home tomorrow. Early stuff. You know how it is."

"Plans?" Nick's voice is skeptical. "What plans?"

"Important plans. Very important. Top secret plans."

"That's not suspicious at all."

August rises beside you, his hand finding the curve of your waist with practiced ease. "She promised me a rematch at Mario Kart," he says smoothly. "And I intend to collect."

Chris snorts. Nick rolls his eyes. The tension breaks, just a little, and the normal rhythm of teasing picks up again. They're disappointed, but they accept it. They always do. That's the thing about being the quiet one, the one who blends into the background. People don't question it when you slip away.

August's arm loops around your waist as he guides you toward the driveway. His palm is warm through the thin fabric of your dress, grounding, steady. You lean into him without thinking, your body grateful for the anchor.

At the edge of the patio, you glance back.

The girl is standing now, still beside the fire pit, her phone in her hand. She's not looking at her screen. She's looking at her feet. Ignored. Forgotten. A prop in a scene she didn't know she was part of. Something twists in your chest, not guilt exactly, something softer. Sympathy, maybe. She didn't do anything wrong. She's just a girl who likes a guy who can't stop staring at someone else.

But you didn't do anything wrong either. You didn't ask Matt to ignore her. You didn't ask him to follow you with his eyes all night. You didn't even talk to him. This was his doing. His choice. His silent, suffocating sulking.

And then you see him.

Matt has stood up from the couch. He's taken three steps toward the driveway, away from the fire pit, away from her. His hands are at his sides, curled into loose fists. His jaw is clenched so tight you can see the tendons in his neck. His eyes are locked on you with something that looks less like anger and more like desperation. He looks like a man watching something slip through his fingers. He looks like he's about to run.

But he doesn't. He can't. The crowd is between you now, people saying goodnights and gathering bags and blocking the path. Nick claps a hand on his shoulder, asking him something. The girl touches his elbow, tentative, confused. He's trapped. By his own choices. By the party. By the role he's supposed to be playing.

You turn away.

The gravel crunches under your heels. August opens the passenger door for you, and you slide into the cool darkness of the car. The door closes. The music, the firelight, the voices all muffle into a distant hum.

August gets behind the wheel. The engine turns over. The headlights sweep across the cypress trees, and then you're rolling down the winding driveway, leaving the villa behind.

Neither of you speaks for the first five minutes.

The road unspools in the dark, headlights cutting a path through the night. The radio is off. The window is cracked, letting in the scent of jasmine and dry grass. Your body is still thrumming with adrenaline, but it's fading now, the high receding like a tide pulling back from the shore.

"That was intense," August finally says.

You exhale. "Yeah."

"He didn't look away from you. Not once. The whole night."

"I know."

"Even when she was literally touching his face. I thought he was going to swat her hand like a fly."

"I know, Gus."

He glances at you, then back at the road. "You okay?"

The question lands somewhere in your chest. Are you okay? You should feel triumphant. You walked in looking like a weapon and you left him burning in his own misery. You proved something, to yourself and to him. You aren't a placeholder. You aren't a secret. You aren't just the safe, comfortable best friend who waits in the wings while he chases other girls.

But the triumph feels hollow. Underneath it, there's just the same old ache, the same impossible want, the same bruise that never quite heals.

"I don't know," you say. "Ask me tomorrow."

The rest of the drive is quiet.

August pulls up to your front door and kills the engine. The porch light is on, a warm yellow glow that your mom always leaves burning when you're out late. You sit in the passenger seat for a moment, staring at it, and then you turn to him.

"Thank you," you say. The words feel ridiculously inadequate. "For everything. For the whole night. For being my armor."

"You don't have to thank me."

"I do, though." You unbuckle your seatbelt and lean across the console to hug him. Tight. The kind of hug that says everything you can't put into words. He wraps his arms around you, solid and warm, and for a moment you just breathe.

When you pull back, you manage a small smile. "Tell Chelsea thank you too. For letting me borrow her boyfriend for the night."

August grins. "She said to tell you she expects full details over brunch next week. And that if Matt so much as looked at you wrong, she'd key his car."

"She doesn't even know what his car looks like."

"She'd figure it out. Chelsea's resourceful."

You laugh. It's watery and tired, but it's real. You squeeze his hand once more, then slip out of the car and up the front steps. He waits until you're inside, the door closed and locked, before driving away. The taillights fade into the dark.

The house is silent.

Your mom has gone to bed. The kitchen is clean, the living room dark, the only sound the faint hum of the refrigerator. You kick off your heels in the entryway and pad down the hall in bare feet, your dress rustling against your thighs. The night feels like a dream already, something that happened to someone else, a performance you gave that's now over.

Your bedroom door clicks shut behind you.

The vanilla candle has burned down to a stub. The scent of it still hangs in the air, faint and sweet, layered with something else. Something that doesn't belong. The faintest trace of him, maybe his cologne, his detergent, clinging to the pillowcase, the air, the memory. You stand in the center of the room for a long moment, just breathing, as the armor of the night sloughs off you piece by piece.

The dress comes off first. You drape it over the back of your desk chair. The earrings, the necklace, the sharp-edged eyeliner you wipe away with a makeup wipe from your nightstand drawer. You pull on an old t-shirt, the band logo faded and cracked, and a fresh pair of the same black boyshorts you wore last time.

You sit at your desk.

The notebook is where you left it, tucked in the drawer beneath a stack of old pens and a dried-out highlighter. You pull it out. Flip past the angry scrawl of I'm done, past the tear-smudged ink, past the words you wrote five days ago when you thought your heart couldn't break any further.

A fresh page.

Your hand shakes as you pick up the pen. Not from nerves. From exhaustion. From the weight of everything you're still carrying.

Matt,

The pen scratches across the paper, and the words come like blood from a wound.

You looked absolutely miserable tonight. Good. I hope it burned. I hope watching me with him made your chest ache the exact same way mine did when I saw those stories of her attached to your hip this afternoon.

You sat next to her all night, but your eyes never left me. Did she notice? Did she feel like a ghost sitting next to you, the same way I felt like a secret when you left my bed to go back to your real life? Probably to her.

You pause. Breathe. The pen hovers.

I brought him tonight because I needed armor. I needed to prove to myself—and to you—that I don't belong to you just because you decided you couldn't control yourself. I'm not a placeholder you get to lock away in a dark bedroom when you're lonely, only to pretend I'm just "one of the bros" the second the sun comes up.

If you truly don't regret anything, you shouldn't have looked like you were suffocating every time he touched my waist.

The words keep coming, faster now, your handwriting compressing into something tight and urgent.

You looked so handsome tonight. It's pathetic that I even noticed. It's pathetic that while I was laughing and dancing with someone else, my skin was still burning with the memory of your hands on me.

I didn't stay the night. I left you there in that villa with her, because I knew that if I stayed, the quiet would find us again. Another locked door. Another heavy silence. Another time where I let myself be weak.

And I'm done breaking my own heart just to keep your secrets.

You stop. The pen trembles against the page. One last line forms, slow and deliberate, the letters pressed so deep they leave grooves in the paper.

Close your eyes and sleep next to her, Matt. I hope my face is the only thing you see in the dark.

Below it, in smaller script, almost an afterthought:

💔 Little Miss Fragile

You set the pen down.

The letter sits on the desk, ink glossy under the lamplight. The house is silent. The candle has burned out. Somewhere across the city, Matt is in a villa guest room with a girl he doesn't love, staring at a ceiling, replaying the image of August's hand on your waist.

Or maybe he's not. Maybe he's already asleep. Maybe none of it matters to him the way it matters to you. Maybe they are deep into love making. The thought hurts like a physical blow, a sudden, sharp ache that leaves you entirely breathless in the dark.

You don't know. You'll never know. That's the whole point of the box, isn't it? Words you write but never send. Confessions that live and die in the dark.

You fold the letter carefully, your fingers still trembling. The paper creases. You press it flat.

Then you open the closet door and pull out the old blanket.

You scroll, heart hammering, as the numbers climb. TikTok notifications start pinging next, edits, already! Someone set the photos to a slowed-down version of some trending song, zooming in on your face, your waist, the way the shorts hit your hips. The caption reads: the triplets' secret weapon??? who is this mysterious girl and why is she serving harder than anyone at this party

Your DMs are flooded. Guys you've never heard of, some with verified checkmarks, some just bold, sending variations of the same thing. Hey. Love the new merch. You single? One of them, a guy with a surf brand and too many shirtless photos, sends a voice memo. You don't listen to it.

The phone keeps buzzing. You set it face-down on the couch cushion and press your palms against your thighs, trying to breathe.

Three days later, Chris insists on lunch.

The restaurant is one of those bright, plant-filled places in Silver Lake, all white tile and hanging ferns. You slide into the booth across from Nick, who's already nursing a Slurpee, while Chris flags down the server with the energy of a golden retriever who just spotted a squirrel.

"The internet is obsessed with you," Chris announces, phone already in hand. "Obsessed. Like, clinically. I think you've broken TikTok."

"Don't be dramatic."

"I'm not dramatic. I'm factual." He scrolls, grinning. "Oh, oh, wait. This one's my favorite." He clears his throat theatrically and reads aloud: "'If the hot merch girl and Chris don't start dating immediately, I'm deleting my account. Like the tension in those bts shots is actually illegal.'" Chris slaps the table, delighted. "See? The people have spoken. You and I. Ship name: C—" He pauses, frowning. "Wait, what even is our ship name?"

Matt's voice cuts in from your left, dry and flat. "That's two comments, Chris. I just found ten shipping her with me."

You turn. He's slouched in the booth, one arm draped over the back of the seat, scrolling his own phone with practiced disinterest. His jaw flexes slightly when he glances up at his brother.

"Ten? Okay, show me the receipts."

Matt tilts his screen. "'The way he adjusted her collar... that's a man in love, your honor.' 'Chemistry. Period.' 'If you don't see the heart eyes Matt was giving her in that bts footage, you're blind.'" He recites them without inflection, like he's reading a grocery list, but his eyes flick to yours briefly before returning to the phone.

Chris snorts. "Cherry-picked. I could find fifty that ship her with me. Look—" He taps furiously. "'Chris and the mystery girl were so cute in the bts, the way he was cheering on her??? Friends to lovers pipeline, I'm calling it now.'"

"That's one."

"I'm still scrolling."

Nick sets his drink down with a deliberate clink. Both brothers pause. Nick holds up his phone, expression utterly serene. "The audience has spoken," he says. "And by 'the audience,' I mean a statistically significant sample size." He swivels the screen toward the table. It's a fan-made poll. Who should the merch girl end up with? Matt has 34%. Chris has 25%. Nick has 41% with the label the stable choice in bold.

Chris gapes. "The stable choice?"

Nick shrugs, the picture of modesty. "People appreciate emotional maturity. And good candle taste. Pretty nails too."

You burst out laughing—a real, surprised laugh that bubbles up from your chest. Nick's lips twitch with satisfaction. You raise your palm and he meets it with a crisp high-five, the sound echoing off the white tile.

"Finally," you say, "someone with taste."

Matt doesn't laugh. He doesn't add a dry comment or roll his eyes. He just watches you and Nick with his jaw set tight, thumb frozen over his phone screen, as still as a photograph.

The check arrives. Chris glances at his phone and his eyes go wide. "Shit. Meeting. Across town. Twenty minutes."

"What meeting?" you ask, pausing with your drink halfway to your mouth.

"We're meeting with a distributor," Nick says. "Chris and I are planning a new project together, and if we miss this window, we're screwed for the month."

"We're not gonna make it," Chris says, already sliding out of the booth and grabbing his keys.

"We'll make it if we don't hit traffic."

"Done. I'm driving," Chris says, already jingling the keys.

"You are driving, but I’m navigating," Nick says flatly, snatching the copilot spot before Chris can even unlock the doors.

In the parking lot, the four of you pile into the car. Chris backs out of the space while Nick pulls up the map on his phone, checking the traffic before glancing back at you and Matt in the rearview mirror. "Okay, Chris, if you drop them at the turnoff before the highway ramp, it’s like three blocks from the house. You guys good to walk from there?"

You nod. Matt shrugs.

Chris pulls over at the corner of a quiet residential street, the kind lined with old oak trees and cracked sidewalks that lift at the edges. You and Matt climb out, Nick already leaning forward to mess with the aux cord, and the car peels away before you've even fully closed the door.

Silence settles. Not the uncomfortable kind. The easy kind. The familiar kind that reminds you of years of afternoons sprawled on couches, of late-night drives and lazy mornings. You fall into step beside him, shoulders almost brushing, and the world feels startlingly normal.

"Can't believe Nick's the stable one," you say, kicking a pebble along the sidewalk. "I always had him pegged as the wildcard."

"Nick is a menace. Those polls are rigged."

"Sure, sure."

He bumps your shoulder lightly with his. "Chris is gonna be insufferable about this for weeks."

"Like he isn't already."

Matt laughs—low and genuine, the kind that rumbles in his chest and makes the corners of his eyes crinkle. You let yourself sink into the sound. Into the easiness. Into the way his hand swings close enough to yours that you could reach out and thread your fingers through his if you were brave.

"So," you say after a moment, "how are things going with the Instagram girl? She still talking to you?"

The question feels safer than it should. Distance from the topic, maybe. Or just the old, familiar armor of the wingman.

Matt shrugs, eyes ahead. "We haven't really talked since she cancelled on the shoot."

"Wait, what? I thought you guys were hitting it off at the pool party."

"I guess she's busy." He says it without weight, without the wistful sigh he used to carry when talking about her. Like the information is incidental. "Enough abot her. What about you? Your DMs must be insane right now."

You laugh dryly. "Oh, yeah. Some surfer guy sent me a voice memo. I haven't listened to it."

"You should. Maybe he's profound."

"Maybe he's a serial killer."

"Worth the risk." He glances at you sideways, mouth quirking. "Girl goes viral and suddenly she's too good for random DM guys."

"Shut up."

"I'm just saying. You've got options now."

"Don't want options," you murmur, more to yourself than to him. The words hang in the air a beat too long, and you rush to fill the silence. "I mean, it's funny. That's all. I don't really care about any of it."

Matt doesn't respond, but something in his posture shifts. Subtle. A slight straightening of his spine. A barely-there curl at the corner of his mouth.

One moment you're walking in the bright, golden afternoon light, and the next, a crack of thunder fractures the air overhead, loud enough to make you jump. But the sky doesn't darken. Instead, the bright blue sky unzips all at once, letting a torrential downpour hit onto the pavement while the sun keeps beating down. It's immediate, heavy, and blinding, the rain so thick and sudden it feels like a giant bucket tipped over directly through the sunlight.

You scream.

Actually scream, a startled, laughing shriek, and then you're running. Your sneakers slap the wet pavement, ponytail whipping behind you, rain plastering your shirt to your skin in seconds. The triplets' house is visible now, their front porch a beacon in the gray sheets of water.

You make it to the porch and collapse against the door, gasping, dripping, laughing at the sheer absurdity of it.

And then you turn around.

Matt is still on the sidewalk. Walking. Not running. Not hurrying. Just walking with the same casual, long-legged stride he always uses, his dark hair flattened against his forehead, his white shirt already transparent and clinging to the lines of his chest. He looks utterly unbothered, as if the sky hasn't just declared war on the entire block.

"What are you doing?" you shout over the roar of the rain. "You're insane! Get over here!"

He reaches the porch steps but doesn't climb them. Instead he stands there, looking up at you with water streaming down his face, and smiles. It's a slow, unguarded smile. One you haven't seen before.

"It's just rain," he says.

And then he takes your hand.

His fingers wrap around yours, warm even through the cold wetness, and he tugs. Gently. Pulling you off the porch and back into the downpour. You stumble forward, your bare feet landing in a shallow puddle on the sidewalk, and when you look up at him he's still smiling.

Then he lifts your joined hands high toward the sunlit sky as he tilts his head back. His eyes close, entirely yielding to the downpour.

Slowly, you copy him. You close your eyes and tilt your face upward, letting the heavy, rain drops wash over your skin. The two of you just stand there on the sidewalk, completely soaked, breathing in the rain, suspended together in the middle of the sun-drenched storm.

He puts your joined hands down and you open your eyes.

Matt's face is inches from yours.

The rain frames him like a photograph, dark lashes clumped with water, a droplet tracing the sharp line of his jaw, his lips slightly parted. His hands release yours and find your face instead, palms warm against the cold of your cheeks, thumbs resting at the corners of your mouth.

He kisses you.

His lips press against yours, rain-slick and soft, and your mind goes entirely blank. No thought. No nothing. Just the sensation of his mouth on yours, the warmth of his hands cupping your face, the roar of the storm around you.

He pulls back.

A fraction. A heartbeat. His eyes lock onto yours, dark and searching, and you can feel his breath against your wet lips. The question is there, unspoken, hanging in the space between your mouths.

He kisses you again.

This time, you kiss him back.

Your hands grip the sides of his soaked shirt. Your lips move against his, slow, learning, pressing and releasing in a rhythm that feels like a language you didn't know you spoke. His tongue brushes your bottom lip and a sound escapes your throat, something between a gasp and a sigh. The rain keeps falling. You don't care. You don't care about anything except the heat of his mouth and the solid presence of his body against yours.

What is happening, you think, the words distant and foreign. What is happening. What is happening.

He breaks the kiss and you both stand there, breathing hard, rain still sheeting down. His forehead presses against yours.

"We need to get inside," he says, voice rough. "Shower. Before we get sick."

You nod, not trusting your own voice.

He leads you into the house by the hand, dripping a trail across the living room floor, up the stairs, down the hallway to the bathroom. The fluorescent light buzzes on overhead. Matt turns the shower knob, steam already curling into the air.

His hands find the hem of your soaked shirt.

"Arms up," he murmurs.

You raise your arms. He peels the fabric over your head, and it lands on the tile with a wet slap. His eyes travel down your body—your bare shoulders, the simple black bra, the goosebumps rising on your skin—and something in his expression flickers. Hunger, maybe. Or wonder. Something you've never seen directed at you before.

Your hands move on their own, unbuttoning your jeans, pushing the wet denim down your legs. You step out of them, kick them aside. Matt's shirt is already off, and your gaze catches on the lean muscle of his chest, the way water still clings to his collarbones. He's in just his black boxer briefs now, the fabric clinging in a way that leaves very little to the imagination. You swallow hard.

He opens the glass shower door. Warm steam billows out, fogging the mirror.

You step in first. The water hits your skin and it's perfect—hot enough to chase away the chill of the rain, to loosen the knot of tension in your shoulders. You tilt your head back, letting the stream soak your hair, run down your neck and back. For a moment, you forget he's behind you.

Then his hands grip your waist.

He turns you, slowly, until you're both under the water. The stream cascades over his hair, plastering it to his forehead. One rivulet traces the line of his nose, curves around his lips. He's so close. So close you can count his wet eyelashes.

He kisses you again.

Deeper this time. Slower. His hands slide from your waist to your back, fingers finding the clasp of your bra. A pause. A question in the way his fingertips rest against the hooks.

"Okay?" he breathes against your mouth.

"Okay."

The clasp comes undone. He draws the straps down your shoulders, freeing your breasts, and the fabric falls forgotten to the shower floor.

His hands cup you. Gentle at first, just holding, as if memorizing the weight and shape of you. His thumbs brush over your nipples and your head falls back. A moan slips out before you can stop it.

"God," he whispers.

Then his mouth is on you.

He kisses down your throat, your collarbone, the swell of your breast. When his lips close around your nipple, slow and warm and startlingly wet, your hands fly to his hair. You grip the dark, soaked strands and hold on. He sucks gently, tongue tracing a slow circle, and the sensation travels straight down to your core. Your knees threaten to buckle.

"You're—" you start, but the word dissolves into another moan.

He switches to your other breast, equally slow, equally deliberate, and you feel like you're floating. The steam surrounds you. The water pounds against your back. His mouth works against your skin with a patience that makes your head spin.

Then he turns you around.

Your palms press flat against the wet tile. The cool of the shower wall contrasts with the heat of him behind you. His fingers hook into the waistband of your panties and he drags them down your legs. You step out of them.

His body presses against your back. His mouth finds the curve of your neck, breath hot against the sensitive skin just below your ear. And lower, much lower, you feel him. The hard, insistent press of his cock against the cleft of your ass. Even through the fabric of his briefs, the heat of him is unmistakable. The size of him.

"Can I?" he whispers. The words are barely audible over the shower, a vibration against your skin.

"Yes."

He shifts. One hand leaves the tile beside yours, and you hear the rustle of wet fabric. Then he's there again, closer now, skin against skin. He guides himself, the head of his cock pressing against your entrance, and for one suspended moment your whole body stills.

He pushes inside.

Slow. Inch by deliberate inch. The stretch is immense, a fullness that makes your mouth fall open and your nails scrape against the tile. He feels huge. He feels like he's claiming territory, marking space inside you that no one else has ever touched. Your breath comes in short, sharp gasps.

"Oh my god," you whisper.

"Are you—"

"Don't stop. Please don't stop."

He doesn't.

He moves inside you with long, deep strokes, his hands finding your breasts again. His thumbs circle your nipples as his hips press forward, and the dual sensation is overwhelming. Broken sounds fall from your lips, half words, half pleas, and the rhythm builds until it's the only thing you can feel.

His hand leaves your breast and slides down your stomach. Lower. His fingers find your clit.

The touch is electric. He rubs slow circles, matching the pace of his thrusts, and the pressure inside you coils tighter and tighter. Your vision narrows. The water sounds distant. The world shrinks to the point of contact between his fingers and your body, the steady drive of him inside you.

"I'm—" The word fractures. "Matt, I'm—"

"Let go," he murmurs against your ear. "I've got you."

The orgasm hits like a wave. No—not a wave, something sharper than that. A chord snapping. A light switching on so bright it whites out everything else. Your body clenches around him, pulse after pulse, and you cry out, the sound echoing off the shower walls.

Three more thrusts. Four. Then he pulls out with a ragged groan, and you feel the warmth of him spilling against your thighs. He presses his forehead to your shoulder, breathing hard, his chest heaving against your back.

He turns you around.

Kisses you. Soft this time. Tender. His hands cup your face just like they did in the rain.

Neither of you speaks.

He reaches for the soap. Lathers it between his palms and begins to work it across your shoulders, your back, your stomach. You do the same for him—your hands sliding over the planes of his chest, tracing the ridges of his abdomen, his tattooed arms. It's intimate in a different way. Careful. Devoted. He smiles at you, tentative and wondering.

You smile back.

Wrapped in towels that are far too large, he leads you to his bedroom. The room smells like him, that same cologne, fabric softener, the vague warmth of electronics. He pulls open a drawer and hands you a t-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts. His. Both swallow your frame.

"Laundry," he says, gesturing to the pile of wet clothes in your hands. "I'll throw them in. Be right back."

He disappears through the doorway. You're alone in his room, standing barefoot on the carpet, wearing his clothes.

Your mind spins. What just happened. Did that happen. Is this real. Is this a dream. Are we still friends. Are we more than friends. What do I even say now. Do I bring it up. Do I pretend we didn't just—

But when he returns, you don't say any of it. You don't want to ruin the moment. This fragile, impossible moment that feels like it could break at any second.

He climbs onto the bed and opens his arms. You crawl into them.

He pulls you against his chest. Your head finds the hollow of his shoulder, the same place it's been a hundred times during movie nights and lazy afternoons. His arm wraps around your back. His chin rests on top of your head. The silence settles, comfortable and familiar, and you realize: this is what you always did. Being quiet together. That was the foundation of everything.

Your eyes grow heavy.

When you wake, the light is still golden outside the window. Late afternoon, maybe. Your clothes—folded neatly on the dresser. Dry. Warm.

Matt is still asleep beside you, one arm draped across the empty space where you'd been. His face is relaxed, mouth slightly open, breathing deep and even. You watch him for a moment, memorizing the way his lashes rest against his cheeks.

Then you slip out of bed. Quiet. Careful. You gather your clothes and change in the bathroom, and then you're walking out the front door, leaving only the faint scent of his shampoo behind.

The second you get home, you rush to your room. You kick off your shoes, grab a pen, and pull your notebook off the desk. Throwing yourself onto the bed, you sit cross-legged, pen in hand, the blank page staring up at you. You are desperate to write everything down but your thoughts are a hurricane, spinning, colliding, refusing to settle into anything coherent.

You wrote beautiful letters on napkins. On receipts. On the backs of old confessions. But this?

Your hand moves before your brain catches up. The pen scratches aggressively across the paper, no preamble, no greeting, no carefully crafted sentences.

WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT MATT???

You stare at the scrawl. Jagged letters. Ink bleeding slightly at the edges where you pressed too hard. It's not elegant. It's not romantic. It's the most honest thing you've written in years.

It's been hours of staring at the almost blank page, thinking what else to tell him when the phone rings.

You jolt, glancing at the screen. Chris. You pick up.

"Hey."

"Where you at? We're going out to dinner. You're coming."

"I—"

Nick's voice cuts in, distant at first, then closer as he takes the phone. "We're putting you on speaker. Get dressed. We're picking you up in twenty."

"There's this new place downtown," Chris adds. "Supposed to be incredible. I already called dibs on the truffle fries."

"I don't know, I'm sort of—"

Then you hear it.

Her voice. Bright, confident, unmistakable. "Oh my god, tell her to come! I've been wanting to meet her properly. The photos were gorgeous."

The Instagram girl. Matt had shown you enough of her reels for you to remember her voice. She's with them?

Your heart drops. A physical plummet, a sickening lurch in your chest that makes your stomach clench. She's there. At the house. With Matt. The same Matt who just hours ago was inside you, his mouth on your breast, his hands cupping your face in the rain.

A sneeze. You fake it from somewhere deep in your panic, sharp and sudden into the receiver.

"Oh, shoot. Scuse me." you say, voice deliberately hoarse. "I think I'm coming down with something. Probably from getting caught in that rain earlier. I'm sorry, guys, I should probably stay in."

A pause. Then Matt's voice, urgent and immediate. "You're sick? Are you okay?"

The concern in his tone is a knife. You feel it slide between your ribs.

"I'll be fine," you say, the words coming out too fast. "Just need rest. You guys have fun, okay? Bye."

You hang up before anyone can argue.

The phone falls onto the mattress. Your hands are shaking. Your eyes burn. You grab the notebook again, flip to the same page as before, and press the pen so hard the tip nearly tears through.

How could you do this to me? Don't ever look at me again. Don't talk to me.

Don't you dare act like you care if I'm okay.

I'm done.

A tear falls. It lands on the page, smearing the fresh ink, blurring the word done until it's almost illegible.

You don't wipe it away.

-----

“You good?” August asks now, killing the engine and turning to face you. His sunglasses are pushed up into his hair, and there’s a smear of sunscreen on his collar that Chelsea must have left when she hugged him goodbye.

“Yeah.” You unbuckle your seatbelt. “I’m good. Tired, but good.”

“That’s the brunch coma talking. You’ll be asleep by seven.” He’s already opening his door, circling the front of the car before you can protest. Your door swings open. He offers his hand. You take it.

The front path is dappled with late-afternoon shadows, the tree in your yard dropping purple blossoms onto the grass. August’s hand settles at the small of your back, firm and grounding, the same way it had all night at the villa. Protective. Present. The gesture is second nature to him now.

At the door, he leans in and presses a soft kiss to your cheek. His lips are warm, his cologne faint and clean. Then he wraps you in a bear hug, the kind that lifts you slightly onto your toes, and murmurs against your hair, “Everything’s gonna be alright. You know that, right?”

You nod against his chest. “I know.”

“Call me if you need anything. And I mean anything. Middle of the night, crack of dawn, I don’t care.”

“I will.”

He waits. That’s the thing about August, he always waits. He stands on the porch with his hands in his pockets until you’ve unlocked the door and stepped inside. Only then does he give a final wave, a crooked grin, and head back to his car. The engine turns over. The tires crunch against the driveway. Then silence.

You lean your back against the heavy wood of the front door and exhale. A long, slow release of breath that seems to drain the tension from your shoulders. The house is dark. Cool. Completely still. Your mom’s out on Sundays, she visits her friends, plays bridge, comes home late with stories about Carol’s terrible casserole. You have the place to yourself.

Your heels click against the hardwood as you pad down the hallway, already reaching for the zipper of your brunch dress. The fabric is light and floral, something Chelsea had complimented three times before the appetizers even arrived. You can’t wait to peel it off and collapse into something soft. Maybe the band t-shirt. The one that still smells faintly of him.

You push your bedroom door open.

The breath rips from your lungs.

The room is cast in deep afternoon shadows, the curtains only half-drawn. The vanilla candle on your nightstand has burned down to nothing. And there, on the floor, sits Matt.

He’s not pacing. He’s not on his phone. He’s sitting flat against the side of your bed, his back pressed to the mattress frame, his knees pulled up toward his chest. His dark eyes are fixed on the window. The window with a perfect, unobstructed view of the driveway. Of the front porch. Of August’s hand on your back and his lips on your cheek and his arms wrapped around you in a hug that probably looked a lot more intimate than it actually was.

He’s wearing the exact same clothes from the night before. Dark shirt. Dark jeans. Rumpled and creased and smelling faintly of firepit smoke, that sharp, woodsy scent that clings to fabric after hours beside an open flame. But underneath it, there’s something else. Something familiar. The vanilla. The detergent. The particular smell of your room that he’s been breathing in for however long he’s been sitting here.

On the floor beside his thigh is your band t-shirt. The faded one you wore to sleep. The one you’d left discarded on the unmade bed before leaving for brunch. He’s been sitting in the dark, staring at your clothes, watching you come home with another man.

On your nightstand sits the heavy metal spare key.

Your spare key. The one your mom gave the triplets years ago, back when they first moved to the neighborhood. “In case of emergencies,” she’d said. “In case you lock yourself out or need someone to feed the cat.” Except you don’t have a cat. And this isn’t an emergency. This is Matt, in your bedroom, uninvited, having let himself in while you were gone.

Your eyes dart to the closet. The door is closed. The old blanket is still draped exactly where you left it, the corners undisturbed. He hasn’t found the box. He hasn’t found the letters. The relief is immediate and sickening, a cold wave that makes your knees weak.

The silence stretches. Thickens. Becomes something solid and suffocating.

Matt doesn’t look at you. His eyes stay locked on the floorboard between his sneakers. When he finally speaks, his voice is rough and quiet and dangerously level, scraped raw from hours of stewing in his own misery.

“He touched you exactly four times between the car and the porch.”

Adrenaline spikes in your chest. Hot and sharp and immediate. Your hands curl into fists at your sides.

“You’ve been watching me?” Your voice comes out high, incredulous. “You let yourself into my house and watched me through the window like some kind of—”

“Four times.” His jaw tightens. “Hand on your back. Lips on your cheek. The hug. Then his hand on your waist again before he walked away. Four.”

“You’re insane.” The words snap out of you before you can stop them. “You’re actually insane, Matt. You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to sneak into my house and count touches like you’re keeping score.”

His head lifts. Slowly. His eyes meet yours, and the look in them makes your stomach drop. They’re red-rimmed. Bloodshot. Like he hasn’t slept. Like he’s been sitting on your floor for hours, maybe all night, maybe since the moment you drove away from the villa and left him standing in the gravel with the Instagram girl’s hand on his elbow.

“You were with him all night,” he says. Still quiet. Still dangerously level. “You danced with him. You laughed with him. You left with him.”

“And you were with her!” Your voice cracks. “You were draped over her all weekend. You brought her to the villa. You posted her on your story. You sat next to her at dinner like she was your—”

“I didn’t touch her.” He’s on his feet now. The movement is sudden, fluid, and suddenly he’s towering over you in the small space of your bedroom. “Not once. Not the whole night. She tried—she kept trying—and I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it. Because every time I looked at her, all I saw was you.”

He steps forward. You step back. Your spine hits the closed bedroom door with a sharp thud.

“You think I wanted to be there?” His chest is heaving now, his voice climbing. “You think I looked at her once after you walked in looking like that? With him?”

His palms slam flat against the door on either side of your head. The wood vibrates. The lock rattles. He’s caging you in, his body inches from yours, his breath hot and ragged against your forehead.

“Who the fuck is he?” The question tears out of him, raw and desperate. “I thought he was just a childhood friend. I thought he was nobody. Are you sleeping with him? Is that what this is? Are you—”

“You know who the fuck August is.” You shove at his chest, hard, but he doesn’t move. “And it’s none of your business who I sleep with. I’m just one of the bros, right? That’s what you said. That’s what you’ve always said. So why do you care?”

“Because you’re mine.”

The words land like a physical blow. The room goes completely silent. Matt’s chest is still heaving, his dark eyes wild and desperate and terrified all at once. He tilts his head down, his mouth inches from yours, and when he speaks again his voice is barely a whisper.

“Tell me you don’t belong to me. Look me in the eye and tell me you want him to touch you the way I did, and I’ll walk out that door right now.”

Your hands are still pressed against his chest. You can feel his heart pounding under your palms, fast and erratic, matching the frantic rhythm of your own. Your vision blurs. Hot, angry tears well up and spill over, tracking down your cheeks.

You don’t look away.

“I don’t get you, Matt.” Your voice comes out fierce and broken, barely above a whisper. “I don’t get you at all.”

His jaw trembles. His grip on the door tightens.

“For years,” you say, and the words start pouring out of you like water through a cracked dam. “Years. You showed me girl after girl. You pointed out their smile, their eyes, their outfits. You told me she was your type. You told me you liked her. You asked me for advice on what to say to her while I sat there smiling and dying in confusion.”

A sob catches in your throat. You swallow it down.

“Do you remember the girl from the coffee shop? The one with the red hair? You made me proofread your DM to her. You made me help you. And I did it. I helped you every single time because I thought that’s what best friends do. I thought if I was good enough, supportive enough, selfless enough, you’d eventually see me. But you never did. You just kept finding new girls. New crushes. New dream girls. And I stayed right here, in the wings, being your safe, comfortable backup.”

Your fingers curl into the fabric of his shirt. You’re gripping him now, holding on like he might disappear if you let go.

“And now you’re acting like this? Like I’m destroying you? Why, Matt? Why now? What the actual fuck?”

The fury drains out of him.

You watch it happen. The rigid posture, the clenched jaw, the wild desperation—it all crumbles. His shoulders slump. His hands slide from the door to the sides of your neck, his thumbs brushing the wet streaks on your cheeks. He looks at you with a hollow, devastating vulnerability, and then his forehead drops forward until it lands softly against yours.

A tear escapes his dark lashes. It tracks down into his beard, and you watch it fall.

“I don’t know,” he whispers. His eyes are closed. His breath mixes with yours in the inches between your lips. “I don’t fucking know, okay? I’m confused too. I’ve been terrified for so long.”

His voice breaks. Cracks right down the middle.

“Every time I looked at someone else, I was trying to force it. Trying to find an escape. Because the thought of loving you—the thought of losing you if I fucked it up—scared me to death. You’re not just some girl. You’re my best friend. You’re the person I tell everything to. And if I lost that, if I lost you, I don’t know what I’d—”

He can’t finish. His voice gives out entirely.

Your tears are falling faster now, mingling with his on your cheeks. You’re both crying. Not loud, racking sobs. Just a quiet, heavy stream of tears born from years of unspoken exhaustion and confusion and terrifyingly deep feelings.

His thumbs keep moving, wiping at your cheeks, his forehead still pressed hard against yours.

“Watching him touch you,” he breathes. “Seeing you leave with him. I couldn’t breathe. I can’t breathe without you. I don’t know how to explain it. I don’t know if it makes sense. But I’ve been sitting there all night trying to figure out what to say to you and all I could think was—I can’t lose you. I can’t. Not to him. Not to anyone.”

His grip on your neck tightens. His thumbs press into your jawline. His eyes snap open, and they’re not wild anymore. They’re focused. Certain. Locked onto your mouth with a heavy, desperate heat.

You pull him closer by the fabric of his rumpled shirt.

The final millimeter of distance disappears.

The kiss is nothing like the rainstorm. Nothing like the tentative, questioning press of lips that happened under the downpour, when everything was new and terrifying and blurry. This is a collision. Messy and frantic, fueled by the tears still drying on your faces, tasting faintly of salt and absolute desperation.

Matt’s mouth opens against yours and his tongue slides inside and you make a sound—something between a gasp and a sob—that he swallows whole. His hands are everywhere. Tangled in your hair, gripping your hips, pressing you so firmly against the bedroom door that you can feel the lock digging into your spine. He’s kissing you like he’s trying to consume the last few years of silence. Like he’s trying to breathe you in and never exhale.

Your fingers find the hem of his shirt. You yank. He breaks the kiss just long enough for you to pull it over his head, and then his mouth is back on yours, his bare chest pressing against the thin fabric of your brunch dress.

Clothes come off in a frantic, graceless scramble. His heavy jacket hits the floor. Your dress gets peeled away, the zipper catching for half a second before he works it free. His jeans. Your bra. Shoes kicked into corners. And through all of it, his hands never stop touching you—your waist, your ribs, the curve of your hip, the bare skin of your thighs.

A low growl tears from his throat when his fingers find the damp heat between your legs. His forehead drops to your shoulder. “You’re—” He can’t even finish. His fingers press deeper, sliding through your slickness, and you arch against the door with a broken moan.

“Matt.”

“I know.” His voice is wrecked. “I know, baby. I’ve got you.”

He moves you from the door to the bed. Doesn’t let a single inch of space come between you. He hovers over you, his weight grounding you into the mattress, his hips settling between your thighs. The length of him presses against your stomach, hot and hard and insistent.

His mouth drops to your shoulder. His lips part, his teeth scrape, and then he’s sucking a mark into your skin that will definitely bruise. You gasp, your fingers digging into his shoulder blades, and he makes a sound against your flesh that’s somewhere between a groan and a growl.

His mouth moves lower. Collarbone. He bites down, just hard enough to make you whimper. Lower still. The curve of your breast. His tongue flicks across your nipple and your back bows off the mattress.

Hips. His mouth traces the jut of your hipbone, his beard scratching a burning trail across your sensitive skin. He presses a kiss there. Then a bite. Then he soothes it with his tongue, and you’re trembling, your hands fisted in the sheets, your entire body wound tight.

“Look at me.”

His voice cuts through the haze. You force your eyes open. He’s hovering above you, braced on his forearms, his face inches from yours. His eyes are dark and intense and completely focused. On you. Only you.

“I need you to see me. I need you to know it’s me. I’m here. I’m not hiding anymore.”

A fresh wave of tears spills down your cheeks. You reach up and cup his face in your hands, your thumbs tracing the sharp line of his jaw, the scratch of his beard.

“I see you,” you whisper. “I’ve always seen you.”

He kisses you. Slow this time. Deep and thorough, his tongue sliding against yours, his hips rocking forward until the tip of him presses against your entrance. You gasp into his mouth. He swallows the sound.

Then he pushes inside.

The stretch is intense. Familiar and foreign all at once, your body remembering him even as it adjusts to the fullness. He moves slowly at first, measured thrusts that have you clutching at his back, your nails raking down his spine. His forehead drops to yours again. His breath shudders out of him.

“You feel—” He can’t finish. His hips snap forward, harder, and a moan tears from your throat. “I can’t. I can’t go slow. I need—”

“Then don’t.”

The word is barely out of your mouth before he’s surging into you, faster, deeper, his rhythm building into something punishing and desperate. The bed frame creaks. The headboard taps against the wall. Your legs wrap around his waist and he groans, burying his face in the crook of your neck, his hips driving into you with a rhythm that speaks of years of pent-up wanting.

His hand slides between your bodies. His thumb finds your clit, pressing in tight circles that match the pace of his thrusts, and the dual sensation makes your vision white out at the edges. You’re babbling now—his name, pleas, things that don’t quite form words—and he’s answering you in broken fragments, “I know, I know, let go, I’ve got you, let go.”

Your orgasm hits like a wave pulling you under. You cry out, back arching, nails digging into his shoulders, and the tightening clench of your body around him instantly pulls him right over the edge with you.

With a low, frantic curse, Matt grips your hips, his knuckles turning white as he yanks himself out of you at the very last second. He collapses beside you, a guttural groan ripping from deep in his chest as he spills against your stomach, the heat of him burning against your skin.

He rolls over, heavy and exhausted, pulling you flush against his side. His face buries into the crook of your neck, his breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps as he anchors you to his chest. You can feel his heart hammering violently against your ribs. Or maybe that’s yours. Maybe they’re beating in sync now, two frantic rhythms finally settling into something quieter in the dark.

For a long moment, neither of you speaks.

The room is dark. The afternoon shadows have deepened into evening, the last traces of golden light fading from the window. The vanilla candle is still burned out. The house is still silent. But everything is different now. Everything has shifted.

Matt rolls onto his side, pulling you with him. One heavy arm drapes over your waist, anchoring you to his chest. His face stays buried in the crook of your neck, his breath warm and steady against your skin. His beard scratches against your collarbone, but you don’t mind. You never mind.

“Stay,” he murmurs. It’s barely a word. More of a vibration against your throat.

You’re already half-asleep. “I’m not going anywhere.”

His arm tightens. His lips press a kiss to your pulse point. And then the exhaustion of the weekend, the emotional whiplash, the crying, the sex—it all catches up to you at once, dragging you down into a heavy, dreamless sleep.

When you wake, the room is dark. Not evening-dark. Night-dark. The kind of deep, velvet blackness that means hours have passed. The curtains are still half-drawn, and a sliver of moonlight cuts across the floor, competing with the soft, warm glow of your bedside lamp. You must have reached out and flicked it on at some point in the blur of the evening, its low, amber light casting long, amber shadows across the room and painting the edges of the furniture in gold.

For a moment, you’re disoriented. Your body is sore in places you haven’t been sore in a while. The sheets are tangled around your legs, heavy and warm. The pillow smells like him.

You reach for him.

Your hand finds empty sheets.

The other side of the bed is cold. The mattress still holds the indent of his body, but he’s not there. Your heart lurches. You push yourself up onto your elbows, blinking into the darkness, and that’s when you see him.

Matt is sitting on the floor.

His back is against the closet door. His knees are pulled up, his arms resting on them, his head bowed. The light catches the curve of his bare shoulders, the dip of his spine, the way his hands are trembling slightly.

Beside him sits the box.

The cardboard box, worn at the corners, the one you’ve kept hidden under the old blanket for years. The lid is off. A few letters are scattered on the floor around his feet. His name on the front of each envelope, your handwriting inside.

He’s reading one. His eyes move across the page, slow and deliberate, and you watch his shoulders hitch. Watch his jaw clench. Watch his thumb trace the edge of the paper like it’s something precious and fragile and about to shatter.

-----

No capitalization on the I. No warmth. No indication of what's going on behind those dark eyes. Just a confirmation of receipt. A digital nod. Message delivered. Contents noted. Have a nice life.

You stare at the screen until the words blur. Then you lock the phone and roll over, pulling the blankets up to your chin. The ceiling is the same ceiling you've stared at for the past week. The same cracks in the plaster. The same dust motes floating in the morning light. Everything is exactly the same, except now you have two letters and a period to add to your collection of things Matt has given you that you don't know how to interpret.

You don't reply.

The conversation dies right there, buried under the weight of mutual confusion, two people who have spent years talking around the thing that matters most, now reduced to single syllables and lowercase letters.

The next three days pass in a haze of forced nothing.

You don't leave the house. You don't answer texts beyond the bare minimum required to keep people from showing up at your door. The group chat buzzes constantly. Chris, doing what Chris does best, filling the silence with nonsense.

Chris: yo did anyone else see that pigeon outside the studio today

Chris: it was HUGE

Chris: like genuinely concerningly large

Chris: nick said it was normal sized but nick is a liar

Chris: anyway we're filming tomorrow if anyone cares

Chris: which you should because the concept is actually sick

Nick sends a thumbs-up emoji. Matt sends nothing.

You send nothing.

The chat goes quiet for a few hours, then Chris starts again.

Chris: update: the pigeon is back

Chris: i think it's watching me

Nick: It's a pigeon, Chris.

Chris: a MENACING pigeon

You read every message. You don't respond. Your thumb hovers over the keyboard more than once, but what would you even say? Hey guys, just so you know, your brother and I had sex and then he found years of obsessive love letters I wrote to him and now we're not speaking and I'm pretty sure our friendship is irreparably damaged. Anyway, what time is filming?

The phone stays locked. The silence stays heavy.

Your birthday arrives on a Saturday.

You wake up to the smell of something baking downstairs. Your mother, already in full event mode, has been planning this for weeks. "It's not every day my baby turns another year older," she'd said, ignoring your protests that you didn't want a party, that you didn't want a fuss, that you just wanted to survive the week without completely falling apart.

The house transforms by noon. Folding chairs appear from the garage. A tablecloth you've never seen before gets draped over the dining table. Your mom enlists two of your cousins to hang a banner that reads Happy Birthday! in gold script, and someone produces a truly alarming number of balloons.

You move through the preparations like a ghost. You smile when people talk to you. You accept hugs from aunts who comment on how thin you look, how tired, are you sleeping okay? You lie and say you're fine. Just busy. Just stressed. Just anything other than what you actually are, which is a woman whose entire emotional existence has been reduced to two letters and a period.

The doorbell rings at 2 PM.

Chris bursts through the door before you can even reach the handle. "BIRTHDAY GIRL!" His voice echoes through the entryway. In his hands is a massive foil balloon, it's a giant green pickle wearing a striped party hat. The text on the body of the pickle reads, in bold letters: Another Birthday? NO BIG DILL!

A laugh tears out of you. Genuine. Surprising. The first real laugh in days.

"Chris," you manage, "where did you even find this?"

"The internet is a beautiful place." He grins, shoving the balloon weight into your hands. "Also, you're welcome. I spent actual money on this."

Nick slips past his brother, shaking his head with the long-suffering patience of someone who has spent his entire life dealing with Chris's antics. He's holding a neatly wrapped present, rainbow paper with a silver bow. "Ignore him. Happy birthday." He pulls you into a hug, one arm wrapping around your shoulders while the other keeps the gift carefully balanced.

His voice drops to a whisper against your ear. "Are you okay?"

The question, so simple, so direct, almost undoes you. You swallow hard. Nod against his shoulder. "I'm okay," you whisper back. And for a moment, pressed into Nick's steady, grounding presence, you almost believe it.

Then you look up.

Matt is standing in the doorway.

He's wearing dark jeans and a simple white box crop tshirt. His hair is the same. His face is the same. Everything about him is exactly the same, except for the careful, deliberate distance in his eyes. The way he's holding himself back. The way he's watching you watch him.

And then, like someone flipped a switch, he smiles.

It's his classic smile. The easy one. The best-friend smile. "Hey," he says, stepping forward. "Happy birthday." He hands you a wrapped present with a card tucked under the ribbon, and his fingers don't brush yours. He pulls back before they can.

The card features Sandy Cheeks winking inside her scuba dome on the front, arched beneath the words howdy partner happy birthday. Inside, his handwriting, familiar, the same handwriting you've read on set lists and grocery notes and the back of receipts for years fills the page. Homegirl,

Happiest Birthday. All the best! Thanks for always being there.

— BBF Matty

P.S. I'm sorry.

Your eyes catch on the postscript. The rest of the message is so casual, so flippant, so perfectly constructed to sound like nothing has changed. But those three words at the bottom, tucked under his signature like an afterthought, undo the entire performance. I'm sorry. Not sorry for the card being late or sorry I forgot to wrap it better. Just I'm sorry. Vast and vague and devastating. Also you couldn't help but notice the subliminal messaging, Sandy, Spongebob's iconic girl best friend.

You look up. Matt is watching you read, his expression carefully neutral. But his jaw is tight. The muscle at the corner of his mouth twitches.

"Thank you," you hear yourself say. "This is really sweet."

"Of course." His voice is steady. Performed. "You know I've got you."

You know I've got you. The words land somewhere deep in your chest and ache. He's being normal. He's being exactly what you asked for in the letter, the best friend, the safe one, the one who doesn't talk about what happened or what he read or what he said when he pinned you against the door and called you his. He's giving you what you asked for.

So why does it feel like a knife between your ribs?

The party swells around you.

Your mom has outdone herself. The dining table groans under the weight of food. Sandwiches cut into triangles, a cheese board, a vegetable platter, something involving puff pastry that your aunt brought and everyone is politely not eating. Your cousins have taken over the living room. High school friends you haven't seen in months circulate with paper plates and cups of punch.

You move through it all on autopilot. Smile. Hug. Thank you. Yes, another year older. No, I don't feel different. Yes, the pickle balloon is ridiculous, Chris picked it out.

Matt stays in your orbit but never enters it. Every time you glance across the room, he's there, talking to someone, laughing at something, sipping his drink. But his eyes keep finding you. Brief glances. Quick cuts. Like he's checking to make sure you're still there. Still real. Still his, even if he's pretending you're not.

The doorbell rings again past 4 PM.

August is standing on your porch with a bouquet of flowers. Simple. White daisies and yellow roses, wrapped in brown paper. His smile is warm and easy and completely unaware of the emotional minefield he's walking into.

"Happy birthday," he says, handing you the flowers. "Sorry I'm late."

You hug him. It's natural. It's what friends do. But over his shoulder, across the crowded living room, you see Matt's expression flicker. The mask slips for half a second. Something dark and sharp flashes in his eyes.

Dinner is a loud, chaotic affair.

Every seat at the table is filled. Your mom has dragged in the extra chairs from the garage, the mismatched ones with the wobbly legs that no one ever uses. You're wedged between one of your cousins and Nick. Across the table, Matt sits next to Chris. August at the far end.

You're halfway through your second plate of food when August stands up.

He taps his fork against his glass. The clinking sound cuts through the chatter. Conversations trail off. Heads turn. Your cousin elbows you and grins.

"Alright, alright," August says, his voice carrying that easy confidence he always has. "I'm not big on speeches, but I couldn't let today pass without saying something."

Your stomach tightens. You glance at Matt. He's perfectly still, his fork paused halfway to his mouth.

"I've known this one for a long time," August continues, gesturing toward you with his glass. "And I've watched her be the most selfless, most loyal, most quietly incredible person in every room she walks into. She's the kind of friend who shows up. Every time. No questions asked. No thanks needed."

Your cousins are swooning. One of your high school friends makes a teasing "aww" sound. "She deserves the world," August says, his eyes finding yours. "And I'm so lucky to have her in my life. Happy birthday. To the best."

Glasses raise around the table. Voices chorus, "To the best!" Someone claps. Your mom dabs at her eyes with a napkin.

You force a smile. Force a thank you. Force yourself not to look at Matt.

But you feel him. You feel the exact moment he pushes his chair back from the table, the scrape of wood against wood. You feel the silence that follows as he stands, as he walks out of the room, as the door swings shut behind him.

The empty chair gapes at you. Accusing. Awful.

Nick catches your eye from across the table. His expression is carefully blank, but something flickers there. Something that looks a lot like confirmation. Like he's been waiting for this particular shoe to drop all afternoon.

You stare at Matt's half-eaten plate. At the fork resting on the edge of the porcelain. At the napkin crumpled beside it.

The green-eyed monster has finally reared its head.

You excuse yourself five minutes later.

"Just need to grab more napkins," you say, to no one in particular. To everyone. To the void where Matt used to be sitting. No one stops you. Your mom is already deep in conversation with your aunt about some neighborhood drama. Your cousins are arguing about something on their phones. The party has swallowed the moment whole, moved on without noticing the absence of one person.

The kitchen door swings shut behind you.

The hum of the refrigerator. The distant laughter from the dining room, muffled now by the wall. The bright overhead light reflecting off the countertops. And Matt.

He's standing by the sink, his back to you, his hands braced against the edge of the counter. His shoulders are tight. His head is bowed. He doesn't turn around when you enter.

"Hey." The word comes out smaller than you intended.

"Hey." His voice is rough. Worn at the edges.

The silence stretches. The refrigerator hums. Somewhere in the dining room, Chris laughs loudly at something. The sound feels like it's coming from another planet.

Matt turns around.

His face is unreadable. That careful blankness he's worn all afternoon, all week, all the long days since he walked out of your bedroom and left the spare key on your nightstand. But his eyes are different. His eyes are burning.

"This is what you wanted, right?" He asks it quietly. Not accusing. Just tired. Just hollow. "To just forget about everything. For you to have your best friend back."

You stare at him. Your brain snags on the words. What you wanted. He's talking about the letter. The letter Nick delivered. The letter where you begged him to pretend the box had never been found, the sex had never happened, the confession had never left his lips. You asked him to forget. You asked him to shove everything back into a box and lock it away.

And he's been trying. All afternoon, with the easy smile and the casual card and the deliberate distance, he's been trying to give you exactly what you asked for.

Tears prick at your eyes. Hot. Immediate. You can't let him see. You can't let him watch you break again. You turn around, facing the counter, pressing both palms flat against the cold surface. The chill grounds you. The smoothness of the granite. The faint smell of dish soap.

"Maybe this will be better for both of us." Your voice trembles. You can't stop it. "I don't know, Matt. Maybe better for the friendship—"

The words die in your throat.

Heat. Sudden, solid heat pressing against your back. His arms wrap around your waist, pulling you into his chest. His face buries into the side of your neck, his breath warm and ragged against your skin.

"I tried."

His voice cracks on the word. Shatters. The pieces of it scatter across the kitchen tiles.

"I tried, but I can't anymore. I can't fake it."

Your hands are still pressed flat against the counter. Your knuckles have gone white. His arms tighten around your waist, holding you like you might disappear if he lets go.

"You have no idea how selfish you were." His lips move against your neck, barely a whisper. "Keeping all those letters to yourself. All those years. All those things you never said."

"I'm sorry." The apology chokes out of you, wet and broken.

"Don't be." His grip tightens. "Don't be sorry. I'm the one who's sorry. I'm sorry for not looking at you. For not seeing what was right in front of me."

A shaky breath shudders through his chest. You feel it against your spine, the rise and fall of it, the way his body is trembling almost imperceptibly.

"Finding that box, those letters" he continues, his voice low and rough, "completely flipped my world. I didn't—I had no idea. All this time, I thought I was the only one struggling. The only one with these messy, confused feelings that I didn't know what to do with. And then I found those letters and realized you were doing the exact same thing. In the dark. By yourself. For years."

His face presses deeper into your neck. You feel the scratch of his beard. The wetness that might be tears or might be your own or might be both.

"You were right there," he whispers. "The whole time. Right in front of me. And I was too stupid to see it."

He turns you around.

His hands slide up from your waist, over your ribs, until they cup your face. His thumbs brush the tear tracks on your cheeks, wiping them away even as new ones fall. His eyes are dark and wet and unbearably open.

Then he kisses you.

It's different from the rainstorm. Different from the frantic, desperate collision in your bedroom. This kiss is slower. Deeper. A confession pressed into your lips, your tears mixing together, salt and heat and the faint taste of the punch he drank at dinner.

He pulls back, breathing hard. His forehead rests against yours. His thumbs are still stroking your cheekbones.

"Seeing you with him," he breathes, "I can't take it."

You blink through the tears. "Who? See me with who?"

The kitchen door swings open.

August steps inside. His expression shifts instantly, the easy smile evaporating as he takes in the scene. You, crying. Matt's hands on your face. The tension in the air thick enough to choke on.

"Is everything okay in here?" August steps forward, his posture straightening, his shoulders squaring.

Matt drops his hands from your face. The warmth disappears. The cold rushes back in.

He turns around.

Walks right up to August.

Almost chest to chest. Eye to eye. The height difference is negligible. The tension is not.

"Yeah, dude." Matt's voice drips with defensive venom. "Everything's okay."

The air crackles. Neither of them moves. Neither of them blinks. You're frozen against the counter, your back still pressed to the cold granite, your hands still shaking.

The door swings open again.

Chelsea walks in. "What's up?" She glances between the two men. Her brow furrows. Then, as if deciding the testosterone standoff isn't worth her attention, she walks right past both of them.

"Happy birthday, babe. I'm sorry got caught up with work." She wraps you in a hug, her sundress rustling, her perfume light and floral and completely at odds with the chaos of the moment. She pulls back, studying your face. "You okay?"

You nod. Numb. Automatic.

Chelsea turns around. Walks right up to August. Throws her arms around his neck. Rises onto her toes.

And kisses him, a peck on the lips.

Soft. Brief. The kind of casual peck that comes from years of intimacy. "Babe," she says, her hand resting on his chest, "is everything okay?"

August's posture softens immediately. His hand comes up to cover hers. "Yeah," he says, his eyes still on Matt. "Everything's fine."

The kitchen goes silent.

Matt stands frozen. His eyes are wide. His mouth has fallen slightly open. He's staring at Chelsea's hand on August's chest. At August's hand covering hers. At the easy, obvious intimacy between them that he has somehow, impossibly, completely misread.

You watch the realization crash over him in waves. The furrow of his brow. The slight shake of his head. The way his eyes cut to you, confusion and disbelief and something that looks terrifyingly like hope all tangled together.

"Wait." His voice is barely a whisper. "You two are—she's your—"

"Girlfriend," August says. Flat. Direct. "Chelsea. My girlfriend." He pauses, and understanding dawns across his face. Understanding of exactly what Matt has been assuming this whole time. "Did you think—"

He doesn't finish the question. He doesn't need to.

Matt's face crumples.

All the jealousy. All the rage. All the sleepless nights and the desperate confrontations and the who the fuck is he and the are you sleeping with him and the way he's been tearing himself apart watching you with August. All of it, built on a foundation of absolutely nothing.

"Chelsea," you manage, your voice still shaky, "this is Matt. Matt, this is Chelsea. August's girlfriend."

Chelsea extends her hand. "Nice to finally meet you. I've heard a lot about you."

Matt doesn't take it. He's still staring at August. Still processing. His jaw works, like he's trying to form words and failing.

Then he looks at you.

And the expression on his face is so raw, so utterly exposed, that it steals the breath from your lungs. He looks like a man who has just been handed a pardon at the gallows. Like someone who spent weeks drowning only to realize the water was three feet deep.

The kitchen door swings open again. Nick pokes his head in, his eyes scanning the scene—Matt frozen, August and Chelsea united, you pressed against the counter with tear-streaked cheeks—and sighs.

"Of course," he mutters. "I leave you people alone for five minutes."

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