Some moments arrive quiet. Not with fireworks or fanfare—but like a single raindrop that lands between your shoulders and somehow soaks straight through to your bones.
Zoe knocked on my apartment door at 10:42 PM. Unannounced. Hoodie half-zipped, mascara smudged, hair pulled back like she'd just walked out of a memory I wasn't ready for.
"I brought cookies," she said, holding up a sad little paper bag. "They're terrible. Burnt them trying to feel something."
I stepped aside. "That's the most you thing I've heard all day."
She flopped onto my couch and tossed her legs over the armrest. "So. How's your harem?"
I winced. "Please never say that word again."
"Why? It's accurate. You've got a moody rival, a soft-spoken novelist, an internet bombshell, and me—the funny best friend who's secretly hot."
I turned toward her. "You forgot the part where I'm spiraling into emotional confusion like a sitcom character whose laugh track got deleted."
She was quiet for a moment. Then: "You always do that."
"Do what?"
"Deflect with metaphors. Make a joke instead of looking at what's actually happening."
I met her eyes, and for once, she wasn't smiling. No teasing. No smirk. Just Zoe—open, raw, real.
"I was fine," she said quietly. "Before this whole blog thing blew up. Before you suddenly became every girl's favorite daydream. I was fine being your best friend. Even when it sucked."
I sat down beside her. Not too close. Just close enough to feel the space between us stretch thin.
"When did it start?" I asked.
She laughed, soft and bitter. "That night you held my hair back while I puked at Dan's party freshman year. You made a dumb joke about how hangovers were 'just love letters from tequila.' And I remember thinking, God, I'm screwed."
I looked at my hands. "Why didn't you say anything?"
"Because you weren't ready. And maybe I wasn't either. And then it just… kept going."
Zoe turned to face me fully now, her voice lower, steadier.
"You want the truth, Eliot? I'm tired of being the side character in my own story. I don't want to watch someone else figure you out. I already have. You flinch when people compliment you, you overthink every text you send, and you act like you're invisible because it's safer than being seen."
She leaned forward, close enough to feel her breath.
"But I see you. I've always seen you."
The silence between us hummed like a string pulled too tight. My mouth opened. Then closed. Then opened again.
"…I don't know what to say."
"Don't say anything yet," she whispered. "Just know that when this game ends—when the fake dating and viral chaos all burns out—I'm not playing to win. I'm just telling the truth."
And then, as if it cost her everything, Zoe stood, kissed my forehead, and walked out the door like she hadn't just set my entire emotional structure on fire.
The apartment was silent again. Except now, every shadow looked like her, every breath echoed her name.
And I finally realized:
Zoe wasn't part of the game.
She was the ending I'd never let myself imagine.