I sat on the edge of my bed, phone clenched in my hand like it was about to explode. The message thread with Milo Voss was open—but I hadn't sent a single word.
From the other side of the house, Amelia and Finn's laughter floated down the hall, light and innocent. It felt like a slap against the storm twisting inside me.
Elyse. She was trying to disappear. Pretend I didn't exist.
But I saw her. Always.
When she slid next to Milo Voss at lunch, laughing too loud, leaning in just a little too close—I saw it all. Felt it like a punch to the gut.
She was trying to make me jealous. Make me care.
Stupid. Immature.
But damn it, it worked.
I rubbed my face, then glanced over at my chemistry notebook, face down on the desk. The sketches. The notes. The little confessions in pencil.
They weren't just drawings. They were me admitting I was tangled up in her whether I liked it or not.
~~~~
The house was too quiet.
Even the walls seemed to echo with the same question, over and over: What did I do?
I replayed every second—every joke, every smirk, every time I touched her wrist during chem or looked a little too long when she wasn't paying attention. I thought I was being careful. Or at least obvious in a harmless kind of way.
But something shifted. I wanted to scream at her, and argue with her and kiss her and hold her. But I can't. I grabbed my phone from my nightstand and texted Kaylie. I know it's wrong, but I need to know.
Me:
hey kaylie, ik you prob hate me too, but i need to know pls, what did i do??
Read 11:28 p.m. I held my breath.
Kaylie:
yeah, ur damn right i hate u. el is miserable too, u have no idea how much you hurt her you douche.
Me:
wdym? Kaylie, pls i'll make it right i promise. please.
Kaylie:
u seriously dont have any idea? all the shit u said abt her last semester to Dylan and Mason. Serena told her
I started at my screen in disbelief.
Me:
are you serious? i was being a dumbass, i never meant for her to hear that. it was before i really knew her kaylie
Kaylie:
that doesnt matter. u hurt her, now u have to fix it. or else
I couldn't believe it, Elyse was finally breaking down her walls for me, and making me feel like I could be me. And then Serena opened her perfectly lip-glossed mouth, and now Elyse was doing everything in her power to erase me.
My knee bounced. My palms itched. I couldn't sleep, couldn't lay still. I kept picturing that look on her face when I passed her at lunch—cold, untouched, like I didn't even exist anymore.
She didn't even flinch.
I threw off my blanket and sat up, staring at the tree outside my window.
The old maple between our houses had been there longer than either of us. I used to climb it when I was a kid. Elyse did too—though we were never up there at the same time. Until one summer, when we were maybe eleven, and I accidentally dropped a Gatorade on her head from the top branch.
She didn't speak to me for a week. I'd laughed so hard I nearly fell out of the tree.
I shoved open my window and swung my legs out.
It was stupid. Reckless. The kind of thing she'd kill me for in a heartbeat. But if I didn't do something now, I'd explode.
The bark scraped my palms as I climbed, steady but quiet, every creak of the branches making my heart hammer harder. Her room was dark, but I knew it by memory—the slanted roof just outside her window, the tiny wind chime she never took down even after it broke.
I crouched on the roof, breathing hard. One knock. That was it.
I tapped the glass.
Nothing.
Again. A little louder.
A light flicked on, dim and warm. Then, curtains shifted—and there she was. Elyse.Wavy chestnut air messy from sleep. Eyes wide. Lips parted like she couldn't decide if she was surprised, furious, or both.
She unlocked the window and slid it up.
"What the hell are you doing?" she whispered, voice sharp with sleep and disbelief.
"I—I had to talk to you."
"Knocking on my window at—" she glanced at the clock behind her— "two forty-six in the morning is your idea of talking?"
"I didn't know how else to—" I ran a hand through my hair. "Just let me explain."
She crossed her arms but didn't close the window. "You have two minutes before I shove you off the roof."
Fair.
I took a breath. "I don't know what Serena told you, but whatever it was—it wasn't the whole story."
Her expression didn't change.
"I mean…" I scratched my neck. "Okay, yeah, I said all of that. Months ago. Before I actually knew you."
"Oh good," she said flatly. "That makes it better."
"I was trying to be funny."
"But you were trying an asshole."
"Yes," I admitted. "Back then. But things are different now. You are different now."
She narrowed her eyes. "I'm the same girl I've always been, Jordan. You just didn't bother seeing it until it was convenient."
That one stung. Mostly because it wasn't wrong.
"I do see you," I said quietly.
She looked away. "Too late."
I stared at her—really stared, because maybe this would be the last time she let me this close—and said the only thing that felt true.
"I like you, Elyse."
Her head snapped toward me, eyes flashing.
I rushed on, before she could shut the window on my face. "Not for the challenge. Not because you roll your eyes better than anyone on earth. Not even because you make chemistry class the only hour of my day that doesn't completely suck."
I exhaled. "I like you because when I'm around you, I'm not pretending. I don't have to be the guy everyone expects. I can just… be."
She didn't answer. Just stared at me, breathing quietly.
And then—finally—she said, "That's great, Jordan. But it's really easy to be honest once you've already wrecked something."
I blinked.
She stepped closer to the window, voice still low but sharp enough to cut."You think because you climbed a tree and said a few vulnerable things that I'm just going to forget the part where you humiliated me behind my back?"
"I didn't mean—"
"But you did," she snapped. "You meant it enough to say it. To laugh about it. You talked about me like I'm just a task to be overcome. You made me a joke."
Her eyes were glassy now, but her voice didn't shake."And you don't get to make a girl feel like she's hard to love and then show up at her window like a rom-com hero."
The silence stretched. She swallowed, then added,"You were never confused, Jordan. You just didn't care until someone else did."
That one hit dead center. I opened my mouth. No words came.
She gave a tight, bitter smile. "Your two minutes are up."
Then, slowly, she slid the window closed and latched it shut.
She didn't slam it. Didn't scream.
But it hurt worse than anything she could've shouted.
I stayed there on the roof for a long time.
And this time, when I climbed back across, I didn't feel like the boy who had a shot to fix things.
I felt like the one who'd already ruined them.
~~~~
Elyse Gates
I stared at my ceiling long after Jordan left.
After he'd climbed back across the tree like some idiot boy in a Netflix original, after I'd locked the window and shut the curtains and curled into a ball under my comforter like that would stop my brain from spinning.
I didn't sleep.
Not because of what he said—but because of how badly I wanted to believe it. I mean, who does that? Who climbs a roof in the middle of the night and says I like you like it's some kind of apology bouquet with extra angst?
Jordan Gallagher. That's who. And that's exactly why I couldn't trust it.Because everything with him felt performative. Like a magic trick. Like the more he pulled me in with little pencil sketches and heat behind his eyes, the more I felt like the punchline to some private joke I didn't know I was in.
I wasn't about to be another story he told to his friends. Another girl he got to break down and win over.
No.
I wasn't a sketch in a notebook. I was a person. A real one. And he didn't get to play me just because he could draw a good jawline and whisper sweet nothings through a window.
~~~~
At school the next morning, I slammed my locker harder than necessary. My whole body was buzzing—not with nerves. With anger.
Harper side-eyed me as we walked to first period. "So… did something happen, or are you just channeling your inner NFL linebacker today?"
"He climbed the tree," I snapped.
Harper blinked. "The tree?"
"My window. At nearly three in the morning. Like we're in a coming-of-age movie and not real life where people get arrested for trespassing."
Her jaw dropped. "And?? What did he say?"
I stared ahead. "That he likes me."
She was silent for half a beat. Then: "Okay, and what did you say?"
"That he's full of it."
"Oh."
I rubbed my temple. "He thinks he can undo everything with one grand gesture and a line about how he doesn't have to pretend around me."
Harper winced. "Oof. That's a good line though."
"It is, which makes it worse! Because it means he knows what kind of stuff works on me."
We turned the corner. I spotted him at the end of the hallway, leaning against the wall like he hadn't almost fallen off my roof last night.
Our eyes met for half a second. His were soft. Searching. Mine were steel.
I looked away.
"Still mad?" Harper asked quietly. "I'm not mad," I said.
Which was a lie.
Because I was mad. Not just at him, but at myself. For thinking—even for one second—that maybe he meant it.
That maybe I wasn't just another challenge to win.
~~~~
Jordan Gallagher
She didn't say a word to me the next day.
Not in the hall. Not in chem. Not even when I handed her the right pipette without her asking.
She just took it like I was invisible. Like I was the annoying background noise in a movie she didn't even like.
I deserved that. I knew it. But it still sucked.
I'd spent the whole night turning her words over in my head like they were some kind of puzzle. That look on her face—like she'd been burned. Not surprised. Just tired. Tired of whatever game she thought I was playing.
And maybe that's the part that stung the most. Because yeah, I used to screw around. Flirt, joke, draw attention like it was oxygen. But this? Elyse? This wasn't a game. It never had been.
I kept thinking about what Serena said. About that fire alarm line I'd said months ago, back when Elyse was just a girl who always had something snarky to say in English.
It had been a joke.
Except maybe it wasn't. Maybe I had said it because she got under my skin. Maybe I'd said it to Mason or Dylan like it didn't matter. Like she didn't matter. And now?
Now I couldn't stop looking at her hands when she mixed solutions. Couldn't stop noticing how her lip twitched when she was trying not to sigh at Mr. Kepler's bad puns. Couldn't stop waiting for her to look at me again—really look at me.
She didn't.
I leaned closer halfway through the lab. Kept my voice low. Careful.
"Elyse," I said. "I know you're pissed. I know I messed up. But I wasn't lying. I promise."
Nothing.
"You don't have to believe me," I added. "But I meant it."
Still nothing.
She kept scribbling notes like I wasn't sitting four inches away, like I hadn't been thinking about her nonstop for days.
Finally, she said, without looking up, "You're really good at acting like you care."
I sat back, like she'd shoved me. "I'm not acting."
She looked at me then. Just for a second.
"That's the problem, Jordan," she said. "I don't know when you're acting and when you're not."
Then she went right back to writing. Walls fully up. Door locked. Key thrown into the Mariana Trench.
I didn't say anything after that. Because what was I supposed to do? Climb another tree?Draw another sketch?
I was running out of ideas.
And worse—I was starting to realize that maybe I couldn't fix this with grand gestures or chemistry metaphors.
This time, I'd actually have to earn it. But how?
~~~~
Elyse Gates
The problem with pretending not to care is that eventually, you start to forget where the pretending ends.
I told myself I didn't care.
I rolled my eyes. I didn't flinch when he leaned closer. I kept my voice steady and my pen moving and my heart tucked behind layers of whatever armor I could scrape together before first period.
But by lunch, I was exhausted. It's not that he was ignoring me. It's that he was trying so hard not to. The way he watched me from across the courtyard like I was a math problem he couldn't solve. The way he kept not saying anything—like silence might finally win me back.
Spoiler alert: It didn't.
Milo bumped my elbow with a smirk. "You good?"
"Fine," I said automatically. He didn't believe me. No one did. Not even Harper, who had stopped trying to talk me out of my bitterness and started just handing me extra cookies from the lunch line instead.
"I'm just…tired," I muttered. Of being a test. A challenge. A fire alarm. Of wondering if his apologies were real or just another part of the Jordan Gallagher Experience™—a charming remix of bad timing and good hair.
He hadn't tried to talk to me again since chemistry. Maybe he finally got the hint. Maybe he was back to sketching new girls with complicated eyeliner and laughable expectations. I was tired of thinking about him.
So, when Milo asked if I wanted to ditch last period and get boba instead?
I said yes.
Because if Jordan wanted space, I'd give him an entire orbit. And if he thought I'd burn out like some cliché firecracker girl who fell too fast, he was about to learn something very important: I don't burn out. I burn through.