---
There was a sound LenaCarter had grown used to: silence.
It was the kind that filled every room of her house after 6 PM—the soft hum of the fridge, the ticking clock above the stove, and the occasional distant bark of the neighbor's dog. No voices. No footsteps. Just quiet.
She didn't mind it. Not really. It was predictable. Simple.
Which is why the text she got from Jace Rivera that night felt like a small earthquake.
> you free?
Just that. No context. No punctuation, even.
She stared at her phone for a full minute, heart thumping like it was being stupid on purpose. This wasn't part of the agreement. They met Tuesdays and Thursdays. It was a Monday.
> why?
His reply was instant.
> stuck on the second half of the outline.
> can't get the wording right.
> or maybe i just need to talk it out.
> please?
Please.
She rubbed her thumb over the screen. Then sighed.
> ok. call me.
Three seconds later, her phone lit up with an incoming call.
---
"You ever think Esther was more afraid of *success* than failure?" Jace's voice was grainy, half-lost in static.
Lena sat curled up in her bed, blanket around her shoulders, laptop open but forgotten beside her. "Explain."
"I mean," he said, "look at the way she talks about her future. Every time she gets close to something—an internship, a scholarship, a life—she panics. Like she's scared of becoming what people expect her to be."
Lena frowned. "That's still failure, though. Letting fear stop you."
"No," Jace argued, "that's choosing something else. Freedom, maybe. Control."
His voice got quieter.
"Sometimes the world hands you a box and says, 'Here. Live in this.' And the second you try to punch your way out, they act like *you're* the crazy one."
There was a silence on the line that lasted longer than it should have. Lena found herself holding her breath.
"You ever felt like that?" she asked before she could stop herself.
A pause.
"Every day," Jace said.
He didn't elaborate.
And she didn't press.
But that moment—soft, suspended—hung in the air like a ghost note in a song, heard only by the people who knew where to listen.
---
The next morning, everything felt too loud.
The school hallway buzzed with morning energy—squeaking sneakers, slamming lockers, the tangy scent of cafeteria hash browns.
Lena moved like a ghost through it all, eyes half-focused on the floor.
She'd barely slept. Kept replaying that call in her head. The way Jace's voice had gone from fast and clever to slow and careful. Like he wasn't just talking about Esther anymore.
At her locker, she found a folded piece of notebook paper wedged into the vent.
It wasn't signed. But she knew the handwriting.
*Tell me one thing you're afraid of. I'll go first tomorrow.*
Lena stared at it for a long time. Then folded it up and tucked it into her pocket without a word.
---
By Thursday, it had become a ritual.
Not the notes—they didn't do that again.
But the conversations. Quiet ones. Off-script. Personal.
They still worked on the project, sure. But sometimes it took half an hour to even *start* because Jace would ask something out of the blue:
> "If you could punch one literary character in the face, who would it be?"
Or:
> "Do you think people are ever really honest? Or do we just say the least painful version of the truth?"
Lena never gave him the easy answers. And that seemed to make him ask more.
It wasn't flirting, exactly.
But it wasn't *not* flirting, either.
And that unsettled her.
Because she couldn't afford to be derailed by someone like Jace Rivera.
Not now.
---
—One Week Later – Tuesday
It was raining when he showed up late.
Lena sat in their usual spot at the library—hoodie pulled over her ears, fingers tapping impatient rhythms on her notebook.
She was about to leave when she saw him.
Jace stepped in, soaking wet, water dripping from his jacket. His hair was plastered to his forehead, and he had the kind of breathless expression that meant he'd run here.
"Sorry," he said between breaths. "I—bike tire popped. Had to walk from Grant Avenue."
"You're soaked," Lena said, and immediately hated how soft her voice sounded.
He grinned. "Is that concern I hear?"
She rolled her eyes and handed him a towel from her bag.
"You carry towels in your bag?"
"I used to run track," she muttered. "Old habits."
Jace didn't tease her. He just dried off quietly, sitting across from her.
They worked for twenty minutes in silence, scribbling down notes, referencing quotes, refining transitions.
But something was... off.
His shoulders were tense. His handwriting messier than usual.
Lena glanced up. "You okay?"
Jace didn't answer right away. Then he said, "Got into a fight with my mom this morning."
That stopped her. "Oh."
"She doesn't think I'm serious about school. Says I'll end up like my brother."
Lena remembered vaguely—Jace had an older brother. Used to go to this school. Dropped out junior year. Something about a DWI.
"She wrong?" she asked carefully.
His jaw tightened. "I don't know. Maybe."
He looked away, eyes following the rain streaking down the window.
"I don't know what I want, Lena. I just know it's not this. The town, the gossip, the expectations. I want something else."
"Like what?"
"I don't know. Something *real*. Something that doesn't feel like I have to wear a mask every day just to get through it."
Lena's breath caught.
She understood that more than she wanted to admit.
For a moment, she wanted to tell him about the night her dad left. About the way her mother cried in the pantry for hours, thinking no one could hear her. About the pressure that had wrapped around Lena's chest since then like barbed wire.
But she didn't.
Instead, she said, "You're not your brother."
Jace looked at her.
His eyes weren't cocky or mischievous or full of sharp edges.
They were just tired.
And grateful.
---
By Thursday, things felt different.
Not *changed*. But different.
Their walls weren't gone. But they'd been pushed back an inch.
Lena didn't smile when she saw him walk into the library that day.
But she didn't scowl either.
He sat down and handed her a coffee—black, no cream, no sugar. Just how she liked it.
"You remembered," she said.
"I listen."
She didn't know how to respond to that.
So she said nothing and opened her notebook.
They worked. They joked. They even argued about the meaning of a passage from Chapter 17.
But it wasn't like before.
Something soft had started to build between them. Slow and silent.
Like the kind of music you only notice after it's already playing.
---
—That Weekend – Saturday
Lena didn't expect the knock.
It was 11 AM. She'd just finished cleaning the kitchen when there it was—two sharp taps on the front door.
She opened it and stared.
Jace stood there, holding a book and a crooked grin.
"Thought you might want to get ahead on the project," he said. "Also, my place is chaos right now. Mom's got some cousin over and they're rehashing old family drama."
"You showed up... uninvited."
"Is this you saying I should leave?"
She opened the door wider.
"No. Just... don't touch anything."
Jace walked in, glancing around. "It's quiet."
"My mom works weekends," Lena said. "Double shifts."
He nodded.
They sat in the living room, books spread out across the table. The TV hummed softly in the background—some crime show Lena had half-watched earlier.
They didn't talk about school.
Instead, they drifted—into stories, childhood memories, favorite songs.
At one point, Jace got up and started poking around the bookshelf.
"You organize by author?"
"Alphabetical," Lena said. "But only fiction. Poetry's on the top shelf."
He grinned. "Of course it is."
When he found her old copy of *Milk and Honey*, he raised an eyebrow. "I thought you hated this stuff."
"I do."
"So why keep it?"
She hesitated. "Because sometimes, you need to hate something to remember who you are."
Jace stared at her like she'd just said the most interesting thing in the world.
And then, without thinking, he said, "You scare me sometimes."
Lena blinked. "What?"
"You're so... sure of yourself. Like if someone peeled you open, they'd find concrete underneath."
She swallowed. "That's not true."
He stepped closer.
"Then what *would* they find?"
Lena met his eyes.
For once, she didn't look away.
And then—quietly, honestly—she said, "Glass. Sharp. And probably already cracked."
They stared at each other for a moment longer than necessary.
And then the doorbell rang.
The moment broke.
Lena stepped back. "Probably a delivery."
But even after he left, even after she'd shut the door and leaned against it with her heart doing acrobatics in her chest—she could still feel it.
That closeness.
That danger.
That *pull*.
---