Delorah didn't ask right away.
She just watched.
She watched the way Kit had gone silent after Celeste walked off. Like a light had flickered out behind his eyes. She noticed how he wouldn't look anywhere but his lunch tray, staring at the mashed potatoes as if they held some kind of code he couldn't crack. He kept his shoulders drawn tight, chin tucked, neck muscles tensed like he was bracing for a punch. Not guilt exactly. Something deeper, something older. Like a bruise he'd learned to hide.
He hadn't done anything wrong. Except maybe he had. The air around him said so, even if his mouth never would.
Delorah felt it, that old, familiar ache—when you wanted to say something but didn't know if you should. Her used-to-be friends used to look like this sometimes—like they wanted to disappear inside their own skin. She wondered if it was better to ask and risk blowing things up, or stay quiet and leave him to drown.
Neither of them said they weren't hungry anymore. They didn't need to. Forks resting useless. Lunch trays were left untouched. Props in a scene neither of them wanted to keep performing. Delorah probed a grape with her thumbnail until the skin split. It was all just going through the motions now, background noise: the cafeteria's fluorescent hum, the clatter and scrape of someone trying to find a seat, the faint echo of laughter that didn't belong to either of them. It was like being on set for someone else's movie, waiting for the part where you walked offscreen.
Kit sat with his hands jammed so deep in his hoodie he looked like he was folding in on himself. Jaw set, brow trembling just faintly, glancing up sometimes only to flinch away from another contact.
Delorah found herself tracing the pattern of the table's faux-wood grain, just to give her hands something to do. It was easier to look away than to look at how small Kit seemed now, like he was someone else.
She picked up a napkin, crumpled it, set it down neatly. Reached for her water bottle, thumbed at the condensation beading along the plastic. Didn't drink. Didn't move. Just… waited. Let the silence grow roots in the cracks between her words and his posture.
The question itched inside her. She told herself: wait, be patient, don't pry, but her curiosity had teeth and sharp elbows. When she finally spoke, her voice came out lower than she intended, more weary than brave. A whisper meant just for him, hidden under the cafeteria's constant din.
"Who was that?"
The words landed like a stone in deep water. She saw Kit flinch, the way people do when you call their name in a bad dream. His water bottle stopped, hovering, his expression frozen tight. Whether from fear or pain, she couldn't tell.
"Her name's Celeste." The name wobbled out on a whisper, already too heavy.
"I caught that," Delorah said, keeping her voice steady, trying to sound gentle. "What I didn't catch is why you looked like you'd seen a ghost."
For a beat, he just stared through her, like maybe he'd forgotten he was visible. He lifted his hand and rubbed the back of his neck in that small, uncertain way people do when they're searching for honesty and not sure they'll find it. Words piled up behind his teeth, stayed there.
"It's nothing," he said, and even he didn't sound convinced. There was too much space around the words for them to mean what he wanted.
Delorah gave a faint, humorless laugh she didn't quite feel. "You're an actual terrible liar."
He managed a crooked half-smile. "Wasn't trying very hard."
She wanted to tell him it was okay, that she could just sit with the not-knowing, but inside her mind ran fast. Wondering who Celeste was, what she meant to him, what memory had just clawed its way to the surface without warning. She didn't know how to help, or if she should even try.
Somewhere across the room, a soda can hissed open—spilling bubbles and sharp punctuation into the air. Someone laughed and it was too loud, careless, like an earthquake. A tray crashed onto the linoleum. Nobody turned. The world felt too fast, too bright, like everything was moving past them in a blur while they stood completely still, the quiet swelling and sharp between them.
Delorah balanced on the edge of another question but bit it back, feeling the strain of all the things left unsaid. Between Kit and Celeste, between Kit and her, between herself and the version of herself that didn't care so much. She kept her hands folded tight in her lap, as if holding still could make the moment last. Or at least keep it from falling apart.
Kit pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes, like the cafeteria's washed-out lighting might burn straight through his skull if he let it. He pressed harder, willing the world to dissolve behind the blood-bright patterns beneath his eyelids, chasing that illusion of safety that never lasted more than a second. If he pushed hard enough, maybe the ache behind his eyes would crowd out the rest. The noise, the nerves, the gritty static of panic rising from his skin.
He shouldn't say anything. If he could just stay hidden a few seconds longer, maybe the pressure in his chest would ease and he could swallow down the truth like another bland bite of cafeteria food. But Delorah was right there and waiting, her silence steadier than his could ever be.
"I didn't want to get into it," he said finally, voice raw on the edges, scraping together just enough honesty to get the words out.
Delorah's voice was so gentle he almost hated her for it. "You're already into it."
She hesitated, watching him the way you watch someone at the edge of a rooftop. Hoping a question won't tip them over. "Is she someone you used to—?"
The question skittered painfully close to what he couldn't imagine saying out loud. He jumped in, too fast, sharp at the edges: "No. It's not that." He could feel the heat scratching up his neck, a flush of half-shame, half-fear.
Delorah just waited, calm and steady and too perceptive for her own good. "Then what?"
He let go of his eyes and stared down at his palms, raw where he'd pressed them too hard. He sucked in a breath but it didn't feel like enough. Every muscle in his body twitched and trembled, betraying him. The chemical numbness that had been with him, the armor he'd worn all morning. It was gone now, leaving him defenseless, exposed to every scrape and jab from the inside out. Even breathing hurt. There was metal on his tongue and a sick twist in his gut, like he was about to be sick right there on the table.
"She's the one," he said, barely getting the words past his teeth.
Delorah just frowned, puzzled. "The one what?"
He lifted his eyes, finally, and made himself look at her. Her gaze was steady, questioning, but there was a vulnerability to the edges. Like she was bracing for some impossible bad news. His own eyes burned with unshed tears, electric with everything he'd been holding back.
He made himself say it.
"The one I'm supposed to marry."
There was a second. A flicker as Delorah's face went blank, her eyes wide with shock. He could see exactly when the words hit her, see the wince she tried to hide. He felt it in his own bones. A guilt heavier than embarrassment, older than the both of them.
"What?" Her voice was hollow, a single note struck on cracked glass.
He shook his head, wishing he could erase the whole conversation. He looked down again, fingers curling harder into the seams of his hoodie until his knuckles went white. "I found out a few days ago. Same night I texted you."
He could feel her pulling away, not by choice but out of sheer self-preservation. Delorah's body shifted back, just a few inches, but he felt every millimeter like a wound. There, in that tiny gap, the world seemed to tilt.
"You're telling me now?" The words were heavy, too big for the space between them.
He swallowed hard, throat raw. "I couldn't lie to you," Kit whispered. "Not with the way everything's unraveling." He tried to clear the shake from his voice, but the best he could manage was a cracked edge, an almost-plea.
He dug his fingers in deeper, the seams rough against his skin. As if pressure would keep him from falling apart entirely. The tremor in his left hand wouldn't quit, no matter how hard he pressed it to his thigh. Sweat prickled at his temples, chill under the harsh flicker of the lights.
Across from him, Delorah's arms folded in tight, closing off her body as if she could protect something inside herself. Her tray looked suddenly alien, just another piece of set dressing in this surreal scene. She stared at it, both of them pretending that finishing lunch was still an option.
"So… that's why she was acting like she knew something I didn't." Delorah's voice was laced with something sharp now, probably hurt. Maybe. He hated himself for putting it there.
"Probably," Kit choked out, throat closing up.
She let out a bitter, exhausted breath. "And you've just been sitting on this?" The accusation stung, but he knew he deserved it.
Kit clamped his teeth together, fighting back the urge to curl up and disappear under the table. "I didn't choose her, Del." The words came out hard, spilled in a rush, frantic. "I didn't choose any of this."
He wished he could say more, say it better. Explain how trapped he felt inside his own life, how unfair the universe seemed when it picked your fate out for you before you even had a chance to want something different. But all that came through the tight squeeze of his voice was desperation, and the pounding truth between them: nothing was ever going to be simple again.
"But you knew."
His stomach twisted up. There was nothing to hide behind now, no vague promises or half-truths left to retreat into. "I did." The words were flat and colorless, scraped dry. He couldn't even pretend. Didn't want to.
He'd seen people go brittle, watched panic and disappointment combust in real time before. But Delorah just blinked and looked at him. Steady, hollow, hurt sliding down into her bones in a way that made him want to look away. She didn't shout, didn't break, didn't cry. Just watched him like something essential in her had shifted out of reach, like part of her chest had snapped quietly beneath the surface.
The world's noise poured around them: metal on ceramic, a chorus of vague teenage commotion, the faint scent of old fries and someone's spilled fruit juice. All of it echoed like they sat at the bottom of a well. Between them, the silence coiled tighter, a space thick enough to feel in his throat.
"Oh," she said.
That one little word that was so soft, so final. It hurt more than any accusation. Not anger. Not disappointment. Just a quiet kind of resignation that broke through all his flimsy defenses. It made him feel transparent, thin-skinned, ugly with the weight of having caused it.
He tried, fumbled with the impossible. "I didn't mean for you to find out like this." He didn't even know what he'd wanted. A better moment. A different heart.
She nodded, slow, like every movement cost something. "Yeah. But you did." Her voice was so calm it scraped at the insides of his chest.
He shifted forward as if sheer proximity could fix something, his foot knocking against hers under the table. It was all instinct, desperate and automatic. "Please don't pull away from me." Each word shimmied on thin ice, cracked with panic; he hadn't meant to beg, but there it was in the quiver of his mouth.
"I'm not pulling away." She sounded so gentle. Almost kind. But the truth in her voice landed sharp, clean. "I'm just… recalibrating."
He almost asked what that meant, but couldn't make the sounds line up in his mouth. He just watched her, helpless, while she gathered herself with a precision he'd never seen before.
And then she smiled. It wasn't a smile for him; he could tell that right away. It was small, a careful arrangement of lips that didn't touch her eyes, the kind of smile you put on when the thing you risked most has already slipped from your hands. Kit recoiled almost reflexively. That smile felt like a door closing. Quiet, final, and so much worse than a slammed exit or a thrown insult.
She stood. No big scene, no storming out. Just the soft scrape of bench legs, the quiet, practiced gathering of tray and backpack and whatever was left of herself. She didn't look at him, didn't want to see how small he'd gotten. It was just another part of the routine: gather your things, move on, survive the rest.
Kit tried to breathe but everything felt locked up, like his ribs were a cage built too small. His lungs thudded against bone.
"I didn't want it," he whispered, as if volume could change what was true. "I still don't." His fingers curled into fists beneath the table, nails digging half-moons into his palm. It didn't matter.
She paused, just for a heartbeat. Then looked back, but not quite at him. "You think that makes it easier?" Her words held no venom, no accusation. Just the tired ache of someone trying to carry all her heartbreak alone.
He couldn't answer. His own voice had shriveled inside him, all the apologies turned to dust on his tongue. His body felt hollow, shivering with relief and loss at once. The comedown brutal, his hands still trembling. There was a bitter ache where her presence used to press into his, where possibility used to live.
Delorah's gaze slipped past him. "I've got history next," she said, softer than before, like she was narrating someone else's afternoon.
"Del—" The plea broke in his throat. He wanted to reach for her, say something that could fix the splintered space between them, but his limbs wouldn't move.
But she was already walking, cafeteria tray balanced, each step as controlled and deliberate as a surgeon's cut. She didn't speed up, didn't draw attention. Just dissolved into the crowd, one more student with somewhere else to be. No scene. No final word. Just absence.
And Kit sat there, motionless, the bench suddenly too wide, the noise of the lunchroom growing louder until it filled the silence she'd left. He waited for her to turn back, for the impossible do-over. But Delorah never looked back.
She hadn't left the room. But something that used to bind them together. Something that had made this strange new friendship feel like hope—had slipped away, quiet as breath. Maybe for good.
And all Kit could do was sit in the echo she left behind, wondering if there was any way to hold onto what was already gone.
Sebastian's phone buzzed. Then again. Three messages stacked, all from Celeste.
Celeste 🦊
Just like you said—"be casual."
Worked like a charm.
His fingers drummed slowly on the desk, rhythm as lazy as it was deliberate.
Celeste 🦊
I introduced myself. He looked like I slapped him with a Bible.
Didn't even say my name back. Just stared.
Pause.
Celeste 🦊
They sat together at lunch.
He wouldn't touch his food. She looked like someone had taken the knife out of her hand before she was done.
Thought you said they were just friends? They didn't look like it.
His jaw ticked.
Celeste 🦊
I think she knows now. About the engagement.
The way she looked at him… it shifted.
Sebastian didn't text back right away. Just stared at the glowing screen, thumb hovering above the reply box.
Let her feel it, he almost wrote.
Instead:
Sebastian 🕷
You did well.
Keep watching.
And when she replied with nothing but a gold heart emoji, he finally let himself smile.
Thin. Cold. Triumphant.
Sebastian didn't reply to Celeste's gold heart emoji. Just tapped the message thread, held down his thumb… and hit Forward.
To: Father
Attached with no preamble. No context needed. Just the cold, clinical presentation of facts dressed up as flirtation.
He added one line:
Sebastian 🕷
Thought you'd want to know who your youngest has been dining with.
He watched the screen for a moment, waiting for the read receipt.
Delivered.
Read.
Three dots appeared.
Then vanished.
Sebastian's smile didn't widen. But it sharpened. Like a knife honed not for show, but for use.
---
Delorah didn't remember weaving through the halls.
She just moved—shoulders pinched up to her ears, every step a stutter she didn't fully control. Her hands balled so tight her nails pressed crescent moons into her palms, and she kept her face down, as if some invisible hand might reach out, grab her, and demand answers she didn't have.
The bell shrieked somewhere above her head, a warning or a judgment. She couldn't tell which. Its sound washed over her, muffled, strange. Everything was distant, warped, as though she were moving through water, and the current was stronger than her own will.
The world had lost its sharpness. The edges blurring, colors dulling, the air itself too thick to breathe.
Celeste.
Even thinking the name hurt to think. Jagged and exquisite at once. Celeste. It was a name that sounded expensive, her mind insisted. Smooth, too smooth, silk on a blade. Dangerous in how easily it slid between layers of thought, refined but never gentle. There was something final about it. Untouchable. The kind of name that left blood on your hands if you tried to hold it.
Delorah drifted into her next class in a fog, crossing the threshold almost by accident. She sank into a desk at the back, the hard chair anchoring her to the present for half a heartbeat. The surface of the desk felt cool, grounding, eliciting a shiver she couldn't suppress. She clamped her hands on its edge, gripping it so hard her tendons ached, whiter and whiter, knuckles ghostly where they pressed into the wood grain.
Sound faded to static. The teacher's voice, the churning shuffle of backpacks and books, even her own name. If it was even called, faded into white noise. It was all just the rattle of a world that no longer fit.
Kit had been honest with her. Even at least in the barest, ugliest sense of the word.
But honesty wasn't trust. Trust was supposed to arrive before the fall, not after the bottom dropped out. It was supposed to be steady, not delivered in fragments, after the hurt had already burrowed in.
Why didn't he tell me yesterday? When he sent that text. When we rode the Ferris wheel and I saw the storm banked in his eyes. When he looked at me like I might be the only one left on earth who could keep him afloat.
Why did he wait until now?
Why, god, why, was some traitor part of her still trying to excuse him?
She hated that impulse. The desperate, grasping stretch of her mind to give him the benefit of the doubt. Hated the contortions her heart was performing, twisting itself into shapes it didn't recognize, wanting to believe he deserved forgiveness when pain was still fresh. It made her feel flimsy. It made her feel used.
But mostly, it just made her ache. Ache so deeply she couldn't find the end of it.
I should've seen it, she chastised herself, the thought ringed with quiet self-loathing.
The way he had watched Celeste. Not with tenderness or longing, but like she was a fuse he'd been handed with the match already struck. Like Celeste wasn't a person, but an old wound that never quite healed, a ghost haunting the perimeter of every conversation. He looked at Celeste the way you watch the sky for lightning, not because you want the storm, but because you know it's coming.
Delorah's stomach churned. Not with jealousy. Or at least, not only that but more a kind of sick dread that curled in on itself, laying claim beneath her ribs. A sharp, sour thing, not clean or simple, but a mix of grief and fear and something she was scared to name.
She locked her jaw, staring glassy-eyed at the board. The words slid across her vision, meaningless as clouds. Her brain buzzed louder than any voice in the room, every thought a shout in an echo chamber.
She could still feel Kit. His nearness, his absence. Like a bruise inside her chest. A phantom ache that wouldn't quite settle, no matter how she tried to breathe around it.
And he hadn't chased her.
He'd just… let her go. Watched her walk away. That choice split her clean as any dagger could.
And the worst part of all this? The very worst part was not knowing what hurt more: that he'd let her go, or that a part of her still wanted him to try.
If he kept hiding things. Even just for her sake, even out of fear then the next time the truth burned through them. It wouldn't just be the romance left as ashes.
It would be whatever piece of themselves they'd tried to save.
"Alright everyone, we're doing partner work today. I'll be assigning pairs."
Delorah barely processed the names being read. Just a drone of syllables over the low buzz in her skull. Her mind hovered somewhere above the classroom, skimming over the surface of her thoughts, never quite settling—until a familiar name pierced through.
"LaRoche and Windsor."
Of course.
Celeste.
The hairs on Delorah's arms prickled, a strange awareness settling over her. She could feel it: the invisible current shifting in the room, the brief, flickering glances from classmates. No one ever called attention to it, but everyone seemed to sense when Celeste Windsor was about to move, as though nature itself had learned to step aside.
Celeste approached. She looked as if she had a spotlight following her, moving with a careful, measured grace. Every detail about her seemed deliberate. Her uniform crisp, not a thread out of place, her braid unmussed, notebook tucked neatly beneath her arm. Delorah caught a whiff of shadowy lavender. Celeste's perfume, subtle but persistent.
"Mind if I sit here?"
Delorah didn't answer immediately. For a split second, she considered gesturing to the empty seat with a roll of her eyes or shrugging indifferently, but she stopped herself. She forced her voice even, smooth. "Be my guest."
They sat in silence, a charged pause between them like neither was sure if this was détente or round two. Delorah tried to busy her hands, shuffling her papers, staring at the smudge of ink on her palm, but all her attention was yoked to Celeste's presence. Every blink seemed to magnify the crackle in the air.
"I guess we're destined to keep running into each other," Celeste said lightly, as though the thought amused her.
"Seems like." Delorah fought to keep her tone neutral. She wondered if it was possible for a heart to sound loud enough to rattle pages—it certainly felt that way.
"Sorry if it was awkward earlier," Celeste added, brushing imaginary lint from her skirt. The gesture looked rehearsed, like she practiced moving through life with all awkwardness smoothed away. "I didn't mean to intrude."
Delorah's gaze sharpened involuntarily, a reflex she couldn't help. Intrude? The word snagged in her thoughts, tugging at old, half-buried feelings. There was a thinly veiled suggestion there—one Delorah resented, even if she couldn't quite name why.
"Intrude?"
"You two seemed close."
The air pulsed. Delorah stiffened her spine. It wasn't an accusation, not exactly. Just another test she had to pass. "We're friends."
"Right."
That single syllable twisted in Delorah's mind, lingering longer than it should have. She hated the way Celeste's eyes lingered on her. Soft, intent, but never quite readable. It made Delorah suddenly aware of herself, the way her uniform never sat right on her shoulders, the unruly wave of hair she could never fully tame.
Celeste glanced down at the worksheet, voice still light, easy as breath. Like she had no idea she'd just rubbed salt across a raw edge. "He seems… complicated."
Delorah blinked. A quick, involuntary flutter beneath her ribs. "You've talked to him?"
"Not really. You can just feel it." Celeste twirled her pen between her fingers. A flash of bright blue plastic, steady and practiced. Tap, tap, tap. "Maybe that's why you two get along."
Delorah didn't answer. The silence expanded, uncomfortable, heavy. She hated how easily Celeste made her feel defensive—as if they were both playing a game, one set with private rules. Two conversations: one open, one hidden, each word a pebble tossed into deep water. She wondered what Celeste really wanted, what she saw when she looked at her.
Celeste smiled again. Pleasant, never smug, which made it worse. Delorah could have handled open hostility. The soft, ambiguous kindness. It unnerved her, rubbed against the parts she kept guarded.
"Don't worry. I'm not here to cause problems."
Reassurance, maybe. Or a warning. Delorah couldn't decide. Her stomach fluttered again in the same uneasy anticipation she got before a test she hadn't studied for. She nodded, defaulting to compliance, and flipped open her battered notebook. The urge to prove herself, to match Celeste's immaculate composure, festered quietly at the back of her mind.
Celeste followed suit, revealing color-coded notes and perfectly spaced handwriting. So neat it almost looked stamped, not written. A small part of Delorah wanted to smudge the ink, just to see if anything about Celeste ever blurred. But instead, she gripped her pen a little tighter and forced herself to focus on the assignment, vowing not to give anything away.
Not yet.
"I was thinking," Delorah said carefully, reining in the quiver that threatened her voice, "maybe we could focus on propaganda—how it shapes national identity. The way history gets rewritten depending on who's in power."
Her words felt like armor: intellectual, remote, safe from the chaos roiling beneath her ribcage. Heartbeat thudding, she tried not to look Celeste directly in the eye, afraid of giving away too much.
Celeste's eyes lit with something like intrigue. "So, like… how people get cast as villains when they stop serving a purpose?"
Delorah blinked, some small measure of relief flickering through her. At least here, in this, Celeste was speaking her language. "Exactly. Or how you can make someone disappear just by changing the story around them."
It was unsettling, how much she meant it. Lately, Delorah felt the edges of her own story slipping away from her, erased and redrawn by other people's decisions. She swallowed hard, willing herself not to think of official documents, signatures, her mother's proud smile, Sebastian's knowing glance across the hallway.
For a moment, their tension warped into something else. Something quieter. The space between them stilled, like two spies lowering their guns, just briefly, to admire the other's aim. Delorah wondered if this is what mutual respect felt like, or if it was simply exhaustion, the temporary truce born from knowing you're both cornered animals.
Celeste murmured, voice softer, almost confessional, "Funny. I used to think I was the one writing my life. But lately, it's like someone else already drafted the ending."
A prickle of recognition crawled down Delorah's neck—the chilling familiarity in the words, the echo of Sebastian's own fatalism. For one dizzying second, it felt like someone cracked a window open in the room and let all the heat out. She understood then: whatever front Celeste wore, she had her own invisible bridle, too.
Delorah's spine went stiff, every instinct screaming: Don't let her see you flinch, don't let her see you shatter, don't let anyone see.
Before she could ask. Before she could even breathe. Celeste smiled, soft as velvet, sharp as glass. "I heard the news, by the way. Congratulations."
Her world lurched under her. For a split second, Delorah forgot how to swallow. Her mind ran in circles, searching for exits that didn't exist. It was like someone had poured ice water down her back, then asked her to keep talking as if nothing had happened.
"…What news?" She hated how weak her voice sounded, how fragile. There was nowhere to run from the subject, no way to keep it secret anymore.
Celeste tilted her head, braid swinging slightly as she leaned in, voice silk-wrapped and knife-tipped. "About your engagement. Sebastian mentioned it in passing."
There it was.
A name, a stone dropped in still water. A bomb nested in something as casual as a whisper. Delorah felt her pulse thundering in her throat. Engagement. The word sounded foreign and ugly in Celeste's mouth. Final, like a verdict.
"We haven't announced anything."
She wished she'd said something cleverer. She wished she could leap out of her body, vanish into the ceiling tiles, become anyone else—someone not bent into shape for someone else's story.
Celeste blinked, lashes perfect, polite smile unfazed. "Oh." A beat later, with a touch of innocence so skillfully played it felt like mockery: "Maybe I wasn't supposed to know yet. My mistake."
The bell rang before Delorah could fire back, its shrillness a mercy and a curse. Celeste rose, smoothing her skirt with a dancer's grace, composure effortless. "Still. I'm curious to see where this all goes."
And just like that, Delorah was left behind, bones knotted tight under her skin, fingers still curled around her pen until her knuckles went white. She watched Celeste glide away, so sure of herself, so composed, as though she already knew the next five moves and Delorah hadn't even decided whether to sit or stand.
What else had Sebastian told her? What else was written in other people's ink, in stories Delorah wasn't allowed to touch?
And why, in the silent churn of her thoughts, did it feel like she'd just lost a round she didn't even know she was playing?
Delorah stared down at her notes. Smeared, cramped, desperately her own. She wondered if, in the end, the only thing she'd really get to keep was the truth no one wanted her to tell.
Kit perched on the edge of the sink in the boys' bathroom, the cold bite of porcelain sharp all the way through his jeans. It felt like the building was trying to bleed him of warmth, to press him closer to the bone, until there was nothing left but ache. The kind of chill that worked its way into the marrow.
The cracked overhead lights flickered, buzzing out their dull electric whine. A noise that threaded under his skin, the same frequency as the static crawling behind his eyes. He half expected the bulbs to blow, to leave him alone in the dark with just the rancid tang of industrial cleaner and the echo of his own breathing, off-rhythm and jagged, like a scratched vinyl skipping under his ribs.
He stared at the cracked linoleum, worrying at years of shoe-scuffs and stains. Couldn't look up. Couldn't face it yet. He counted each tile, made a game of tracing grout with his eyes, anything to avoid the mirror. Knowing it would only make everything worse.
But gravity, perhaps compulsion, maybe. Finally dragged his gaze up. And the mirror didn't greet him. It confronted him: pale stranger, all edges and shadows. The glass showed him a ghost someone forgot to bury. Dilated pupils ringed by red, gray-tinged skin stretched tight over bones; a tremor in his fingers as they clung to glazed ceramic. He almost didn't believe the reflection was his. His collarbone slashed against his shirt like the ridgeline of a wrecked ship, the rest of him sinking, devoured.
He pressed his tongue to the inside of his cheek until the pain sharpened, just to feel something that belonged to him. It wasn't just exhaustion hollowing him out. It was older, meaner, rot blooming from the inside out, leeching color from every good memory.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. Lightning flash—a jolt—like a wasp in the dark. He didn't want to look, couldn't risk it. But he did.
Sebastian.
Father wants a word tonight. Don't be late, Adrian.
He stared at the message until the words blurred into static. That other name. The one that never fit right, the one that scraped like metal in his mouth. He felt the familiar spark inside, poison blooming into fury.
The boy in the mirror—Adrian for them, Kit for no one. None of it fit. Just a borrowed shape, stitched together by nicotine and caffeine and sleeplessness. He felt like a ghost haunting his own skin. Barely holding it together, not for the first time, not for the thousandth.
Mouth dry as paper. Stomach knotted into some tight origami of dread, half sick, half just waiting for the spiral to swallow him. His head swam, vision flickering at the edges, heart thundering out a warning that he'd ignored too many times.
He leaned against the tile, letting it support him, bracing himself with cold solidity. One of his knees bounced rapidly. Spasming as if he could shake the panic loose. His nails clawed absentmindedly at the frayed hem of his sleeve, picking at loose threads until the fabric unraveled between his fingers. Out of the corner of his eye, the mirror caught another twitch, another fracture. Nothing but a reflection: flicker, glitch, no stability. Just the same broken loop.
That name. That fucking name. Like a mouthful of burning wires, like swallowing rust, like something he wanted to spit out and never see written down again.
He shoved the phone into his pocket so hard he thought the screen might crack. His heart pounded not from the helpless staccato of fear, but something blistering, red-hot and acid: rage, old and new and never-ending.
Of course Sebastian reminded him. Of course the perfect eldest got to be the favorite, the heir, the impeccable legacy. The one with the key to the goddamn kingdom and the smirk to go with it. All Kit had was smoke and scars and a last name that felt more like a spiked collar. One you never chose and can never take off.
And now Delorah was sewn into all of this. Another chain, another lie, another person cut up to fit someone else's script.
Kit's jaw locked so tight his teeth ached. There were words caught in his throat. Like choking on glass and not willing to bleed. Anger curled and receded; anger that was easier to hold than grief.
She had no right to look at him like that. Like he was the one who broke the world, when she'd stood there and let it shatter too.
"You've just been sitting on this?"
Yeah. And so had she.
Hadn't she been the queen of pretense?
Wasn't she the one who always soldiered on stone-faced? Chilly, unreadable, infinitely patient while he came undone in public, always too obvious, too raw? He hadn't asked for this: not the engagement, not the guilt, not the way every glance she gave him felt like a knife slip, quick and precise.
He wanted to tell her everything. He wanted to scream, to flip the sink, to break something just so the room would look how he felt. But she didn't scream back.
She only stepped away. Shut down, folded in on herself, like she could snip the last thread between them by sheer will.
And that smile. That hollow, polite, empty smile like an afterimage burned behind his eyelids. He'd take a slap over that emptiness any day. At least violence meant someone still cared.
She was allowed to be angry. He knew that. He wasn't an idiot after all. But a bitter part of him wanted more. Wanted her to break, to shout, to let herself burn down to ash, just so he would know she still felt it too.
Instead, she just walked away. And Sebastian's message sat there, venomous, a reminder of whose script he was forced to act out.
Kit slid down the wall until he was nearly folded over, just a heap of nerves and pulse, pressed into glossy tile. His body still wouldn't stop moving. His knee jittering, shoulders shuddering, the breath in his throat stalling out.
He was fraying, coming apart by inches, all quiet: no theatrics, no wailing, just a silent, efficient undoing.
His vision hazed at the edges, black creeping in. Not enough to faint, just enough to remind him where the edges were. He hated that they were so close.
He let his head thump back, once, twice, needing the jolt, the pain, the noise. Anything to prove he was still here.
"I didn't want it," he said to the echo, to the empty tiles, to the version of himself in the mirror that didn't even blink. "I didn't fucking want any of this."
But none of that mattered, not now. Not when the roles were already cast and the locks already turned.
She was already his. Sebastian's, not his own. And Kit was just a ghost filling space, still using a name he'd never asked for.
If he sat here long enough, maybe he'd just dissolve. Maybe nobody. Not Sebastian, Delorah, even Father. Would notice when he'd finally gone missing.
He was unraveling and knew, in the pit of his stomach, that soon he wouldn't have the energy to tie himself back together. Not this time. Not again.
When the last bell rang, Kit still hadn't moved. The classroom emptied around him, books and bags slung over shoulders, laughter echoing in the corridors, and Kit just sat. Feeling like he was sinking through the floor while the world rose, calcifying above his head.
He finally drifted home with his hood pulled low, shoulders braced against the cold. His hands were jammed into his pockets so tightly his knuckles ached. He stared at the cracks in the sidewalk, tracing the spidery lines like a map he could lose himself in. Overhead, the sky had bruised itself darker. Steel gray giving way to the color of old shadows, clouded and thick. It felt like even the sun was sick of watching.
Each step home weighed more than the last. Skin prickled, breath short, like every inhale was a loan he'd have to pay back later. In his chest: just a hollow echo, not even a real heartbeat, only the pulse of something unfinished.
When the Honey estate finally reared into his view- stone and glass and old wealth pressing down—it felt like a hand closing around his ribs. Even at a distance, he could feel the place sizing him up, deciding how he fit: how tight, how deep, how permanent. The honey-brick walls, the tastefully gilded cornices, the windows glinting like the eyes of something clever and patient.
The house didn't need bars. It was the lock. And him? He was the key kept turning in someone else's fingers until the teeth were stripped and nothing fit anymore.
He wasn't even at the door before it creaked open, voice floating out smooth and unhurried.
"Adrian's home," Sebastian called lazily from the sitting room. Just loud enough for Father to hear. The words dripped with ownership. As if Sebastian could summon or dismiss him with a word.
Kit froze on the threshold, torn between running and punching a hole in the door. He could already hear the scrape of their father's voice, brittle as old bones, from deeper inside.
"Good. Bring him in." A command, not an invitation.
Sebastian's shadow slid into view in the hall a split second later, slow and composed. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, revealing clean, expensive cuffs. He looked like a surgeon fresh from an operation or some priest who'd just officiated at an execution. His mouth set in a perfect, slight smirk. Like Delorah had been a puzzle he'd solved just by looking.
He leaned one shoulder against the doorframe. "Didn't get much sleep?" he murmured, faux-concern curling under every word. "You really should. It's a big week for you."
Kit scowled, already moving past, but Sebastian stepped sideways, blocking the hallway just enough to make it a challenge. A choice, or maybe even a test, depending on what his brothers mood was that day.
Sebastian let his gaze settle, impassive but sharp. "You look rough." Pause. "Want me to tell him you're not up for this? I can handle it, you know."
Kit's fist balled around the fabric of his sleeve, fighting the urge to snap, to show anything but contempt. "Don't do me any favors," he ground out.
Sebastian's eyes narrowed, reading him effortlessly. "Suit yourself. You know, if you just said yes to what they want for once—it'd be easier for everyone." His voice was quiet now, reasonable on the surface, but Kit could hear it: the knife's tip hidden under velvet.
Kit shoved past him so hard his shoulder slammed into Sebastian's chest. He heard a sharp, involuntary exhale, but Sebastian held his ground, only grinning slightly wider.
"Careful, Adrian," Sebastian called after him, low and almost gentle. A mockery of what he could have been. "Better not scuff the floors." He paused, a whetstone of amusement in his tone. "Or your conscience."
Kit didn't give him the satisfaction of a look back. Just kept walking, every step an act of defiance, even if he remembered how small he must look. A kid in the halls of a house built to contain him, not care for him.
He heard Sebastian's final words tossed at his back, softer now: "Don't keep Father waiting. We wouldn't want to disappoint."
Kit let the words wash over him, a cold rinse. His pulse hammered behind his ears. He wanted to scream. At Sebastian, at the house, at the whole sharp-edged world that asked him to live as a shadow of someone else's name.
But all he could do was keep walking, jaw set, fists shoved deep in his pockets, keys and tendons trembling, head down and eyes forward. Like maybe, if he just walked fast enough and far enough, the lock would finally break and let him go.
Their father sat by the fireplace, the soft orange glow flickering across his lined face, shaving out hollows and sharp planes in the fire's restless light. He was in his mid-forties now, blonde and steel-eyed—the kind of man who aged like currency, not fruit. His hair gleamed gold under the firelight, combed into place like it had somewhere better to be. His sons didn't match him. Kit and Sebastian both had their mother's black hair—dark as pitch, unmistakable. But the eyes… Kit's were oceanic, her blue exactly.
Sebastian had inherited the gray. And in their father's presence, it made him look like a mirror turned inward.
He cradled a glass of bourbon in one manicured hand. The golden liquid tilting as he swirled it, gaze fixed on Kit with surgical precision. Even the loosened tie, the undone top button, was an affectation. Underneath, his presence was coiled, every nerve still wound to breaking.
Kit could feel his father's gaze parsing him, weighing and measuring; he might as well have been laid out on a dissecting tray.
"Sit," his father said, voice even but bearing the weight of an old, inevitable order.
Kit didn't move. He stayed standing enough steps inside to show compliance, but far enough back to declare war, posture all silent resistance. He felt the heat from the fire on his shins, but it couldn't thaw the way his body braced itself. His spine upright, jaw set, dread and anger curdling together in his gut.
Their father's eyes narrowed, full of cool expectation. A scalpel awaiting flesh.
"I heard about your outing. With Delorah."
Kit's fists curled, nails biting in. Delorah's face flickered behind his eyelids. Pale with fury, lips pressed tight—and he had to scrape together an answer that didn't sound like a confession.
"And?"
His father barely looked at him. "You've once again disrespected boundaries," he said, calm as a hanging judge. "Sebastian is engaged. Stay away from the girl."
That word struck him hard. Engaged, it thudded in Kit's chest, black and final. He tasted a flash of something metallic on his tongue, all the things he wanted to say crowding in with no room to speak.
"You signed something too, didn't you?" Kit's words spat out faster than he meant, tight with accusation, the crackle of rebellion barely masked by ridiculous politeness. "With the Windsor family."
For a split second, his father went still. No protest, no swift correction. Just the deliberate, telling pause. A confirmation as silent as any signature. A slow sip of bourbon, eyes on the glass. He savored it. The taste of control, of secrets kept and paid for decades in advance.
Kit watched the swirl of amber and thought about molasses, about quicksand, about all the ways you could drown in sweetness and inheritance.
"I didn't get a choice," Kit muttered, the ache behind his words heavier than he intended.
His father's voice lashed back, no hesitation, cold and precise: "Neither did I. That's legacy."
Legacy. The word settled on Kit's skin like mildew, like old dust. He could feel it in his lungs.
"It's a prison."
Now that got through. For an instant, Kit could see it. Just a flicker in his father's mouth, the way his lips pressed thin. Resistance landed hard, but the old man barely blinked. As if in this moment his grief, his anger. Didn't even breach the surface.
"You're still wearing the name. So act like it."
Dismissed. Just like that.
The words left a mark, invisible and scalding.
Kit turned away, jaw clenched so fiercely he thought his teeth might crack. He felt the dismissal ricochet inside, an abandonment as sharp as any slap.
The hallway stretched before him, long and cold, the old rugs swallowing up all sound. No footsteps, no echo. Just his name, tumbling behind him, spectral and damning.
Adrian.
He hated how tightly it wound around his throat. Like a leash. Like the tag you put on dogs in case they run.
Adrian. Like a curse. Like a summons. Like the ghost he never asked to be.
He walked faster, head down, swallowing bile. Every nerve was a live wire. His shoulders hunched against the weight of the house, the family, the air thick with generations of silent acquiescence.
He dug his nails into his palms until half-moons glowed white, desperate for something to anchor him, something real to cut through the numbness. Pain kept him tethered to the here-and-now.
The taste in his mouth was bitter: coppery, electric, perhaps blood. Like volts, like pennies, like the wind just before a storm. The urge to scream scraped at his throat, savage and half-formed; so did the urge to smash something brittle, just to prove he could still break things on purpose.
By the time he reached the second floor, the house seemed to close in, pressing his lungs flat, making him smaller and smaller beneath gleaming picture frames and portrait eyes that judged from every wall.
He stormed down the hall, music from a decades-old radio seeping from under Father's study door, background noise to the echoing refrain of his name: Adrian.
He didn't scream. He didn't cry.
Instead, he found his notebook wedged under his pillow. Creased pages, ink stains, his only sanctuary. Shaky hands flipped to a blank sheet. There, at last, he let the words pour out. His messy, jagged, ink bleeding where he pressed too hard.
He wrote until the name Adrian faded into static. He wrote until the feelings made sense, or at least made something. He wrote as if paper and pen could break the lock and prove there was still a Kit, somewhere, under all the rules.
And outside the door, the house kept its silence. But on the page, Kit burned.
Kit's Private Journal — scrawled messily, ink blotched, page frayed at the edges
There's a moment—right before the crash—where everything feels like it might hold.
And then it doesn't.
I keep thinking if I stay quiet enough, still enough, I won't splinter. That maybe silence is the price for survival. But tonight, all I hear is the echo of her leaving.
I had her in my grip.
But I felt it.
She slipped.
And the worst part? I think I let her.
Maybe she saw something I didn't want to admit was still there. The rot. The smoke. The part of me that still answers to his name when it's barked down the hallway.
Adrian.
God, I hate that name. I hate the boy it belongs to. The one who didn't fight hard enough. The one who's always kneeling in some fucking way.
And she… Delorah… she looked at me like I was the villain in someone else's fairytale. I can't even blame her.
I just wanted to keep her close. And now I've set every demon in me loose.
I don't want to feel this anymore.
I don't want to be this anymore.
Maybe it's not love I need.
Maybe I just need relief.
Or maybe I just need to disappear for a while.
Until I can't hear myself thinking anymore.
Until the worst in me goes quiet.