"I don't look at her that way. Never have, never will."
A heavy thud echoed through the doorway as Emily's grip loosened. Her neatly bound English notebook hit the linoleum floor, the sound sharp enough to make the boys inside jump.
Silence followed, thick and suffocating.
Emily stood frozen in the doorway, her hand still curled as if holding the ghost of the book. Her vision blurred, the edges of the doorway fraying into a hazy grey. Heath was the first to break the silence enveloping the group. He didn't look guilty. He didn't look like a man caught in a lie. He just looked surprised.
"Oh, hey, Em," he said, his voice had that easy, rhythmic quality. He leaned back in his chair, the legs creaking. "You're early."
Never have. Never have. Never have.
The phrase began to loop in her mind like a broken record, drowning out the sound of Mark's nervous cough and the scraping of a chair.
Maybe I heard him wrong, her mind whispered, the bargaining beginning before she could even catch her breath. Maybe he's talking about someone else? No, Mark said my name. Okay, maybe he's just embarrassed. He's trying to look cool. He'll take it back. He has to take it back.
"Emily?" Heath's voice broke through the fog. He sounded… normal. Infuriatingly, casually normal.
Emily tried her best to keep her composure. She moved like a marionette with tangled strings, kneeling to pick up the book. As her fingers touched the cover, a new thought pierced through the denial, sharper and meaner than the rest.
Am I that pathetic? She looked at the neat tabs she'd placed in the chapters he'd missed. She went through all their memories together in a span of a minute. If she hadn't been so helpful, would he have had to notice her? If she hadn't played the role of the perfect, doting childhood friend, would he have been forced to see her as a woman instead of a fixture?
"Here," Emily handed the book to heath, in a distance a bit longer than the usual, with her eyes fixated on what she was holding as she couldn't even bear to look at him in the eyes. The humiliation struck her more than the pain from having an unrequited love.
"You okay? You look a little spaced out," Heath said, reaching for the book. His fingers brushed hers, but for the first time, there was no spark. Just a cold, sinking realization that he was touching her the same way he'd touch a teammate.
"Yeah, it's just... the lack of sleep." Her eyes felt heavy, and her voice sounded a bit coarse. "I have to go back to class."
"Right. See you at the car after the bell?"
Tears fell as she exited the room and walked through the hallways. Emily didn't go to her next class. She sat in a bathroom stall, staring at the grout between the tiles, listening to the echo of his voice.
Me, dating Emily? No way.
She felt small. She felt used by her own expectations.
I don't look at her that way. Never will.
She cried for what seemed like hours.
When the final bell rang, the usual routine felt like a death sentence. Usually, she'd be at the school gates, leaning against the brickwork, waiting for Heath. Not today. She doesn't want to face him, not even the situation she found herself in.
She turned toward the library, her steps heavy. She needed to disappear into the stacks. She sat in a corner of the second floor, hidden behind a shelf of dusty encyclopedias. She pulled out her biology notes, but she wasn't studying. She was watching the clock.
3:30 PM. He'd be at the gates.
She felt a sick, twisted hope. Maybe if I'm not there, he'll realize the silence is loud. Maybe he'll finally feel the gap I leave behind.
She leaned toward the window, peering through the slats of the blinds. There was his silver sedan. Heath was leaning against the door, scrolling through his phone. Her breath hitching every time someone walked past his car. Her heart was a frantic, pathetic thing, still hoping he'd prove her wrong.
3:40 PM. It's about the time Emily usually appears. Call me, she pleaded silently. Just text me and ask where I am. Demand to know why I'm not there.
3:45 PM. Heath didn't even look toward the school doors. He simply shrugged, pulled the handle, and climbed into the driver's seat. The silver sedan pulled out of the lot, his taillights disappearing around the corner without a single beat of hesitation.
He hadn't even given her ten minutes.
The air left Emily's lungs in a shaky, jagged exhale that felt like it was tearing her throat. It was the silence of the phone in her hand that hurt the most. She had spent a decade memorizing his moods, anticipating his needs, and carving out her entire identity just to fit into the spaces he left behind. He was her entire world, the sun she orbited. But to him, she was just part of the background.
Was everything I did for him meant nothing?
The realization didn't just hurt; it burned. The shock that had kept her crying all morning finally evaporated, leaving behind a hot, acidic rage. A sharp, jagged sob caught in her throat, but she choked it back, forcing the grief down until it turned into fire. With a violent jerk, she slammed her history textbook shut—a loud, ugly crack that shattered the library's stillness and made her own hands sting.
"You know," a deep voice spoke from the next table, low but firm. "The 'silence' sign isn't a suggestion. It's a rule."