I don't even make it three steps inside the gym before Emily spots me.

"EVAN. EVAN. EVAN HALE, DO NOT WALK AWAY FROM ME—"

I blink once, already tired. "I literally just got here."

She barrels toward me anyway, arms flailing like she's signalling for evacuation. The gym behind her looks... worse than yesterday. Somehow. I don't know how she keeps finding new ways for paper to explode.

The Welcome Week banner is hanging sideways, one end barely attached by a single strip of tape. Balloons are rolling across the floor like they're escaping. Two freshmen are sword-fighting with pool noodles. One station sign reads ICEBAKER because someone dropped the "RE" somewhere.

And that's just what I see in the first second.

Emily crashes into me like a train and buries her face in my shoulder with the force of a dying Victorian child.

"Everything is broken," she wails. "Everything. I'm broken. The stations are broken. Life is broken. I am one freshmen query away from committing a felony."

Her mascara smudges on my shirt. Again.

I put a hand on her back automatically, the way you'd calm a panicked toddler. "Okay. Okay. Breathe."

"I can't breathe, Evan! I'm a SOCIAL CHAIR. Which apparently means SOCIAL DESPAIR. LOOK AT THAT SIGN. WHY IS THERE A DEAD BALLOON IN MY SIGN?!"

A balloon is, in fact, deflated and taped between the O and the M of "WELCOME." I don't even have the energy to ask why.

I sigh and guide her by the shoulders. "Emily. Turn around."

"No—don't make me look at it—"

"Turn around."

She does. Slowly. Like she already knows it'll hurt.

Freshmen are crowded around the game stations, but not doing the games correctly. One girl is crying because someone lost her pen. A boy is eating chips he didn't pay for. Another kid is standing in the corner staring at a poster like it insulted his family.

Emily grabs my wrist. "I am ONE PERSON, EVAN."

"Yeah," I say quietly, "and you shouldn't be."

She slumps dramatically against me. "I love you so much. Fix it. Please. I'll give you my firstborn."

I shake my head. "That is not as tempting as you think it is."

Emily just makes a wounded noise and follows me into the mess like she's attached to my sleeve.

The gym feels louder today. Or maybe I'm just... thin-skinned after last night. Hard to tell. The floor's littered with tape strips and fallen flyers, and the air smells faintly like sweat and dry-erase markers.

Emily's still ranting beside me — something about how she presented this whole icebreaker plan at the council meeting and everyone nodded and clapped and not one of those clapping idiots showed up today.

Behind her, a freshman knocks over a tower of cups and whispers "sorry" like the cups will punish him.

I try to smile. It doesn't reach.

Emily squints at my face. "Okay, why do you look like someone unplugged you overnight?"

I bend down to pick up the cups. "Didn't sleep much."

She stares at me for a second. But before she can push further, she gets distracted by a metal clatter.

Someone dropped a stapler.

Emily shrieks like it was a gunshot. "OH MY GOD CAN EVERYONE STOP BREAKING THINGS—"

A voice cuts in, smooth and tired in a different way.

"Emily, relax before you combust."

I don't have to turn. It's Aiden.

He sets down two grocery bags like he just carried them across the desert.

Emily spins on him like a storm turning to its next victim. "WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?!"

"Getting snacks," he says simply, pulling out chips and fruit gummy packets. "Like you begged me to."

"You were gone for a CENTURY."

"It's been thirty minutes."

I'm kneeling on the floor picking up cups when their bickering washes over me, not loud, just... background noise.

My hands feel heavier than they should.

Like there's a weight tied to each finger. They keep slipping, the plastic edges tapping each other in a soft, uneven rhythm that sits weirdly in my chest.

And last night edges in the way unwanted thoughts do —

We got home and Mom was already back from her shift. Still in her scrubs, hair falling out of her bun. She was standing in the kitchen with her hands on her hips, staring at the mess like she couldn't decide whether to cry or burn the house down.

Dad was drunk again — the kind where his voice comes out thick and slower than he thinks it does.

He was leaning against the doorway, waving a half-empty bottle around like a conductor.

"You're unbelievable," Mom kept saying, picking up cups and plates as fast as he dropped them. "Who were these people? And why—why would you spend ninety dollars on snacks when we don't even—"

"It was a party," he snapped, slamming the bottle down too hard. "You're always so damn dramatic."

They went back and forth like that — his voice rising, hers breaking, glass clinking, something falling. I don't remember all of the words. Just the tone. The exhaustion. The bitterness.

Lily tugged my sleeve at some point.

Her voice tiny:

"Ev... when's dinner?"

I didn't even think before I answered.

"Later," I said, even though I knew it wasn't true.

Knew nights like this don't end with dinner.

Knew better than to hope.

She asked again, softer:

"But I'm hungry."

And something in my chest tightened — a slow, painful squeeze — because I didn't have an answer that would make the night any softer.

So I took her to my room.

Closed the door.

Pulled her onto the bed and pretended it was just a normal night.

"Maybe we'll eat after we rest a bit," I told her.

A lie dressed up like a maybe.

She curled against me.

And I wrapped my arms around her the way Mom used to wrap hers around me before everything fell apart.

I stayed awake long after she wasn't.

Emily and Aiden are still arguing behind me — not loudly, just... steady bickering that feels more like static than fighting.

"You didn't get the right chips," Emily says, rustling the bag.

"I got the brand you asked for," Aiden replies, deadpan.

"That's not the point."

"It literally is."

Their voices fade a little as I walk toward the next game station — a ring toss that looks like someone set it up during an earthquake. The rings are scattered across the floor. The bottles are half-fallen, one rolling lazily back and forth like it's resigned to its fate.

I crouch down, trying to gather everything. My stomach gives this small, hollow twist — the kind that makes your breath shallow for no reason except you skipped dinner and breakfast and everything in between.

The room feels like it's vibrating — kids shouting, Emily ranting about sign-up sheets, music echoing off the gym walls.

It's too loud.

Or maybe I'm too thin-skinned today.

When I straighten up, someone's already standing near the table. Some guy.

Tall. Broad shoulders.

Familiar.

Right — varsity.

I'd seen him yesterday hovering near the fence at Landon's practice, laughing with the other guys.

He gives me a grin like we've shared a joke.

"Didn't expect to see you doing manual labor," he says.

I blink. "...this?"

He nods at the bottles. "Yeah. I mean—looks cute on you."

My stomach twists. Not flattered.

Just that old uncomfortable feeling crawling up my spine — the one that comes whenever someone's interest feels a little too close, too direct, too... familiar in the wrong way.

I force out, "Thanks, but I'm good. I—I should finish this."

He tilts his head. "You sure? Could keep you company."

"I'm fine," I repeat, quieter.

He doesn't push exactly — he just lingers a beat too long, eyes dragging over me in a way that makes something cold settle under my ribs.

Then someone calls his name from across the gym—

"Jake!"

He watches me for a beat too long, then lifts his hands in mock surrender.

"Alright. I'll see you around."

He walks off, but not like someone giving up — more like someone pacing the perimeter, waiting for another opening.

I exhale slowly.

The gym is loud — too loud. Voices bounce off the walls, sharp and bright, and every sound seems to crack against my skull. Emily's shouting across the room, Aiden saying something back, freshmen whining, chairs scraping.

It all blends into one heavy smear of noise.

My vision nudges sideways for a moment, tilting, like my body forgot what upright means. I grip the table until it steadies.

No one notices.

They never do, unless I want them to.

I step back. The air feels thick.

I need... I don't know. Less.

I slip out the side door — the one near the gym mats — and the sunlight hits me immediately. Bright but soft. Warm in the way nothing indoors feels.

The quiet outside wraps around me.

Not silent, just calmer — distant chatter from the quad, a car driving by, leaves brushing along the pavement.

I steady my breathing.

Slow. In. Out.

"Get it together," I mutter under my breath. "You've done this before."

Because last night wasn't new.

Not really.

Dad yelling.

Mom throwing back her own sharp-edged words.

The sound of something breaking — a plate, a glass, something else — hard to tell when you're pulling your little sister toward a closed door.

It wasn't the first time.

So why is my chest tight like it was?

Why did it hit harder?

A flicker of Lily curled against me flashes in my head — her tiny fingers gripping my shirt, her heartbeat fast, breath shallow.

Is she going to learn the same things I did?

How to read the air like weather?

How to shrink herself to stay safe?

How to sleep hungry because the kitchen isn't safe tonight?

At least I had a few good years before the cracks started.

She's starting with them.

I close my eyes.

My stomach twists again — hunger or dread or both.

The sun warms the back of my neck, but it doesn't reach the cold spot sitting in my chest.

Footsteps approach — steady, almost careful.

I open my eyes.

Aiden steps out from the door, blinking in the sunlight like he wasn't expecting it to be this bright. He spots me with a small, almost relieved exhale — the kind someone lets out when they find something they weren't sure they'd find.

"Oh," he says. "There you are."

His voice is soft. Like he wasn't coming out here for me but he's glad he did.

He walks closer but stops a few feet away, giving me space without making a thing out of it.

"Emily thought you bailed," he says. "She started planning your funeral."

There's no accusation in it.

Just a simple truth placed gently between us.

I shrug one shoulder. "It's loud in there."

"Yeah," he says, glancing back. "It's a zoo. I lasted five minutes before needing air."

He says it like he's offering me an excuse — a permission slip to not explain anything more.

For a moment we both just stand there, sunlight catching dust motes in the air.

Aiden shifts his weight. "You look pale."

I blink. "I'm always pale."

"Pale and dizzy," he corrects.

I look down at my shoes. "Just... hungry."

He steps a little closer — not enough to crowd, just enough to feel like a presence instead of a bystander.

"You eat anything?" he asks.

I shake my head before I remember I shouldn't admit that.

Aiden's jaw tics just the slightest bit. "Thought so."

He looks away, exhaling through his nose like he's trying not to say too much.

Then he nudges a toe against the pavement.

"There's a café across the quad," he says casually. "I was gonna grab food anyway."

A beat.

"Come with me?"

I open my mouth to refuse — out of habit.

But he cuts in gently.

"You don't have to talk," he says. "Just... eat something."

My stomach twists again.

He notices the way I press a hand lightly against it.

He lifts a brow. "That a yes?"

I hesitate.

The sun is warm.

The gym is loud.

And I'm hungry enough that the ache feels like part of my spine now.

"...yeah," I whisper.

Aiden's smile is small — not triumphant, not showy.

Just warm.

Human.

"Good," he says. "C'mon."

He doesn't lead.

He just starts walking slow enough that I can fall in beside him.

And I do.

Quietly.

Without thinking too hard about why it feels easier to move when someone else is already walking.