The days at school following the party felt different. Things had calmed down in the bullying department for Miles, finally. It seemed Kaelyn kissing Peter Parker at the party had become the hot topic at Midtown and Miles Hemming was a forgotten name. He was thankful that the attention had finally shifted because he was really getting tired of being the laughing stock of Midtown High. You would think in 2017, being gay wasn't that big of a deal, but apparently it was just about the worst thing to happen to Miles. Not to mention, he was pretty sure people still thought he was some stalker creep who was obsessed with Flash. Sure, there was no more graffiti on his locker, but that didn't mean the stares and the whispers completely dissipated.

Of course, something had changed. He and Flash eyed each other in the halls with a certain emotion they had when they were dating. They looked at each other like they had a secret, which in their case, they always did. Miles needed to stop being forgiving, but it was hard when his heart kept wanting to go back. He couldn't go back to the way things were. No, not really. Not after what Flash had done. At least right now the only rumors going around were of Kaelyn Albright and Peter Parker and Flash and Miles were hardly a whisper in the wind anymore. Even so, the fact that Flash had resorted to such methods in the first place was despicable. He had to keep reminding himself of that before he lost himself in Flash again.

"Dude, your head is so in the clouds today, you good?" Claudia asked with a small half-smile as she slammed her locker shut, getting his attention. He had hardly talked to her since the night of the party, but he could never stay mad at her for long. Not that he ever told her he was mad at her because then she would get mad at him and it would just be a whole thing.

He nodded, doing his best to play it off as casually as he could. "Yeah, just that whole Kaelyn and Peter thing is kinda crazy, right? I feel like she'll just stomp all over him."

Claudia shrugged, "Probably, but is that really our problem?"

"No, guess not," he said quietly, sighing deeply as he pushed a strand of dark hair behind his ear. It had grown to be fairly unruly, but he kind of liked it that way.

The two of them resigned into a quiet silence as they began to walk to class. However, that was until someone calling Miles's name got his attention.

"Miles, hey!" Flash exclaimed as he was all but running down the hallway to catch up with the boy. Clutching his textbook to his chest, Miles turned around with a confused expression on his face as he waited for the boy to say what he wanted to. Miles was extremely aware of the fact that almost every student present had their eyes on the exchange. "Uh, I noticed you haven't been coming to decathlon anymore, did you quit?"

Miles almost forgot about that, if he was being quite honest. He had been trying to lay low since the rumors which meant no messing around after school and getting home straight away just in case he got jumped or something. He had conveyed this to Mr. Harrington who had allowed him to skip practice without punishment or kicking him off the team, thank God.

"Uh, no, no I'm still on the team," Miles answered, clearing his throat as he spoke. He could practically feel Claudia's stare boring into the side of his head as he spoke to Flash. "Uh, why?"

"The finals in D.C. are coming up, I wanted to know if you were still coming," Flash asked and Miles wondered why he would bother coming up to him at school given the current climate. Especially given the... incident that had happened at the party. Miles felt like everyone knew about it even though it remained to be just their little secret. Well, and Claudia's. Still, Miles tended to wear his heart on his sleeve and he could never be too careful. After all, he was used to being Flash's secret.

Miles shrugged, not even sure how to answer the question. "Uh, yeah, I guess I'm still going. Why do you care?"

The other boy seemed to be caught off guard by the roughness of the second half of Miles's statement. He shrugged and tried to play it cool, shaking his head as he answered, "Uh, I don't. Mr. Harrington wanted me to ask you since you hadn't been coming to practice."

Miles knew this was a lie, of course. Mr. Harrington was perfectly understanding of the situation and there's no way he would ever use Flash as his errand boy to find out information, either. Miles liked knowing that he could see right through the lies and think that just maybe Flash did care. At least a little bit. A boy could dream.

"Well, I'm still on the team," the dark-haired boy resisted the urge to call him out instead playing along with the lie, "You can tell Mr. Harrington that. See ya at practice?"

Flash looked taken aback, but nodded, "Yeah, yeah, see you."

With that, Miles smiled and turned around, trying to contain the internal freakout he was experiencing. Flash had actually spoken to him in front of other people. Now, that wasn't a big milestone for any normal person, but considering it was Flash? Miles could hardly believe it. He was trying not to get his hopes up, he had to stay strong. Yes, he had a very long moment of weakness, but he couldn't let himself believe that he and Flash would magically fix everything and get back together. No, he shouldn't think like that.

"God, he's so weird," Claudia said with a scoff, tossing her light blonde hair over her shoulder absentmindedly, "I don't know why you ever dated him. Good riddance, right?" When Miles didn't answer, she repeated herself, "Right?"

"Yeah, yeah, right," the boy came back to attention as he nodded along with what she was saying, "Yeah, that's definitely done and over."

"You can do so much better anyway," Claudia shrugged, "God, just imagine all the cute college boys you'll meet."

"Claudia, we're sophomores."

"A girl can dream!" she exclaimed with a laugh, "Unless some hottie magically comes out and has a crush on you."

Miles shrugged. Maybe that would happen, yeah, but maybe he wanted that boy to be Flash. A boy could hope, couldn't he?

"Yeah, that'll totally happen."

Flash is such a simp for Miles after kissing him ONCE post breakup I wish someone would be this headass for me but NO! Also, sorry it's been a month uwu anyway look new banner!