He pointed to another section of notes.“You’ll need to finish the conservation of energy worksheet too.It’s worth a decent chunk of your grade.”
“Got it.”
He nodded once, tapping his pencil lightly against the edge of the table.“You’ll be fine.You just need to catch up a little.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said softly, tracing the edge of my paper.“Just catching up.”
The words hung between us, too simple for everything they really meant.
In the kitchen, I heard the faint clatter of dishes and Seth humming off-key.The normalcy of it grounded me, but it didn’t help ease the way my chest felt tight, like all the gravity I was calculating in the worksheet was pulling me closer to the boy across from me instead.
I had to wonder if he felt any of it.
By the time we finished reviewing the second worksheet, my brain was buzzing with numbers and equations that refused to stay still.I leaned back against the couch, rubbing my temples.
“Break time?”I asked.
Paxon smiled faintly, closing his notebook.“Yeah, I think you earned it.”
I stood, stretching the stiffness from my arms.“Bathroom,” I mumbled and slipped away, grateful for a few seconds of space.The house was warm and quiet, the soft hum of Seth’s playlist barely audible under the whir of the vent above the stove.I washed my hands, trying not to stare at myself too long in the mirror.I didn’t like the girl looking back.Just looking at her made the frustration deep in my chest bubble up.She kept hoping for something that might already be gone, and I had no idea what to do with her.
Voices carried from the kitchen when I left the bathroom.
Seth’s tone was low but firm.“You need to figure this out before you drag it out too long.”
“I know,” Paxon said, frustration threading through his voice.“Trust me, I know.I just can’t wrap my head around it.”
“Well, even if you eventually do wrap your head around it, if you keep not figuring it, it’ll be too long.Too much damage.A point of no return.”
My breath caught.
I shouldn’t have been listening.I knew that.But the words hit harder than I wanted them to.He voiced exactly where I felt like our path was currently headed.To that moment where there was just...nothing.An unfavorable end we wouldn’t be able to bounce back from.I didn’t know exactly what it was going to look like, but I knew I had to face the truth.It may be exactly where we ended, and each day I stared at him, and found no words to say to him, felt like a step closer to that.
I pressed my hand against the wall, staring at photos lining the stairwell.All the snapshots of Seth and the guys growing up together.Birthdays, camping trips, terrible haircuts, scraped knees and sunburns.Their families.Their happiness.Years of history captured in a hundred easy smiles.I used to love this hallway, seeing their history.Now it was only a stark reminder that I didn’t belong.
The outsider who had slipped into their world only by chance and now felt like she was standing on the edge of it again, ready to fall out.A part of me wanted to go before anything got wrecked, before I could become the reason their perfect, lifelong friendship splintered.
Seth kept reassuring me that it wasn’t all or nothing, that we were each capable of acting like adults who talked and we could navigate this together and make whatever it became work.But doubt still clung to me like a dark shadow hiding all my nightmares.Because the truth was brutal: if one of them decided this wasn’t something he wanted...he’d pull away.Even if he didn’t mean to.And the other would feel it.Their whole dynamic would shift.
And knowing that shift was because of me?I wasn’t sure I could survive that kind of guilt.
Seth lived in this quiet, hopeful certainty about what the future could be like.It was this beautiful, terrifying utopia where all of us fit.But I knew better than to trust something that perfect.Reality was messier, and I wasn’t sure we could all walk into this without someone getting hurt.
And if someone had to be hurt, I’d rather it be me than any of them.
The thought hollowed out my chest.
I took a quiet step back, then another, retreating toward the living room.After a few seconds, I made sure my footsteps were loud enough on the hardwood that they’d hear me coming.
When I rounded the corner, Seth was at the counter, stirring something in a mixing bowl with a whisk.Paxon sat at the island, his head tilted toward the open notebook even I knew he wasn’t actually reading.
I swallowed hard and forced a casual tone.“You guys talking about me?”
Seth looked over, giving me a grin.“Only good things.”
I smiled, but it felt too stiff to me.“Guess I should get back to work then.”
“Yeah,” Paxon said quietly.“Guess we should.”
