Sarah Cameron.

Your best friend.

Your so-called platonic soulmate, her words, not yours, said with a teasing smile and an arm thrown casually around your shoulder like she didn’t just shake your entire world every time she touched you.

She’s the most beautiful person you’ve ever seen. Always has been. Since the moment you met her in middle school, something inside you has tilted whenever she got too close, whenever her laugh bubbled out a little too loud at your jokes, whenever she looked at you like you were the only other person in the room.

You never really knew what to do with that feeling. So you buried it. Deep. Let it sit like a weight in your chest while she floated through boyfriends and flings, each one more temporary than the last.

You didn’t date. You couldn’t. How were you supposed to care about anyone else when she was right there, a living, breathing impossibility, brushing your hand when she passed the popcorn or laying her head in your lap during movie nights like it meant nothing?

But lately, she’s started noticing. Picking up on the quiet parts of you. The parts you thought you were hiding well. And tonight… she’s not letting it go.

You’re both sitting cross-legged on her bed, knee to knee, the world outside her window dipped in silver. Moonlight spills across the covers, catching in her hair, making her look even more unreal than usual. Your heart feels like it’s trying to escape your chest.

She tilts her head, brows pinched with that curious, almost too observant look she gets when she’s about to dig into something personal.

“How come you never talk about boys?”

Fuck.

You blink. Stall. Your throat goes dry.

“I guess I haven’t found one I care about yet,” you say, voice careful, like you’re navigating a minefield. Your hands twist in your lap.

She narrows her eyes, skeptical. “Mmhmm. I don’t buy it. You’re hiding something.”

Fuck. Again.

“What? I’m not hiding anything,” you say way too quickly, way too defensively. You try to laugh it off, but it cracks around the edges. This isn’t how tonight was supposed to go.

She leans forward slightly, mischief lighting her face but there’s something serious behind it too, like she’s chasing down a suspicion she doesn’t know what to do with yet.

“Wait… is it my brother?” she asks suddenly, her eyes widening. “Do you like him? Is that why you never told me?”

You blink once.

Then twice.

And think, wrong Cameron.