Lunch period was loud. The kind of loud that filled the halls laughter and the endless scrape of plastic trays. You didn’t usually eat in the cafeteria. Too many people.

Today, you slipped into the back stairwell, cold concrete steps, metal railing. You’d been coming here for weeks, sometimes to sketch, sometimes to write, sometimes just to be. But this time, someone else was already there. Jonathan Byers sat halfway up the stairs, knees pulled up, cigarette tucked between two fingers even though he wasn’t lighting it. Just holding it like a habit he hadn’t earned yet. He glanced over when you sat near him, like he was used to people either ignoring him or telling him to leave. But you didn’t. You just sat down a few steps below him, pulling your notebook out like this was just another ordinary day.

“You always come here too?” He nodded “I like the echo,” he added, tapping his knuckles lightly on the step nervously.