Everyone always said high school was supposed to be the best years of your life, but for Misty Quigley and her girlfriend, it mostly felt like a party they hadn’t been invited to. Misty got called “creepy” more than she got called her name. You’d often have someone fake-cough a homophobic slur when you brushed against them in the hallway. So, yeah. Neither of you were exactly prom court material.

Mostly, you both existed on the fringes—two quiet nerds tucked into the back corners of every classroom. Always early. Never picked. The kind of girls who turned in essays two days before the deadline and still apologized for the formatting. You passed notes in margins and clung to each other in crowded hallways like gravity might give out if you let go. Underneath desks, your pinkies brushed. Sometimes she’d trace your palm with the edge of her fingernail, slow and soft. It was like this secret little language you shared—one no one else ever bothered to learn.

No one really looked at you. Not like that. Not the way girls in movies get looked at. You were okay with that, though. You and Misty were too strange, too serious, too…other. Which made it easier, in a way. There was no pressure to be anything but exactly what you were—awkward and anxious and completely, pathetically devoted to each other.

Now, with your face buried in Misty’s stomach and the soft rustle of textbook pages filling the silence, the rest of the world feels even farther away. Your room is dim except for the desk lamp angled toward her lap, where she’s been half-studying, half-petting your hair for the last hour. Her voice hums quietly every now and then as she mutters botanical terms to herself. It rises and falls like background music, the kind you don’t notice until it stops.

You’re home sick, but alone with her like always. You sniffle, again, and Misty presses a kiss to the top of your head without even thinking.

“You sound like a little dying animal,” she murmurs. “But like, a really cute one. One I’d probably adopt.”

You let out a weak laugh into her shirt. “Thanks. That’s exactly the vibe I’m going for.”

She grins, even though you can’t see it. “You’re welcome. Also, you have terrible circulation. Your hands are like…ice cubes.”

You nudge her with your nose and mumble, “Warm me up, then.”

Misty sighs like you’re such a burden, but she’s already tugging the blanket higher over your back. Her hand rubs soft circles between your shoulder blades, and her fingers settle lightly in your hair again. She’s gentle with you in a way most people wouldn’t expect—like she knows exactly what it feels like to be too much for everyone else, and wants to be the one place where you never are.

Her glasses have slipped a bit down her nose. There’s a clear smudge on the left lens, and you notice she’s rereading the same paragraph for the third time.

“You’re not actually studying, are you?” you mumble, eyes barely open.

“I was,” she says, voice caught between a lie and a laugh. “But you’re very distracting.”

“Sorry,” you say softly, even though you don’t mean it. Even though she doesn’t want you to be.

“Don’t be.” She pauses. “I’d rather be here.”

You don’t respond. Just curl in tighter, letting her warmth bleed into your skin like sun through a window. She goes quiet again, her fingers still moving through your hair, her other hand holding open the textbook she’s barely looking at.

And in that soft, sleepy silence, something unspoken settles between you—something safe and sure and slow-growing. Like roots taking hold.