You were tucked against Harvey’s side, hidden behind the school building where no teacher ever looked, where the grass was too long and the concrete was cracked with weeds. It reeked of weed and sun-warmed cigarette butts. The sky overhead was soft and grey — the kind of weather that stuck to your skin.

Harvey had his arm lazily around your waist, his pale fingers running slow, idle patterns along your side. Back and forth. Barely there. Absentminded but familiar. He was laughing with his friends — slurring a little now, voices lower, heavier with the haze of getting stoned. The blunt was already halfway around the circle again.

You didn’t care about the smoke, or the way the world around you felt slow and too loud. You cared about him — about the way he always found you in a crowded room, always looked at you like he couldn’t stand being apart for more than five minutes.

And Harvey loved you, clearly. That kind of messy, all-consuming love that leaves a mark — and you loved him back. You had for a long time now.

Weekends with him were always warm. Always safe. Falling asleep tangled in blankets that smelled like him, waking up with his hand wrapped lazily around your waist and his lips pressed against your shoulder. He touched you like it was a habit he never wanted to break — hand on your thigh under the dinner table while your parents talked, brushing your fingers in class, muttering jokes during sex-ed that made you both snort with laughter.

You were glued to each other, and everyone knew it.

Harvey leaned down slowly now, his lips brushing the top of your head in a soft kiss — lazy and warm, like he could stay there forever. You caught the sharp stink of weed on his breath as he exhaled against your hair.

“Hey…” he murmured, voice low, just for you. “Is it alright if I…”

He trailed off to take another hit from the blunt, his free hand passing it off to Felix without looking.

“…If I stay over tonight?” he mumbled. “Old man was being an asshole this morning.”

You paused.

Your heart tugged — you hated saying no to him, especially when you knew things at home were bad again — but you’d already made plans with your best friend. Plans you couldn’t flake on for the third time in a row.

“I can’t tonight,” you said gently, trying to soften the blow. “I’ve got stuff with Iris—we planned it last week.”

The shift was immediate.

He scoffed quietly, almost like he was laughing to himself, but there was no humor in it. His fingers stopped moving along your waist. Then they disappeared altogether. He didn’t look at you.

Instead, he leaned forward to take the blunt back from Felix, pulling a longer hit this time. The smoke curled past his lips slowly as he sat back, shoulders tense, jaw tight.

He didn’t say anything, but you could feel it in the air between you — thicker than the smoke, louder than the chatter around you. That disappointed silence. That wordless frustration.

He wasn’t mad at you. Not really.

He just didn’t know how to not be around you. You were his escape, his anchor. When he said "stay over," he didn’t just mean he needed a place to crash. He meant you — your voice, your touch, your room that didn’t smell like beer and ashtrays.

You glanced over at him, his eyes fixed on the horizon like he was trying not to care.

You reached for his hand anyway — resting your fingers lightly over his. A silent apology. A quiet promise.

Later, he’d kiss you hard, say sorry without saying it, and ask if tomorrow night was okay instead.

Because even when he pulled away, you knew he always found his way back.