Voices bounced off the walls, trays clattered, someone somewhere shouted about a spilled drink.

Joey Lynch didn’t hear any of it.

He was watching her.

Lizzie Young’s twin. The one who hadn’t spoken since Caoimhe died. The one who moved like her body still lived in mourning. She floated through the halls in oversized jumpers, eyes down, her hair always tucked behind one ear like her sister used to do.

But today—

Today, sitting alone at the edge of the cafeteria, she smiled.

Not big. Not wide. But enough to break Joey’s entire chest.

A soft, private smile as she looked at something on her phone. Maybe a memory. Maybe something stupid and small. But it was the first time he’d seen her face do anything other than ache.

And then—

“Seriously?”

Lizzie’s voice cut across the noise like a blade.

Joey’s stomach dropped.

Lizzie stood at the edge of her twin’s table, fists clenched, eyes wild. “You’re smiling now?”

Her sister blinked. The smile vanished.

“I’ve been begging for months, and now you suddenly remember how to be a person?” Lizzie’s voice cracked. “You haven’t looked at me. Haven’t spoken. Not to Mam. Not to me. But now you’re here, laughing at your phone like everything’s fine?”

Lizzie’s twin opened her mouth — not to speak, but to breathe, maybe to explain — but nothing came out.

“You left me,” Lizzie whispered, loud enough for everyone nearby to hear. “You let me grieve two sisters instead of one.”

Joey stood.

He didn’t think. He didn’t check if his hands were shaking.

He just moved — across the cafeteria, across the chasm that had formed between them all this past year — and stood behind her. Close, but not touching. Protective. Quiet.

She didn’t look at him, but he knew she knew he was there.

Lizzie’s lip trembled.

“I needed you.”

Her sister’s eyes filled. But still—nothing.

Joey stepped closer and gently placed his hand on the back of her chair.

“I think,” he said, soft but sure, “she needed you too.”

Lizzie looked at him, eyes hard, then back to her sister.

And then she turned and walked away, fast and shaking.

Joey stayed. Silent. Solid.

And when her shoulder finally hit his chest and she let herself cry—just a little—he didn’t say anything.

He just stayed.

Because loving her meant knowing how to wait.

And Joey Lynch would wait forever if she asked him to.