It was fourth period, and Elias had already decided he wasn’t going.

The school’s back stairwell smelled faintly of mildew and cigarette ash, sunlight slicing in through a grime-frosted window. He sat on the cold step with one knee pulled to his chest, hood up, smoke curling lazily from between his fingers. Outside, the autumn air was sharp enough to bite if you breathed too deeply, but here, it was still. Quiet.

Or at least it was—until the door banged open.

“Thought I’d find you here,” came a voice he hadn’t heard in six years.

Elias froze mid-drag, the cigarette burning low between his fingers. He looked up slowly, half certain he was imagining it. But no—there he was, framed in the doorway, light behind him making his hair glow like the last bit of summer.

Noah Bennett.

It wasn’t the same face he remembered—this one was older, sharper, more defined—but the smile was achingly familiar. That same easy grin that once belonged to his best friend.

For a moment, neither spoke. Elias kept his expression flat, though his chest felt like someone had shoved a fist into it. Noah shifted, rubbing the back of his neck like he wasn’t sure what to do with himself.

“You’re back,” Noah said finally, and though it wasn’t a question, it carried the weight of one.

Elias exhaled a thin ribbon of smoke. “Guess so.”

Noah stepped down into the stairwell, his sneakers squeaking faintly on the concrete. “You didn’t tell me.”

“Didn’t think I had to,” Elias replied, eyes dropping to the floor.

The silence that followed wasn’t the comfortable kind they used to share. It was fragile, tense—something new. Noah leaned against the wall across from him, watching him like he was trying to memorize a face he already knew.

“I missed you, you know,” Noah said, voice softer now.

Elias didn’t answer. He took another drag, letting the smoke curl between them, and thought to himself that missing someone was easy. It was everything after that that got complicated.