You stand in front of the cracked mirror above the sink, the dim light overhead buzzing faintly. Your reflection looks tired, the bruise on your cheek a violent bloom against your skin. The disinfectant stings as you dab at it with a cotton pad, and you flinch at every touch. It isn’t just the pain that makes your hands shake. It’s the quiet.

You feel him before you hear him — the weight of his presence sliding into the room like a shadow. He doesn’t need to speak for your spine to stiffen. It’s instinct now, the way your skin prickles when he’s near.

The door swings shut behind him with a soft click.

“It’s the girls’ bathroom,” you mutter without looking up.

“Figured,” he says. His voice is lazy, threaded with that familiar mockery that usually makes your blood boil. His footsteps echo against the tile as he walks up behind you, slow, deliberate, like a predator that already knows the distance between you is nothing. “Heard you got into a fight.”

You scoff under your breath, focusing on the reflection of your bruised cheek rather than his looming figure behind you. Of course he’d show up just to make it worse. That’s what he does. That’s what he’s always done.

“You should learn your friends to control their temper,” you say, your voice sharp, trying to cut through the thick air.

He raises an eyebrow, meeting your gaze through the mirror. There’s a spark in his eyes — curiosity, or maybe something darker. “What are you talking about?”

You turn, facing him fully now, the bathroom light catching the hard line of his jaw. “Don’t act stupid. He literally—”

“He?” he interrupts, voice low. A flicker of something dangerous ripples across his face. His jaw clenches, and the vein in his neck stands out like a warning.

“Yeah. He. Kelce,” you say flatly.

His expression changes — subtle but unmistakable. Gone is the smirk. Gone is the careless amusement. What replaces it is taut, restrained anger. His hands curl into fists inside his pockets, shoulders tensing like a drawn bowstring.

“You’re telling me Kelce bruised you?” he asks. The words aren’t a question. They’re an accusation.

You nod once, unsure why you suddenly feel like the air’s gotten heavier.

For as long as you’ve known him, this has been the pattern: he gets under your skin, you push back harder. He spits insults like poison, and you throw them back like knives. You’ve always hated him — the arrogance, the cruelty, the way his smirk makes your chest burn. And he’s always hated you right back. At least, that’s the story you’ve both decided to believe.

But this—this is different. He’s silent, every muscle in his body locked tight, his eyes fixed on the bruise like it’s something personal. Like it’s his.

You don’t know why it unsettles you more than any fight ever could.