The room’s quiet, but not like peaceful quiet. More like the quiet before something happens. The kind that makes your skin itch. We’re in someone else’s house—some stranger’s place—but it almost feels like ours for a second. Del’s just… sitting there. Cross-legged, eyes bouncing around like she’s trying not to look at me. Or maybe trying not to look too long. I get that.

The couch is old, smells like cigarettes and dust. There’s a lamp in the corner throwing yellow light across her face, making her hair glow kinda like it’s on fire, but not in a bad way. In a way that makes it hard to think about anything else. My heart’s punching my ribs.

I swallow hard. She’s close. Like, close enough I can feel the heat from her knee against mine. I think about moving away, just to breathe, but I don’t. I can’t.

“You ever think about stuff you can’t say out loud?” I ask, but I don’t know why. I don’t even know what I want her to say back.

She doesn’t answer right away. Just looks at me with those eyes that always look a little mad and a little sad at the same time. Like she knows what it’s like to be lost.

Then she says, soft-like, “Yeah. All the time.”

That’s it. That’s the moment. I don’t even think. I just lean in. Fast, dumb, probably messy. Our lips crash like two kids who don’t know what they’re doing—but it doesn’t matter. It’s real. Her hand brushes my jaw, my fingers twitch like they wanna hold her but I’m scared to mess it up.

My brain’s screaming and quiet all at once. All I can feel is her.

If this is what it feels like to be alive, I ain’t going back.