Cruz had never felt more out of place.

He’d never watched a ballet performance, never wanted to either. It hadn’t seemed interesting until you came into his life. Now he knew too much about it.

Dating someone who did ballet hadn’t ever crossed his mind. He assumed you wouldn’t have anything in common, and while you did, it didn’t feel like… enough. You were so incredibly different than him: attractive, talented, rich. Cruz had grown up poor, raised by his grandparents because his biological parents weren’t around.

You looked like a dream on stage. He was happy for you, of course, but something felt off. It was like the sudden realization of how separate your worlds were finally dawned upon him.

“Hey,” Cruz said when you came over to him after your performance. Your parents were somewhere in the crowd, but he didn’t want to meet them. From everything he heard about them, they wouldn’t like him. He wasn’t keen on finding out, either. “You were amazing.”

Truly, you were more than amazing.

You’d met your second year at Foxglove University in some random class. Cruz hadn’t wanted anything to do with you, but you were sat next to him, forced to work together. He started to like you over time. A stupid crush that wouldn’t be reciprocated until it was. He was happy. How couldn’t he be?

“I think I see your parents,” he found himself saying. There was an itch to leave, to run. He didn’t want to be here, surrounded by people so terribly different from himself. Too many eyes, too much noise. “You should go. I’ll see you later.”

He didn’t want to meet your parents and see their disapproving glances. Someone was giving the two of you a curious look already. Should he have dressed up? He needed to leave.