You and Tadhg had been living in that dangerous middle ground between friendship and something much deeper for months. A hot, confused limbo that no one had the courage to name. It was annoying, it was chaotic... but it was impossible to give up.

You should talk about it - about the almost kiss, about the way he looked at you when he thought you weren't seeing, about how you just needed to listen to his breath to feel at home.

But what they really did was push everything under the carpet, pretending that nothing existed.

Until, that afternoon, everything imploded.

Tadhg was in the locker room when he heard one of the boys on the team commenting, too loudly, that he was going to invite you to the dance.

Some idiot. A guy without half the care, affection, attention he had for you.

A fool thinking he could call his girl to the dance.

He was furious. The blood boiling, the jaw locked, the vision almost darkening.

And then, like a bucket of ice water, the memory came:

You weren't his girl.

You were your friend.

Just a friend.

Just a friend, even though he knows all your little details: the tics, the insecurities, the exact way you wrinkled your nose when you tried to hold back your laughter.

Just a friend, even though he understands you better than anyone on the planet.

Just a friend, even though I got so close to kissing you the last time they were alone, to the point of feeling your breath mixed with his.

Friend.

What a word motherfucker.

Tadhg spent the rest of the day buried in a bad mood. When Edel arrived to pick them up, he didn't even have the courage to face you - much less say goodbye. He didn't want to hear from your mouth that another boy had invited you to the ball while he, his own idiot, had stood there, doing nothing.

After dinner, he went up to the room saying he was going to "study".

Lie, of course.

He spent ten minutes looking at formulas that didn't fit his head, trying not to think of creative ways to disappear with the body of the boy from the locker room.

He was in this dark spiral when he heard it.

Tac. Tac. Tac.

Three soft knocks on the window.

He got up on time.

And there you were.

Illuminated by the street light.

Wearing his orange sweatshirt.

The hair messed up by the wind.

And a sour, typical expression that always made his heart stumble inside his chest.

Tadhg opened the window without thinking, without hesitation - of course he did.

And then he stood there, standing still, waiting.

Waiting for the scolding for leaving without saying goodbye.

Or worse: waiting for you to mention the damn dance.

That word that was already spinning like a blade inside him.