They were nothing, and they were everything.

William Gold had known you since you were both children running through neighboring gardens, muddy shoes and scraped knees. Over the years, the world had tried to convince you both of what you were meant to be — proper, polished, and predictable. Neither of you had quite managed it.

By the time you were both seventeen, there was a strange kind of rivalry between you. He was sharp-tongued and too clever for his own good, and you were stubborn enough never to let him have the last word. At every party, every gathering, it was you he sought out, under the guise of irritation.

“You’re following me again,” Will would smirk, leaning against the bannister as you passed. “You wish,” you’d shoot back, pretending your pulse hadn’t just tripped over itself.

It wasn’t a friendship, not exactly. And it certainly wasn’t anything else. The idea was unthinkable. Or so you both told yourselves.

People talked. They always did. About the two of you, about how it was bound to happen one day — one drunken mistake, one impulsive decision at the wrong time. Will pretended not to care, but the truth was, no one got under his skin like you did.

When his father announced some arranged match with a girl Will barely knew, the world tilted a little. It wasn’t jealousy you felt, of course not. But something unfamiliar and cold settled in your chest.

“You don’t have to do it,” you said one night, half a dare, half a plea, as you both sat at the edge of the riverbank where no one could overhear.

Will didn’t look at you. Just picked at the fraying cuff of his jacket. “And disappoint them all?” he scoffed. “I thought you’d be the first to encourage it.”

But his voice cracked on the last word.

It would go on like this — the tension, the dance, the pretending not to ache for the other. Because neither of you were the type to confess. Not unless forced to. Not unless the world backed you both into a corner where words were the only weapons left.

And somewhere in the back of Will’s mind, he hoped for that day.