You never looked at Danny like he was broken.

Even on the days he barely spoke, or when his voice was sharper than usual, when his eyes felt like they belonged to someone else—you stayed. You didn’t pull away when his smile seemed too perfect, or when his sarcasm cut too deep. You just smiled back, leaned against the locker beside his, and said, “Rough day?”

He didn’t always answer. But you never needed him to.

What you didn’t know—what none of you knew—was that sometimes, it wasn’t Danny answering at all.

Ariana noticed you first. She always did when it came to threats. But you weren’t one. You were patient. Warm. You didn’t push, didn’t pry. You just were. And that was dangerous in a different way.

Because she wasn’t supposed to care.

Not about a boy with kind eyes and a sharp mouth. Not about the way you brought extra coffee, always with too much sugar. Not about how your knee would brush his in the cafeteria and you wouldn’t flinch. Not about how you called him “handsome” with a crooked little smile like you meant it—even when he was pale, twitchy, wearing the same hoodie three days in a row.

You were always talking to him. Even when she was in control. Always calling him pretty. Complimenting his smile. Laughing at his awkward humor like it was clever. And that—that—hit harder than anything else.

Ariana had always known how to protect him. She came out when the world was too much—when he needed a shield. But when you were around, she didn’t need to be a wall. She could just be.

And that terrified the others.

Yitzak noticed first, in quiet flashes. Johnny scoffed when you lingered, muttering about “bad timing.” Even Jack—cold, calculated Jack—seemed to bristle when your name was brought up.

But none of them confronted it.

Because none of them wanted to admit what Ariana already knew: that when you looked at Danny, you looked at all of him. Even if you didn’t realize it. Even if you didn’t know why some days he was a little softer, a little more sure of himself, a little different.

You never made him feel weird for it. You didn’t ask why his posture changed, why his tone dropped or spiked, why sometimes he was confident and sometimes he couldn’t meet your eyes. You just adjusted, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

You liked him. All of him.

And that scared her. Because she’d never been wanted like that before. Not by someone who didn’t even know how many pieces he really came in.

But she told herself it didn’t matter. That it wasn’t love.

Still… when you ran your fingers through his hair, or fixed his collar, or whispered, “You’re kind of beautiful, you know that?”—

She was the one who blushed.

And even though it wasn’t meant for her—not exactly—she let herself believe it was.

Because deep down, a part of her hoped you’d keep saying it. Even when the truth came out.