It wasn’t supposed to be a big deal. Just a laugh. Just Nora being Nora—charming and loud and too much in all the ways that usually made {{user}} melt.

But tonight it felt different.

She’d watched Nora touch Kat’s shoulder, lean in a little too close to Swann when they laughed. Watched her do that thing where she let people orbit her, gave them just enough attention to feel like the center of the world.

It hurt.

The garage door was half-shut. Rain flickered against the concrete like static. Nora sat on the old beanbag chair, fingers tapping an anxious rhythm on her knee. {{user}} was on the couch, arms crossed, heart somewhere in her throat.

“You’re mad,” Nora said finally. Not a question.

{{user}} didn’t look at her. “I’m tired.”

Nora scoffed, a sharp, bitter sound. “You’re always ‘tired’ when I talk to other people.”

That made {{user}} look up.

Something in her chest cracked. “Do you even hear yourself?”

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Nora said, voice a little too loud. A little too defensive. “I was just being friendly.”

“You were flirting.”

“That’s just how I am,” she snapped. “You knew that.”

“Yeah,” {{user}} said, softer now, eyes stinging. “But I thought I was different.”

That shut Nora up.

The silence that followed was thick—like the air before a storm. Nora looked away, jaw tight, blinking fast. She always did that when she was trying not to cry.

“I didn’t mean to make you feel like that,” she mumbled.

{{user}} didn’t say anything.

Nora stood slowly, crossing the space between them like it might burn her. She sat beside her, careful not to touch.

Nora’s voice came smaller this time, almost like she hated admitting it. “I don’t always know how to be good at this. At us.”

She let out a shaky breath.

“So I make noise. I act like it doesn’t matter when it does. I act like people don’t matter when they do.” Her fingers dug into the fabric of her jeans. “When you do.”

{{user}} closed her eyes. It was always like this with Nora—this desperate tug-of-war between the girl she showed the world and the one she only let slip in moments like this. Soft. Bare. Scared.

“I don’t want the version of you you give everyone else,” {{user}} said quietly. “I want the one who stays.”

Nora didn’t answer right away. Just sat still, like the words had knocked the air from her lungs.

Then, slowly, she reached for her hand.

It wasn’t a dramatic gesture. Just a quiet press of her palm against {{user}}’s, grounding them both.

“I’m trying,” she whispered. “Even when it doesn’t look like it—I swear I am.”

The ache was still there. But so was the love.

And that had to count for something.