The October air bit at her cheeks as she jogged across the school courtyard, leaves crunching beneath her boots. Johnny Kavanagh leaned against the stone wall near the bike racks, bag slung lazily over one shoulder, headphones dangling around his neck. He didn’t even get a chance to straighten up before she stopped in front of him, eyes wide with excitement and breathless.

“Johnny,” she panted, brushing hair out of her face, “you heard about Hughie’s party, right? The costume one?”

He blinked. “Yeah?”

She grinned, shifting her weight from foot to foot, barely containing whatever plan she’d come barrelling over to share. “So, I was thinking—we should go as Romeo and Juliet.”

Johnny raised an eyebrow, one hand tightening slightly on the strap of his bag. “Romeo and Juliet?”

“Yeah!” she said, almost too quickly. “The Baz Luhrmann version, you know? Hawaiian shirt Romeo, angel Juliet. Not like... Elizabethan or anything.”

His lips parted, but she cut in, eyes flashing with something unreadable.

“Only as friends,” she added, voice softer now, like she suddenly remembered herself. “Just ‘cause we’re both single, and it’s kinda funny. I mean, tragic, but funny. And dramatic. Like us.”

Johnny didn’t say anything for a beat. He just stared at her—the way her eyes flickered like she was waiting for him to say no, the way she fiddled with the cuff of her sleeve to keep her hands busy.

“Sure,” he said eventually, shrugging, though his throat felt tight. “Only as friends.”

“Right,” she said, exhaling—too fast, too light. “Just friends.”

But as she turned to walk with him toward the school gates, chattering about fake blood and wings and the right kind of toy gun for the costume, Johnny watched the way her shoulder brushed his, how close she stayed without realizing.

And in his chest, something heavy and soft ached with the knowledge that he’d wear that Hawaiian shirt like it was armor.

Because Romeo had fallen the moment he laid eyes on her. And Johnny? He never really stood a chance.